Letter to the Congregation from David (4/9/20)
Good Morning Restoration!
Blessed be our God. Now and for ever. Amen.
Thus begins our liturgy each day during Holy Week. In this time of upheaval and loss, we declare in faith, the blessings of God: (right) now and (onward) for ever.
I am writing to make sure you have everything you need for each of our services over the next four days. You can log in to worship, here. I have described the parts that you need to prepare in italics!
Maundy Thursday
This morning, at 9am, I will host Morning Prayer, as has become our new normal! At 7:30pm we will enter the Triduum (the sacred three days) with a liturgy that remembers both Christ’s ‘Words of Institution’ when he gave us the Eucharist and Christ’s ‘Commandment to Love’ when He washed His disciple’s feet. In addition to the preaching of the Word, we have prepared a beautiful video of the stripping of our chancel.
We will close the service with an invitation for you to serve the members of your household by washing their feet. If you choose to participate, you will need to prepare a basin of water and towels ahead of time.
Good Friday
The day begins with morning prayer at 9am. Then at 12pm, we will journey through the Stations of the Cross. At 7:30pm we will offer one of our favorite liturgies of the year: 7 members of our congregation reflecting on Jesus’ 7 words from the cross and the way He meets us in our pain.
For the 7:30pm service, we invite you to place 7 lit candles in the room where you will worship and to extinguish them as you are prompted during the service.
The Great Vigil of Easter
On Saturday morning we will rest while we remember Jesus doing His work of hosanna. Our Easter Vigil begins at 7:30pm. It starts outside, as dusk gives way to dark, with a new fire and a candle of hope. It concludes with our Easter Shout and the story of an empty tomb.
For the Vigil, we invite you to prepare a candle to be lit in your home and to have a bell ready to ring in our Alleluias!
Easter Sunday
Our Easter service begins at 10am. We will not host Kids’ Small Groups this week. At 11am, our music team will again be in our sanctuary leading us on our YouTube Channel in Easter hymns and praise!
We invite you to share a short reflection on what Easter means to you, here (please upload it by Friday at noon). It can be quiet and thoughtful or a simple shout of ‘Christ is risen!’ We will stitch these together and share them as part of our Easter celebration.
Easter Offering
Remember Shrove Tuesday? The pancakes in fellowship hall? We announced that our vestry, based on the work of our Outreach Steering Team, had chosen to give our Ash Wednesday and Easter offerings to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund’s Cascading Ministries Initiative. We want to honor our tradition of giving our Easter offering away to an organization, outside of Restoration, that is doing Kingdom work. Yet we recognize that we are experiencing very different circumstances. Because we will not be in our sanctuary, receiving financial gifts in our baskets, the vestry has chosen to take an average of our last 3 Easter offerings and to give that amount. This year, Restoration will be sending $15,000 to ARDF in praise of our risen King. Thank you for being a generous church!
On behalf of the clergy, staff, vestry, and volunteers at Restoration, we look forward to worshiping with you in the coming days! All of our services can be accessed, here. I can’t wait to experience with you what God has for us.
-David
