Hi friends,
Hope this finds you and yours doing well, and finding ways to bless others. Enjoy these excerpts from our weekly Connections electronic newsletter for April 24.
Blessings,
Jen
WORSHIP WITH US
After his resurrection but before his ascension, Jesus spent 40 days walking this earth. The New Testament writers show the risen Jesus eating, teaching, assuring, and embracing. And while Christ’s embodied, post-resurrection presence has fascinated the church for millennia, it holds particular power during this time of social distancing. What does it mean that Jesus can both walk through walls and still be physically touched? What can we learn from a resurrected body that still eats food? What comfort might we find in his promise to be with the disciples, even to the very end of the age?
Join us for the next few weeks as we explore the implications of Christ’s bodily resurrection, and how the Holy Spirit enlivens our embodied reality right here and now—even while we grapple with new challenges to being an embodied people and an embodied church.
In-Home Worship
Sunday, April 26
Pastor Ryan Boes
Luke 24:13-35
Pastor Ryan’s sermon will premiere on YouTube at 9:00am. Allow yourself about 20 minutes prior to this start time to move through the liturgy if you want to catch the sermon when it premieres.
Liturgy
Songs & Pastor Ryan’s Message (YouTube)
**Current worship liturgy, and previous Sunday liturgies, is found every week on the AACRC homepage and previous liturgies can be found on the sermons page.
If your children would like to participate and engage by using the new children’s bulletin, it is attached HERE.
Please join us on Sunday @ 9:30am for a Zoom Virtual Fellowship Hall!
AACRC is inviting you to a Fellowship time via a Zoom meeting. We hope you will be able to join us as we greet each other and share how we are doing.
A Note from Council:
Sisters and brothers in Christ,
Seven weeks. On Sunday it will have been seven weeks since we last gathered at 1717 Broadway. We miss worshiping in-person together. We miss sharing coffee together. We miss the tangible community that happens when we gather in-person.
On behalf of council, I want to thank each one of you for your faithful giving over these last weeks. At the onset of the stay-at-home order, the finance team shared a number of scenarios with council, each of which, assumed a significant reduction in giving. March and April (so far) giving has far exceeded those projections. Thanks to some cautionary measures and your faithful giving we reduced our deficit to spending during the month of March. If you’d like a detailed financial statement, please reach out to our Treasurer Charlie Aagenas.
This past week we received news that the federal Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loan that the church applied for was approved and funded. We anticipate that this loan will become largely forgivable when it comes due in early 2021. These funds will be used to reinstate the church staff who had taken a voluntary furlough in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. We value each one of our staff members and their contributions to the programming and life of our church. We are grateful for the sacrifice they were willing to make for the good of the church and we are excited to welcome them back (from a distance of six feet, of course!).
Since we have been blessed, we also rejoice in our ability to be a blessing. The PPP loan frees up monetary resources which will allow the church to meet our third quarter obligations to our missionaries and mission partners, many of whom find themselves ministering to people on the front lines of the pandemic. This support will help them to continue to be the hands and feet of God in our part of the world. We will continue to closely monitor our financial situation in conjunction with the Finance Team and be ready to re-evaluate decisions as we obtain more information.
We are also thankful for the ways we continue to be a church even though we are apart. We love the stories about grocery runs, birthdays celebrated, House Groups meetings, and the care of our most vulnerable. We appreciate the work of the pastors and the worship team for making worship accessible from our homes each week. We are excited about the new Thursday morning Bible study (via Zoom) and encourage everyone who is available to join us! We are grateful for the volunteers who continue to support and care for our guests from the rotating shelter program.
We look forward to being together again. In the meantime, may God bless each one of you.
Jaime Ventura, For the Council Leadership Team
GROW WITH US
Weekly Bible Study: You are invited to join the weekly bible study on Thursdays at 10am. The pastoral staff will be leading this bible study over Zoom. We’d love to have you join us when you can!
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82452880071?pwd=SThyR3FoMlRkTWZBVEpkSHBvU2ZKZz09
Meeting ID: 824 5288 0071
Password: 1717
A thankfulness activity suggestion, shared by our Children’s Ministry Coordinator, Mary Admiraal:
I received the Faith Formation newsletter today; a wonderful resource from the denominational office. The title of this article, “I Wonder If God Is here” caught my attention because, truth be told, our family has wrestled with this question over the last six weeks. However, I think Mimi Larson’s suggestion “…to look for God in the midst of this hard and terrifying time by keeping a list of the things we are thankful for…” will help my family recognize that God IS always with us. We have our sticky notes ready and we’ve chosen a special place in our home to post our list so we see it often. How about you? If you are participating, please consider sharing your ” thanksgiving thoughts” with the community of faith by sending your pictures to office@aacrc.org.
SERVE WITH US
Continue our tithes and offerings: The AACRC supports many organizations and missionaries that are being directly affected by this pandemic and it is through our offerings and tithes that we can continue to support ourselves and the ministries we are in partnership with. Thank you for continuing to support the good work of God through the Ann Arbor Christian Reformed Church. Ways to donate:
- Mailing in a check
- Through My Well Giving online at: www.mywell.org/give/aacrc
Rotating Shelter: Our church continues to provide shelter for several gentlemen (currently 13) from the Delonis Center. We are committed to continuing this through the duration of the “shelter in place” order. Rachel Bush has compiled a list of ways we can support these men while they are staying at our church. Contact Rachel if you would like to help with any of these items:
- Volunteer to stay overnight
- Volunteer to stay during daytime hours
- Provide monetary donations for groceries
- Sign up to provide snack bags (More days added!): HERE
- Donated used men’s clothing and shoes
- Cook meals or desserts from home
- Lend DVDs of movies (comedy or action–be sure to label)
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