Please consider sponsoring altar flowers ($35) on a Sunday that has special significance to you. Simply sign up to sponsor the flowers on any open Sunday (see the Flower Chart in the Van Horne Fellowship Hall) and drop your check in the offering plate with a memo indicating “Altar Flowers.”  You will even get to take the flowers home after that service

If you would like to make your payment online, click here: Donate Now

Holy Week is an eight-day commemoration and celebration of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus—the core events of the Christian faith.  It begins on Palm Sunday, which is April 14th this year, when we remember the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem and ponder how the crowd’s welcome of their Messiah so quickly turned to rejection. For those who wish to participate, our Palm Sunday service will begin outdoors at 10 o’clock, at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Fifth Street North. After reading Luke’s account of Jesus’ riding into the city, we’ll sing songs and hymns as we walk first to the fellowship hall and then into the sanctuary. Once we get there, the mood of the service will change dramatically in preparation for a reading of the entire passion narrative from Luke’s gospel, the account of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution.

Maundy Thursday, April 18th, is the day when the church commemorates the last meal that Jesus had with his disciples and the “new commandment” that he gave them: to love one another as he loved them. “Maundy” is a variation of the Latin word for “commandment.” Our Thursday worship service is at 6:30 p.m. Before sharing the bread and wine of Holy Communion, we will have the opportunity to wash one another’s hands, remembering how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. The service will end with “the stripping of the altar,” a ceremonial way to remember the arrest of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, as all decoration is removed from the chancel area of the church.

Good Friday, April 19th, is a day to try and comprehend the love of God expressed in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. We will have services at 12:30 and at 6:30. The words and rituals of Good Friday are some of the most ancient liturgies of the Christian church; they feature the passion narrative from the gospel of John, prayers for all the people of the world, and the chanting of a text known as the “solemn reproaches.”

On Easter Sunday, April 21st, those who can are invited to gather at Mirror Lake, two blocks south of the church, for a sunrise service that begins at 6:30 in the morning. Between that service and our festive 10:00 service, breakfast will be served in Redeemer Hall. The 10:00 service will be a joyful celebration of resurrection and life in a sanctuary filled with music and adorned with lilies.

Easter Sunday marks the end of Holy Week, but only the beginning of the seven-week season of Easter leading to Ascension Day and Pentecost.