Random Notes for This Week

I'm back from Midwinter Youth Retreat. I had a great time. Several people have asked how it went -- I think it was a very successful weekend. For starters, no one got injured, which is always a good thing. But more generally, the retreat featured speakers -- college and slightly past college age -- who spoke about their experiences on recent mission trips to New Orleans and Jamaica. Lots of the activities, including small group discussions and Sunday morning worship planning, were led high school juniors and seniors. It was good to watch the young period inspire and learn from each other. It could have been a perfect weekend, except for the fact that my middle school boys decided to loudly get up at 5:30 Saturday morning...but as I said before, no one got injured.

Sunday there's a dinner after worship to recognize our new members from the past few months/years (frankly, I'm not entirely clear what the specific time-frame is). I do hope that you're planning on coming and enjoying some hearty fellowship and good food. Knowing Central Christian, both will be abundant. Please come, and, if you like, bring a friend.

Sunday is also the second week that we collect our first special offering for the year, supporting Week of Compassion. Many of you heard some things about that from our regional moderator, Dorothy Brownlee, who spoke in my absence last Sunday. Please support this very worthy ministry.

Also don't forget that Lent begins next Wednesday -- our Ash Wednesday worship, with a short meditation (place your bets now for how long I'll talk -- I'm joking, but I suppose that could be a new 50/50 church fund-raiser from service to service), communion by intinction, and the imposition of ashes. Joking aside, it is a solemn occasion and a good way to enter the Lenten season.

Speaking of the Lenten season, I've been working on our series on prayer especially hard this week. I think it will be a spiritually rich experience, leading us into Easter. There will be several components, including some prayer services and a special daily blog feature. I'll write a more extensive post about the series this weekend, and I'll talk about it Sunday morning.