This time of the year you can experience a cavalcade of seasons within a matter of days. You never quite know what season you will wake up to each morning. One day it is 87, the next is 37. It snows, it rains, the sun shines. This is Minnesota! And in true Minnesota fashion, hope springs eternal. As I write, the meteorologists are predicting warmer weather to be coming later this week. This time it may actually stick around for a while. If it does, we will be ready for it.
Outdoor worship services will begin with the June 4th 8:00 a.m. service! This year, as weather permits, we will gather outside on the lawn around the firepit area. This will be a brief non-communion worship gathering comprised of prayer, a simple song or two led on acoustic instruments (as our musicians are available), and a scripture story based on a different one of Jesus’ parables each Sunday. It should be a wonderful setting for worship as the sun warms and brightens our mornings together.
In case of inclement weather, we will simply move the 8:00 a.m. service inside to the library area. So, rain or shine, our early service will go on.
Our 9:30 a.m. worship with communion will continue to be held in the sanctuary and live streamed each Sunday.
Our summer worship series is titled “Climbing Trees,” and will be the same at both services. We will explore a different one of the familiar parables of Jesus each Sunday. To begin we will follow Zacchaeus as he climbs into a tree to get a better look, a new perspective, on who Jesus is, what he says, does, and what it all might mean. We will be using Amy-Jill Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parable of a Controversial Rabbi, as a conversation partner in this series.
As we move through the summer and the call process of searching for the person who will become our new lead pastor, we will gather to hear the stories Jesus himself told. We will hear them again for the first time. We will be attentive to what these stories reveal to us of the shape of the journey on which Jesus is inviting us to join him.
See you in worship this Summer!
Pastor Lamont