The OPEN DOOR. These services will be brown bag luncheons with drinks and chips furnished. Please join us for spiritual growth and fellowship.

Transcription

1 The OPEN DOOR LAKEWOOD CHRISTIAN CHURCH (Disciples of Christ) An Open Door to a Vital Faith Noon Lenten Services 2016 Noon Lenten Services (12:00 to 12:45 p.m.) will be hosted by the following churches near Cobbs Dr. and Bosque Blvd. as follows: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2016 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2016 First United Methodist Church Cobbs Dr. at Lake Air Rev. Stephen Ramsdell, Pastor (254) Lakewood Christian Church 6509 Bosque Blvd., at Cobbs Dr. Sue McDougal, Interim Pastor (254) Western Heights Baptist Church 6301 Bosque Blvd. (Near Cobbs Dr.) Pastor Bruce Worley (254) February 16, Bosque Blvd. Waco, TX Phone: (254) Fax: (254) office@lccwaco.org Rev. Sue McDougal Interim Minister Carrie Forehand Choir Director Brad Forehand Handbell Director Cristina Wolfe Organist/Pianist Pam Huffstatler Director, CDC Brandi Goddard Administrative Assistant OFFICE HOURS: Monday Friday 7:30am 4:00pm WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2016 Community Fellowship (First church of the Nazarene) Valley Mills Dr. at Cobbs Dr. Rev. Roger Huff, Pastor (254) PASTORS HOURS Tuesday & Thursday 10:00am 6:00pm These services will be brown bag luncheons with drinks and chips furnished. Please join us for spiritual growth and fellowship. Coordinated by, WILLIAM K. BROCK Chaplain, Retired (254_ For additional information please call Janet Stephens at First United Methodist Church ( ). We will appreciate any additional publicity you can give us regarding these Lenten Services. I believe we have been conducting these joint Lenten Services since February 7 Sunday 25 Morning 72 Offering $ February 14 Sunday 23 Morning 68 Offering $

2 CWF/DW CORNER PRISCILLA GROUP will have a special program on SATURDAY, Feb. 27, 10 a.m. Lisa Barnett will present a special program that I know you'll want to hear! A light brunch will be served. This is open to everyone in the congregation. See a separate article elsewhere in this newsletter. There will be no Priscilla meeting on Feb. 23, nor will there be a Priscilla meeting in March, due to Easter. CYF Midwinter: "Compassion" February 19th at 8:00 pm through February 21st at 10:00 am Cost: $90 Youth should be accompanied by an adult sponsor unless arrangements have been made with Disciples Crossing staff prior to the event. Registrations are due by February 5th. Late registrations will be accepted on a case by case basis, depending on availability for the event. A $20 late fee per person will also be charged. February 21, 2015 OPEN/CLOSE BLDG: ELDERS: OFFERING/LOAF: Jack Harbour CUP: Terry Ermoian COUNTING TEAM: Gene & Phil Roach February 28, 2015 OPEN/CLOSE BLDG: ELDERS: SPECIAL PROGRAM IN FEBRUARY--EVERYONE IS INVITED!! Save the date--february 27, 10 A.M.! Everyone in our church is invited to this special program provided by Lisa Barnett, whom we've been privileged to have as a guest pastor a number of times. Her presentation is entitled, "Disturber of the Peace: The Life and Work of Elizabeth B. Grannis." This woman was an editor, social reformer, humanitarian, and pioneer woman suffragist, as well as an active member of the First Church Disciples of Christ (now known as Park Avenue Christian Church) in New York City. Lisa won the Errett Award in 2012 for this paper. Her paper was published in the Stone-Campbell Journal in the Spring of 2013! A light brunch will be served. Please mark your calendar now and make plans to join us for this interesting and enjoyable presentation! OFFERING/LOAF: Roger Bailey CUP: Charlie Piscacek COUNTING TEAM: Linda Ferguson & Linda Jensen * Jennifer Roach visits for Hazel Martin * Jennifer Olson visits for Jack Harbour

