Lenten Week

[GUMC Guam United Methodist Church]

Dear Friends and Family:

 

This is a home stretch announcement for this week---semana santa or Holy Week.  These announcements have been spread out to our Sunday bulletins, announced from the pulpit,

and sent to our gmail googlegroups account for several weeks now.

 

Maundy Thursday at 7:00 p.m. We will be having a communion service on the "same" Thursday night in which Jesus spent his last meal with his disciples.  The emphasis will be on the communion with the readings read carefully, meaningfully, and reverently as if this will be the first time we will be "hearing" Jesus about his impending passion and death.  And then the betrayal, the mock trial, the disownment of his leading disciple, and the isolation and abandonment.  We will miss the foot-washing and the meager meal of lentil soup and crackers this time.

 

Good Friday at 7:00 p.m. We have the following people lined up  to give meditations on the Cross. First Word:  Lina Villena, Second Word:  Lita Palma, Third Word: Beth Somera, Fourth Word: Dick Wyttenbach-Santos, Fifth Word: Aaron Agsalud, Sixth Word: Joel Dizon,

Seventh Word: Debbie Wise.

 

Pastor Fred and Karen will leading the service, John Wise will also be doing some reading and sing a song during the service.

 

Prayer Vigil.  Following the service, beginning at 9:00 p.m., we will begin the continuous prayer. Hopefully, whether you had the chance to sign up or not to pray for the appointed time for our prayer vigil, you will show up and cover the overnight prayer concert.

 

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with prayer vigil.  We will gather at the santuary to pray.  We are not going to talk among ourselves; there will be no further instruction about how to do this. There will be volunteers to pick you up and bring you back to your house when you are ready to go home if you don't have a ride.  There will be several people who will be at the building for the entire duration of the vigil.  If you want to prepare coffee or donate some cookies, please set it up downstairs.  For a more serious stuff other than food, we will come to pray.  

 

Please sign up for the issues and concerns you might have on the white card board posted on our bulletin board.  This might include personal, family, and community issues. You might want to include someone who is sick, employment situation, relationship matters, need for forgiveness, war and peace, security, violence, environmental issues, politics =and economics, etc. 

 

You may sign up to pray for 15 minutes to half an hour or stay longer.  Come to pray for a shorter or longer period of time. You decide. Come because you want to do this. Come because you feel this is important to you. Come as a way of identification and integration with peoples and issues closest to God's heart.

 

For practical purposes, come a few minutes earlier to prepare yourselves to pray by listening to meditational music downstairs or watch religious CDs--and then come upstairs to pray. The light will sunbdued and hope we will have a total silence during prayer vigil.

 

We need volunteers to come literally spending overnight at church.  Bring  your sleeping bags if you like and lie down (not in the sanctuary) till your prayer time, or drive home someone who need a ride.  Make it a holy sleepover (but not sleeping, actually!).

 

I don't know how this will turn out.  I am not asking for a vote.  I am offering a possibility that this might be something our young people will appreciate (watching "Jesus Christ, Superstar, the movie), valued by those into retreat mood/mode during Holy Week, or simply finding something to do that others might prefer that their own church sponsor one.

 

It is my fervent hope that this week will be a special one because we become more intentional in seeking and finding God, and to our amazement the holy God was the one looking for us even in most unholy hour!

 

Black Saturday.  I will call this black out--nothing was going on, where was Jesus, what is the congregation doing?  No power, no activity, just almost total silence and simply waiting for the break of dawn to come.  Well, we will be preparing spiritually, devotionally for the blessing and power of Easter to come and dawn in lives.

 

We could also make use of this time for some people to come to set the canopy and move some stuff so that we would be ready for early Easter morn.  We will have the chairs and tables set up early Sunday morning about 5:00 a.m.  Come, we need help.

 

Easter Sunrise Service at 6:00 a.m.  We will have it at our church yard facing the major road. Our young adults are planning to have Easter Egg hunting for our younger kids immediately after the early morning service.  We will have breakfast fellowship after service.

 

Easter Sunday Service at 9:30 a.m. As Usual.  We will have communion during this regular worship time being the first Sunday of the month. Every Sunday for the early Christians, was celebrated as a mini Easter and always included the breaking of the bread.

 

The bulletins for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter services are  not finalized yet.

If you want to recite a poem, sing a song, or do a liturgical dance appropriate for the season, call pastor Fred to have your name and the title of your artistic rendition offered bto God included in the program.

 

I trust that these numerous activities will not make us tired but more desiring to be with God, to know God, to serve God, and enjoy God forever.

 

Happy Easter!

 

 

Pastor Fred

Guam United Methodist Church