April 9-12 Easter weekend schedule
Maundy Thursday – watch midweek meditation video via COS vimeo page
Good Friday – follow the stations of the cross liturgy
Good Friday, 2020: Stations of the Cross
OR – listen to the St John’s Passion – Good Friday, 2020 • St. John Passion
Happening Sunday
On Sunday April 12, we celebrate Easter Sunday, remembering the joyful resurrection of our Lord and Savior! Join in one or more of these wonderful opportunities to participate in worship activities with other COS members.
At 7 am, join an Easter Vigil facebook livefeed with Pastor Karen. As we transition from the darkness of Good Friday to the dawn of Easter Sunday, we will center on Jesus the light. We’ll read through the arc of God’s redemptive plan to remember God’s faithfulness in leading us out of darkness into his light. We are delighted that one of the liturgists for this short service will be one of our COS members, Mwenda Ntarangwi who is currently in Nairobi Kenya. He will lead us in both Swahili and English. We invite you to join us in this rich service that connects us globally, historically and most importantly with the great story of redemption.
At 10 am celebrate together in an Easter zoom worship, where Pastor Andrew will bring a message entitled, “The Tomb.”
At noon you will have an opportunity to upload your own Easter Testimony videos to the COS facebook group.
We continue to lament the loss of gathering in person this Holy Week for worship, fellowship, and testimony. Even so, we can also be mindful of the earliest disciples in Acts who continued to testify to the risen Jesus in the face of severe hardship. Their witness is an encouragement to us in this time to not grow weary of bearing witness to the God of resurrection.
In that same Spirit, we are inviting the people of COS to upload brief (3 mins or less) testimonies/stories/songs/poems/art that point to God’s power at work to bring new life. How share how resurrection hope has touched your life?
These short videos can be shared on the COS Facebook page starting at noon on Easter and throughout the first week of Eastertide. We also have the privilege of hearing a longer testimony from Gladys Verhulst which will be sent out via email the afternoon of Easter Sunday.
Easter Flower Collage: We know this Easter will be different as we worship spiritually together and yet physically apart. To reflect this historical moment, we want to create a remembrance that we will display in our COS building.
Normally on an Easter Sunday we all look forward to seeing families bring all kinds of flowers to the communion table. This year we will not be able to see this colorful display. However we do want to encourage you to think about how you may join in creating a work of art.
We are asking every person or family unit who worships with us on Easter Sunday to spend a few moments drawing your own Easter flower – you can draw a known flower or you could design your own! Do not worry about being a good artist but see what materials you can use in your home to create a flower. When you have finished the flowers please deposit them in the Easter Flower Collage box which is at the front door of the COS building.
We’ll collect these flowers and put them into a congregational collage that will be designed by Carol Roeda. We look forward to the day when we can see the finished display and celebrate that we worshiped together, even though we were physically apart this Easter!
Youth
Grades 8-12 SERVE trip canceled! Due to the uncertainty of when communities who participate in SERVE will recover from this pandemic, all SERVE trips for 2020 have been canceled. While this is a loss for us, it is a significant loss to the members and organizations of our community who depend on SERVE volunteers to achieve their goals and meet their needs. Please pray for all these people, asking that God will allow us to find ways to care for each other as we continue to try to be a Light in the City.
Middle School: The current plan is to invite our WNL crew and leaders to regular Wednesday Night Zoom meetings at 6:45pm (WNL is now WNZ 😉). We would love to see your faces and hear your voices! We’ll take time to hear about how life is going for you, share a brief—but AWESOME!—lesson or challenge, and have a worship moment together. Here is the link that you should click on Wednesday around 6:40pm. Remember to note the password so you can join us! https://us04web.zoom.us/j/629088730?pwd=eXRWb0pkT2N6Z3M0dFZuS3ltWjgzZz09
Meeting ID: 629 088 730
Password: 032587
High School: We won’t meet this Sunday (Easter Sunday), but let’s make plans to gather around Zoom at 2pm on Sundays staring next week, Apr. 19, to check in with each other. My hope is that you will be able to share a little about your life, I will squeeze in a little lesson or a discussion, and we can end with a prayer/worship moment. I will send out the Zoom link in our newsletter and via email every week. Can’t wait to “see” you!
