Pastor's Ponderings - Newsletter Article for March 2020

Below please my article for the March 2020 Church Newsletter.  We are beginning the season of Lent tonight as we celebrate and observe 'Ash Wednesday' in the Chapel at 7pm.  Please dedicate the month of March and the first two weeks of April to focusing fully on the meaning and events of Holy Week and Easter.

Be a blessing to someone today!

In Christ,
Roy

Pastor's Ponderings – March 2020

Even though February had an extra day in it this year it still managed to blast by us in a tremendous hurry.  It was a busy month and I thank everyone who worked so hard this month.  We need to lift up a special thank you to Clyde Westcott for all the extra things he did this month for the Church.  If you've been in the kitchen you likely noticed all the new faucets and there will be one more replaced this next month, along with the faucet in the Janitor's Closet.  Thank you, Clyde, for all the extra things you do as the Property Chair!  We'd be in serious trouble without your efforts and dedication!

The 'Woman of Woodlawn' have begun a new program a 'Prayer Shawl Ministry'.  There's more information about this later in the newsletter so please take a look and please consider taking part in the project.  It looks like a winner and I thank the women for coming up with the program and let's all pray that it's a raging success.

We need to pray for our organist/pianist Kathryn Myers, as you all know her wonderful husband Jim passed away in February.  Jim was truly a great soul and had suffered from a long decline due to dementia.  Kathryn does so very much for Woodlawn and we all love her dearly so please pray for her and continue to comfort her as she grieves Jim's passing.  God's love, peace, blessing, and comfort to you Kathryn.

March finds us going through the Lenten season and this is a time when we are called to focus on our faith and upon the sacrifice that Christ made for each of us.  Some of you may be abstaining from one thing or another as a form of fasting for Lent.  There is great value in this 'fasting' as the process can help us all to focus upon our faith.  Please locate the calendar of events for 'Holy Week' located later in this newsletter.  Even though the events (other than Ash Wednesday) are all in April, now is the time to make sure you've planned for these events.

The Annual 'Prairie Pastors Conference' is once again at Sunset Hills Baptist Church in Omaha (the church where Gail and I were married) from March 30th to April 1st.  I am hoping that I will be able to make it to this conference this year, last year I was scheduled to go but then we had a death and a funeral that trumped my travel plans.  Let's pray that this doesn't happen again... there seems to be a streak of my having to leave retreats early for deaths and it almost makes me paranoid to plan to go to these retreats.  I was at a retreat when I got the word that Jim Myers was failing and I left early in order to be back for Kathryn.  We'd really like to break this cycle so please pray that we can get through the last week of March unscathed!  The 'Prairie Pastors Conference' is one of the best Minister Conferences I've been to, many end up being unusable or irrelevant but this Conference always comes up with pertinent topics for Ministries in the Midwest.

Make sure to mark your calendars for the Soup Supper in March (March 19th) this time they've decided to do something a bit different and there will be Chili and Donna Westcott's famous cinnamon rolls!  Make sure to come and take part!  Bring your family and friends because nobody wants to miss out on Donna's cinnamon rolls!

The concert committee will be meeting on March 18th at 6:30 pm to begin preparing for our Christmas Concert on December 5th.  Thus far the concert committee members are Kim Anderson, Kathy Holm, Tiffany McCoy, Kathryn Myers, Clyde Westcott, Gail Karlen, and myself.  If anyone else would like to be a part of the planning for this event please let one of us know and come to the meeting.  We'd love to have all the help we can get!  Make sure to tell everyone about this concert and keep your ears open to hear when the ticket sales begin.  You'll want to purchase your ticket ASAP as the 'Harp Twins' tend to sell out their concerts quickly!  This is going to be a great event and don't miss out!

A worthy goal during this Lent season would be to try your best to live up to the saying that I close each month's newsletter and each blog post with... “be a blessing to someone today”.  Can you live your life trying to find someone to bless in some fashion each day?  Blessing someone can be in a large or a small way.  Anything you do to help, encourage, or inspire someone is a blessing... surely we can find someone to bless each day.  Make it your Lenten goal... God bless and...


Be a blessing to someone today!!!  Pastor Roy