The Longest Night December 21, 2021. The birth of Christ is a joyous occasion, but anyone truly suffering with pain like grief, addiction, financial hardships, or mental illness can tell you that the relentless cultural insistence upon good cheer and joyfulness takes a toll and can drive us deeper into despair. In the darkness of this longest night of the year, just days before Christmas, we will explore how to look for wholeness and reconciliation in the promise of Advent and the comfort of Christ. God wants nothing more than to take our hand, hear our anguish, and walk with us wherever our paths might lead. We will take our cue from Advent texts but from Psalmists as well, who found courage to cry out to God in anger, mourning, and fear.
Healing Service
A Deep Desire for Wholeness -The way of Jesus is a lifestyle of holistic healing for individuals, families, communities, and nations. But from time to time we hunger for a deeper sense of God's healing power. We will gather to the sounds of Taizé style music and a short reading of scripture, followed by the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Afterward there will be opportunity for intercessory prayer as well as the laying on of hands and anointing with oil. Whether you seek healing for physical, emotional, or spiritual reasons, all are invited to this special gathering: we understand that God is the creator of all diversity and we celebrate God's good creation.
Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent with a public act of confession and contrition. Acknowledging that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we stand in solidarity as fellow creatures before our Creator, acutely aware of our mortality. In the face of our transience, we pledge ourselves anew to live unto God’s Word in Jesus Christ, the eternal Word that remains forever.
Taizé, an style of worship that uses candlelight, meditation and moments of silence to ring in the first day of Lent. The service, which originated in the Burgundy region of France in the 1940s, does not include a sermon and is shorter than a Sunday worship. Traditionally, worshipers partake in a series of chants as opposed to singing typical hymns.
Maundy Thursday
Celebrate the Lord’s Supper, remembering the meal Christ shared with his disciples before his death and remembering the new commandment that Christ gave us in word and deed as he taught us how to love one another.
Pentecost
On the Day of Pentecost we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit descending in a mighty rush of wind and flame to inspire the church’s proclamation of Christ’s rising and to empower its mission and ministry to the world. (See Acts 2:1-13; see also Joel 2:28-32.) The notion of Easter as a season of 50 days ending at Pentecost is patterned after the ancient Jewish festival of seven weeks that extended from the beginning of the barley harvest to the end of the wheat harvest at the Festival of Weeks or Shavuot (see Deuteronomy 16:9-12). Corinthians 3 and Galatians 3).
Sunrise Service held at Sunrise on Easter Morning at Main Beach. Refreshments to follow at a neighboring church.
Good Friday
Commemorate Christ's passion and crucifixion in this meditative and penitential service. Jesus' ultimate sacrifice at the cross on Good Friday is at the center of Christian faith and salvation.
Palm Sunday
Hosanna! Hosanna! Celebrate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Also called Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, when we remember the final path Jesus took to the cross. The crowd in Jerusalem waved palm branches as Jesus entered the city and they wanted to make him their new king. But, as the week unfolded their shouts of praise turned to demands for his crucifixion and Jesus received a crown of thorns to replace the palm branches. But all of this was just leading to the glory that happened next!
Alleluia! Come and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in a triumphal Sunday morning service.
Easter Sunday Photo Album
Christmas Pageant Photo Album