Church News
Food Pantry: Due to the stay at home order, COS has changed our Food Pantry protocol. We will not have open pantry hours on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Instead, access to food pantry will occur via appointment. Please call either Ellen at 901-5684 or Lori at 291-6132 to schedule an appointment. They will meet you at Door E of the church to assist with giving food, personal care items, and hand-crafted face masks. Thank you!
Thinking about becoming a member of Church of the Servant? We are always glad to have conversations with people who are thinking about what it might mean to belong to a church community like COS. We hope to start some new member conversations soon. If you are interested in taking part in a virtual conversation about this, please contact Pastor Andrew Andrew.mead@coscrc.org or Pastor Karen karen.campbell@coscrc.org.
While we are not meeting together as one body, the church staff is working to create ways for us to continue to worship and continue to feel connected. In addition, we continue to serve the needs of the community and world in a variety of ways ranging from our food pantry to missions support. COS is committed to maintaining full compensation for both our salaried and hourly employees in these challenging times. As a result of these factors, it is more important than ever that those of us who can support the work of COS financially continue to do so. Those of you who give through automatic debit (ACH) may continue to do so. You can also give directly online (https://bit.ly/cos_offering), or via text or mobile apps (find more information at https://www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/giving/ways-to-give-to-cos/), or mail in your check. Our staff, neighbors, and world are grateful for your faithfulness in these unusual days.
Financial Update – Last week’s offering and online giving: 52,268.77 (We had 134 giving units give, 58 belong to our monthly ACH). Total giving for this month: $52,268.77 (3 Sundays left).Our monthly General Fund budget is $119,028. March General Fund giving total was: $137,142.16
Did you Know? Over the past month since the pandemic began, our COS Food Pantry has served 44 families. Some of these families are from COS and others are our Camelot neighbors. Most of these families have been laid off and are awaiting unemployment benefits and stimulus checks, or their work hours have been cut drastically.
Ellen Westrate, our Food Coordinator, has ensured that the pantry shelves are stocked primarily through our Meijer Simply Give cards, which buy only food items. We rely on donations for the non-food items such as shampoo, conditioner, baby wipes and diapers.
Our monthly Feeding America Mobile Food Truck usually parks in the Camelot Community Building parking lot but on Saturday April 4, it was moved to the COS parking lot. We distributed food into boxes packed by volunteers and then National Guardsmen put these boxes into families’ cars.
We were delighted that the Mobile Food Truck provided nearly 7000 lbs. of fresh food and produce, which was distributed to 147 families. Typically, we serve from 80-100 families on the first Saturday of the month. Our next drive-thru Food Truck at the COS parking lot will be on Saturday morning, May 2.
For all of you who sew and have appropriate fabrics (cluttering your basement shelves) and the other supplies, go online to “Sweet Red Poppies Patterns” to find a face mask pattern for either present-day need or the future. After all, it does take time to make thousands of face masks. Let’s be ready to help wherever there is a need. It doesn’t matter the color or the print. Maybe a few darker fabrics for any men who may receive these. Knits don’t work so well, but “tightly-woven cotton fabric on both sides” and bandanas are good. If you don’t have any elastic, using bias tape for ties works just fine or the circular elastic hair bands. Must be breathable fabric.
The grassroots group has thousands of volunteers across the U.S as well as more around the world making homemade masks for hospitals, nursing homes and others in need. The article about this project is in the Wall Street Journal, April 6. Return masks to the COS office. Questions? Contact Ann Fackler
Facility Coordinator Opening: Church of the Servant is looking to hire a part time (up to 25 hrs /week) person to join our staff team and be responsible for our building’s operation and maintenance needs. Strong Facility Management experience preferred. Start date: May 26, 2020. See the position description at: www.coscrc.org/employment Please send your letter of interest and resume to: lori.wiersma@coscrc.org by April 30, 2020.
Registration is still open for the June 5-6, Understanding Racism Workshop. A two-day workshop from 8:30-5pm each day, this workshop experience is designed to explore the deep racial complexity of the United States and to begin to explore paths for restoration. Register on line at CORRnow.org.