3 Katherine Arrowood, Family of Nancy Bartlone, Lawrence & Melba Bowers, Carolyn Brown, Sunny Brous, Joyce Cline, Bill Collins, Elias Cordero, Earl Delaney, Chili & Ganna Denton, Louise Dyess, Vaughn Ermoian, Dora Essary, Fraser Family, Tracy Golden, Harbour Family, Donya Hiilsmeier, Bob & Billie Jorda, Ellen Joulson, Nathan Lackey, Lois Landis, Family of Hugh (Lou) Lewis, Ashley Lowry, Tinka Nelson, Margaret Richardson, C.C. Sirkel, Freida Shipley, Matt Tiller, Karen Waddell, Emily Wetland, Sheri Weltland, Jennifer Williams Please contact the office with your birthdays, anniversaries, joys, or prayer requests! Lawrence & Melba Bowers Sherman & Aletha George Charles & Jean Vestal Charlie Piscacek, Chance Mosley, Hazel Martin, Richard Sparks, Roxanne Glaser, Jeremy Filz, Bill Mathews, Carrie Forehand, Marlee Veloz TRINITY-BRAZOS AREA DISCIPLES WOMEN'S MINIS- TRY Spring Retreat 2016 April 1, 2, & 3 "The Icing on the Cake" The retreat weekend will explore God as the "icing on the cake, the One who offers sweetness to our life." How does this" icing" play a role in our lives; what makes us keep looking for the icing? Throughout this weekend, the focus will be on various scriptures throughout the Bible, but the main scripture comes from Psalm 119:"May our icing be sweet, sweet as honey on our lips." Application forms will be on the table in the Narthex. They have all the information. You may go for the entire weekend, or for just part of it, including Saturday only. March 14is the deadline for registration. After that there is a late fee of $10. The retreat is held at Disciples Crossing in Athens. Hope some of you can go!

4 Musings from a Minister: For Your reflection: I ve been reading the memoirs of Joan Chittister as meditative food for Lent. She has me thinking about the spiritual life, and its purposes. I d been thinking that a community without a spiritual life is more like a club than it is a church. Without a deep sense of God s presence among us, and God s call to serve enlivened in us, our identity can teeter, and amnesia can set in, and we can become just those people who like to get together. Thus it becomes important for the church to continue to think together about mission and purpose by looking at the life of Jesus Christ, and by seeking to hear the call that identity (as his disciples) brings to bear upon our lives. Hear Chittister: The perennial question, centuries old and ever new, harries us: What is the spiritual life? How do we develop it? Is it real? Is it possible? Is it even desirable? Isn t earth about earth and heaven time enough for heaven? The questions plague us in the deepest parts of ourselves, to the blackest recesses of our souls. (pg.27) We suckle ourselves on clear or comfortable answers because we fear to ask the questions that make the real difference to the quality and content of our souls. The spiritual life begins when we discover that we can only become spiritual adults when we go beyond the answers, beyond the fear of uncertainty, to the great encompassing mystery of life that is God s.(pg. 9) We live most of our life, Wendy Miller wrote, oblivious to our true identity as persons created and provided for by God. The starkness of the statement catapults us into another dimension of religion entirely. To know our true identity to really know down deep where we came from, to whom we belong, out of whose life we live is to know that the God who made us is with us still. God is the eternal memory within us, the inseparable presence, the unending energy that beats within us yet, inchoate but clear. I wrote back to myself, To live consciously aware of the presence of God in every moment is a great grace. I am still not sure if it is cultivated and then given---or given and then cultivated. I lean toward the latter position because it is my own experience. I never merited God. I simply grew in God. (pg ) These words from Joan Chittister, in her book entitled Called to Question beckon us in this season of Lent to consider the source and ground of our being, and the graciousness with which the knowing of God is gifted to us. How often we take God for granted, and live relatively blind to the Divine presence in our lives. And then, something happens, and we are suddenly overwhelmed by the sense of how close God has been to us and for us all along. In this season of Lent, may we be totally awed by and reminded anew of the one who loves us unconditionally and fully, just as we are, and who seeks us out always to have relationship with us, and to enlist us in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the world whom is also beloved. May knowing this God, and seeking as Christ s Church to learn God s will for our lives become the aims of our religious pilgrimage during this season of Lent.. that we might simply grow in God together as Christ s Church.rather than possibly suffer amnesia, and in doing so risk becoming those who just enjoy getting together.

5 Lakewood Christian Church 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 14 Valentine s Day 9:30am Sunday 10:30am Sunday 15 President s Day Sue in office 5pm Homespun 16 10am Women s Prayer Group Sue not in office Sue not in office 19 10amMeals on Sue in office after Dr. apt. 20 8am Foster Parent am Waco B Quilter s Guild Priscilla Group Lisa Barnett Lecture 10amnoon. 28 9:30am Elder s Brandi Out of Town 10am LOAF 5:30pm CDC Parent s Association :00am First Cookie Sunday am CWF Executive 9 Noon Lenten Lunch 5:45pm Handbell 10 9am Waco B Quilters Guild 7pm Boy Scouts Daylight Savings Time 14 8am Brandi Dr am Quilters (classroom) 10am Women s Prayer Group 16 5:45pm Handbell 17 6pm Steering Board am Foster Parent