Church Family Update - May 13, 2020 | Ebenezer Christian Reformed Church

Jason Dahlman

May 13, 2020

First, an idea:

We have not been together for a church service for eight consecutive weeks now. That’s two months of not singing together, not shaking hands or hugging, not having nursery or Sunday school, and not drinking that delicious Ebenezer coffee.

I expect that you’ve kept in touch, one way or another, with some of the people in our congregation. But you probably haven’t spoken to or even seen most of the people in our faith family for the past two months.

One of the great things about church is that it brings us into fellowship with people that we wouldn’t normally see in any other context. And now we’re not getting that blessing.

So here’s my idea. I don’t know if it’s a good one or not. I guess I’ll find out based on the response I get.

Would you please send me a video update from your family (or just from yourself if you're single)? It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Just sit yourselves down on a couch, prop up your computer or phone, and take a video. Take one or two minutes (max!) and tell me: 1) How are you doing? 2) What is life like for you right now?

That’s it.

And I will take these videos and pass them along to our projectionists and we can show a few of them each Sunday during the offering part of our service.

I know that we could do this in writing instead of using video. But wouldn’t it be nice to see each other again? To see the smiles and to see how big our kids are getting and to see how badly everyone needs a haircut?

If you are concerned about now wanting to show your family on the internet, I understand. And, of course, no one has to send me a video if they don’t want to. But on Sunday morning when we stream these services we get the data about where people are tuning in from. And it’s mostly just us watching. Turns out the rest of the world has better things to do than watch our Sunday morning services.

So don’t share anything too personal that you wouldn’t want to be made public. But wouldn’t it be nice to see each other again and to know how everyone is doing? If this is a bad idea then I guess I won't get any videos and we'll just move on and pretend I never suggested it. But I'm hopeful that at least some of you will be brave and do it and maybe that will inspire others to do it as well.

A reminder:

Today and tomorrow (May 13th and 14th), we will be gathering items to donate to Evergreen CRC in Fort McMurray. You can either drop those items off at the River Community CRC between 7-9 PM or you can bring them to the Ebenezer church office and we will take them and drop them off. See yesterday’s Ebenezer Update for a list of items that they are looking for.

A song for you today:

In response to the devotional thought yesterday, Margaret sent a link to this lovely song called “God Delights in You.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw2RafIuRdw

Let’s take a devotional walk:

Well, the results are in and it turns out that some people actually liked having the visual photographs to go with the points in my sermon last Sunday. I can’t promise that I’ll do it again since I am getting to be a pretty old dog and that feels like a new trick. But why don’t we take a stroll through God’s Garden of Grace right now?

In fact, you might just want to print these pictures and post them throughout your house so that when you see them they will be little reminders of God’s grace to you. Here we go…

Remember, the path beginning by walking through a gate that has these words as a banner over the gate:

“Blessed Be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ!”

And then as we step through the gate, here’s what we see:

The beautiful Cherry Blossom of God’s Great Mercy...