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Fear Not, Worship, Pray, Relate!


Happy Easter Christ the Servant!

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! I thank God for resurrection hope and power in our lives, in our church, and in the world. 

 CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO VERSION OF THIS MESSAGE!
In the Easter gospel message in Matthew, we heard the words “Do not be afraid” from both the angel of the Lord and Jesus himself. While the world is turned upside down and inside out, we know God is at work healing us and all of creation by the same power that rose Jesus from the dead. The God of the resurrection is with us so we need not be afraid. Several ELCA Pastors from the St. Paul area have created a free daily devotional for the Easter season entitled “FEAR NOT” that is available now and I would commend it to you. It’s good food for the soul.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE “FEAR NOT” DAILY EMAIL DEVOTIONAL!
I also thank God that we have been connecting with more people than we could have hoped through our online worship ministry over the past month. We had over 100 logins on Easter Sunday representing individuals and families worshiping with us from near and far through our livestream on Zoom, YouTube, and Facebook. We will continue worshiping through online means for the time being and will keep you updated as to any possible change as the situation unfolds. Please go to our website cslcvh.org for updates and connection links and details. Also, a detailed access instructions for each of the worship platforms is attached.

CLICK HERE FOR ACCESS INSTRUCTIONS FOR ONLINE WORSHIP!

CLICK HERETO WATCH THE REPLAY OF EASTER SUNDAY WORSHIP!
This coming Sunday, we’ll be worshiping again at 9:00 a.m. and as part of the service I want to invite you to participate interactively in a couple of ways. First, we’ll have a Thanksgiving for Baptism at the beginning of our service which is a prayer for remembering and celebrating that in Baptism we’ve died to sin and are now alive to God through Christ, the only death we have to fear is behind us, we’ve been made children of God, and we are splashed with the promise, power, pardon, pleasure, and peace of God. You are invited to prepare for this moment in our worship by setting up a basin of water wherever you are worshiping to dip your hand in and splash your face and trace the cross on your forehead with water. Then, later in the service we’ll also be joining in a time of interactive prayer, during which we’ll invite you to type your prayers into the chat feature of whatever streaming platform you are if you’re on Zoom to speak their prayers.

We want to make sure everyone is supported, connected, and engaged in our mission even during a pandemic. The way we’re doing that is by establishing extended family household size groups called missional communities. This is your extended family within the larger spiritual family of Christ the Servant. If you haven’t already, you should be hearing from your missional community leaders about ways to give and receive support, stay connected with one another, and find a way to serve together. We’re also experimenting with a prayer app to help keep us connected spiritually as a congregation and to follow the biblical urging for us to pray without ceasing. The app is called ECHO and you can find our prayer network under the name “Christ the Servant Prayer Network.”

CLICK HERETO GET STARTED AND DOWNLOAD THE ECHO PRAYER APP!

Finally, I want to invite you to consider joining me for a new group study that will begin on Wednesday, April 29th called “Emotionally Healthy Relationships – A 40-Day Journey to Deeply Change Your Relationships.” Two years ago we had a worship series and 8 week study on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. This is the sequel of that study and I hope you’ll consider joining us for this. You can sign up online at our website. The cost is $17 per person for course materials which includes a workbook and a daily devotional book. I’ll be leading this course through Zoom and it will be offered on Wednesdays for 8 at either 10:00 a.m. or 6:30 p.m.

CLICK HERETO REGISTER FOR EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS COURSE!

Easter blessings and peace to you and I look forward to connecting with you in worship.

In Christ,
Pastor Chris Steubing

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