Dear U Park Family,
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of this year’s Lenten journey. I hope you’ll have time to receive ashes today, but if not we can still use the day as it’s intended: as a time of reflection to patiently focus on removing the obstacles that prevent us from growing closer to God. I hope you’ll join us in worship throughout Lent as we contemplate emptying our lives of those impediments to deeper faith.
Many thanks to all who contributed to our recent winter clothing drive for Porter Hospital! Karin Kowalski, who works there, told me that there were so many items donated by our congregation and by After Hours that the staff was nearly out of storage room to keep them! Your gifts will make a tremendous difference to Porter’s patients who are living on the street and need warm clothes after they’re discharged.
Thanks also to our kitchen cleaning crew, who showed up to scrub and declutter our downstairs kitchen this past Saturday. The East Fellowship Hall Kitchen looks much better, and the library kitchen is cleaned up and the refrigerator is defrosted as well. Phase 2 of the cleaning is coming up on Saturday, March 15. We’ll complete the job and make sure we’re prepared for future kitchen use.
This past Saturday afternoon, our Strategic Plan group also met to complete the plan. We didn’t quite finish, but we made excellent progress getting our objectives calendared and prioritized. We have one more meeting coming up – and after that we’ll need people who enjoy event planning to join the team to plan upcoming community events. We’ll keep you posted about our work, and I’m very excited about what’s developing.
As we enter Lent, Rev. Anne Davidson Mundt and Richard Nelson will be leading a Lenten study in our Journeys in Faith adult Sunday School class, Sunday mornings at 10:00. The study will focus on the traditional seven last words of Jesus, his final words from the cross as depicted in the Gospels. I know this will be a rich study, and if you’re interested everyone’s welcome to attend.
Finally, remember that this weekend we spring forward an hour for daylight savings time. (Don’t worry – if you forget and show up an hour late to church, we’ll still have coffee and doughnuts.)
I hope that your Lent will be a reflective and fruitful time. I look forward to seeing you at church during this sacred season.
Grace and Peace,
Andy