Church News

Holy Week begins tomorrow!

We are doing the full complement of services: Palm Sunday, Blessing of Oil & Water (on Thursday afternoon), Maundy Thursday, Stations of the Cross (on Friday afternoon), Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday.

I am coordinating the readings for all, and I've been a few steps behind ever since I realized that we weren't using the same Palm Sunday Passion reading from last year! I guess we're in Luke's gospel this year. Who knew?

I arranged it into a reader's theater version for four men and two women; we've rehearsed and are ready to go tomorrow morning. It sounds like the weather is going to be quite chilly and possibly rainy, so we are planning an interior route through the Kemper Center instead of our usual outdoor processional. I think it will be fun. The Kemper Center is such an interesting building, and it has a reputation for being haunted! We'll process through corridors that many of us have never seen before...bringing the presence of Christ with us.

For the Vigil, I've also arranged the Creation reading for a family of five to read, and had a great idea for how we could pantomime, with children wearing international costumes, the Gathering of God's people reading from Zephaniah. It's the last one and often feels like a bit of a let-down after the Dry Bones reading, which has more intrinsic dramatic potential, but I think using the kids will keep things interesting all the way to the end! We're repeating a few things from last year, and I keep forgetting that I need to practice the reading that I'm doing, "Come, buy, without money and without cost." We have lots of rehearsals in the coming week!

Oh, and the music--it's going to be fantastic. One of our members is a professional violinist, and she has world-class connections who are stepping in to help us out at the Vigil. She has planned some amazing pieces of music, and has been working with my musician brother-in-law on some original compositions, as well. Blondechick17 is singing, with others; Father Rooster will sing the Exultet...I can't wait!

We're also doing two baptisms at the Vigil. One is a teenager who wishes to be immersed, but the Kemper Center won't let us do an immersion baptism inside the chapel. So we're going to have to process outdoors onto a little porch, at least a few of us, for that part of the service--and wrap him up warm right afterwards!

The other one is the infant son of our friends Amy and her husband! They are coming all the way from...oh my goodness...Montana, is it? Somewhere out west--Amy, prompt my poor brain. We have known these two since before they started dating. We did their marriage counseling, and Father Rooster married them, and their older daughter was born within weeks of Bantam5, and Amy started blogging shortly after I did...and then they moved. And there isn't an Anglican church out there, and so--they are coming for a visit and a baptism!!

In other news, we have been working with a graphic designer and a website designer and finally settled on a logo for our church. The website isn't done yet, but we now have business cards we can hand out to invite people to Holy Week services or just to give them contact information for future reference. And we have an ad going on this weekend's editions of the Kenosha News, listing all our Holy Week services and times. There's going to be a web ad too--check back here for a link! We also have printed a "Thanks for visiting" postcard that we can use to follow up with visitors.

Yay, Holy Week! My favorite church week of the year!