Dear Church Family,
Easter will be the last Sunday of March, on the 31st. What a glorious day this will be! We will have a special fellowship in every Life Group. For many years, we have had biscuits on Easter Sunday. There’s a great story in the Old Testament that has led us to the special way we fellowship together on Easter Sunday.
On Easter, we’re going to have one added feature – we will do a Good Friday service on Friday, March 29 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. This will be a one-hour service, and we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper during this special service. On Easter Sunday, we will be baptizing. I can’t think of a more appropriate day to be baptized than on Easter. If you need to be baptized, please contact the church office to get signed up. On Easter morning, we will also have a place where pictures of your family can be taken and will be available to you the next week free of charge. What a special time this is with all the families and friends celebrating the Lord’s resurrection together.
C4 stands for Connecting our Community to Christ and His Church. After Easter, we have four special Sundays – events and activities that guests and members will want to come back and attend following our Easter celebration. On April 7, we will have our One Week Later service. In this service, we answer the question, “Based upon the resurrection of Christ, how should we live in this world?” On April 14, we will have an Adult Life Group Fellowship in the main auditorium. This will be a wonderful breakfast together that will provide fellowship for each of our adult Life Groups. The rest of our Life Groups will also have special refreshments for their classes in the youth, children, and preschool ministries. Then on April 21, it is our Orange Bucket Sunday. On Easter Sunday, we will receive the empty buckets to fill with food that will be donated to the Food4Kids program here in Alachua County. These food items will be used to help hungry children in our community. What a great ministry this is! Then, April 28 is Love Loud weekend where our people not only will worship together on Sunday morning, but we will take extra time in the weekend to reach out to our community in a tangible way.
We will celebrate the Lord’s Supper this coming Sunday, March 3. We will also have the visiting Traveling Team here on Sunday night beginning at 5:00. We want to invite the entire church to come back for a fellowship and to hear the Traveling Team. After their meeting, we will have pizza together and fellowship. The Traveling Team is made up of college students who travel for 1 year to spread the gospel and teach about missions. You don’t want to miss these on fire college students sharing about missions around the world!
We certainly are thrilled that Jenna Rich has become our Children and Preschool Director. She will be meeting this coming Sunday, March 3, with all the Preschool and Children’s leadership, and then on Sunday, March 24, we’re having a special fellowship for all of our preschool and children’s families right after the morning service. This will be Palm Sunday and a great Sunday to meet Jenna and to enjoy a reception that will be provided by the church. Mark it on your calendars.
Once a year, we have a Naomi luncheon which is for the sweet widows of our church. This is scheduled for Saturday, March 23 from 11:30 to 1:30. What a special, special group of ladies that are a part of this group. This luncheon is sponsored by our Deacons and is such a blessing every year.
We are so thrilled with the ongoing progress of our entryway enhancement. As God continues to lead you, please consider giving a sacrificial gift for us to finish this project. We are seeking $150,000 of additional funds to help us add to our “Fund to Finish” account.
What a joy it is to be your Pastor! We praise God for all the folks that are coming to Christ, uniting with our church, and following Jesus in believer’s baptism. Truly God is at work in our midst. To Him be all the glory!
Pastor Calvin