Monthly Archives: March 2012

Use the following ideas for private or household devotions during Holy Week. If used for personal devotions, you might want to record your reflections on the discussion questions in a journal.  If you are having devotions with your family or friends, give each person an opportunity to participate. Discuss new words such as “salvation,” “temptation,” or “disciples” with young children. You might want to light a candle before you begin.

Monday in Holy Week

Read: Romans 3:21-38

Discuss: What do these verses say about salvation? What role do we play in obtaining eternal life?

Pray: Lord God, we thank you for calling us to you and ask that our actions, along with our hearts and lips, confess our faith. Amen

Tuesday in Holy Week

Read: Matthew 21:12,13

Discuss: The money changers and merchants were actually stealing from the people in the house of God, in the name of God. People often were cheated when they bought animals to be sacrificed, or changed Greek and Roman currency into Jewish currency to pay temple taxes. Are there things going on in our lives and churches that might anger Jesus?

Pray: Thank you for giving us places to worship where we are nourished and cherished by you. Help us to keep our lives and our churches open to your will, not our own desires. Amen

Wednesday in Holy Week

Read: Luke 22:39-46

Discuss: Notice Jesus warns the disciples against temptation. Why did Jesus give that warning to his disciples? What experiences have we had with temptation as we have walked with God?

Pray: Hold us tight, O Lord. Give us the strength to resist evil and keep our hearts and minds on you. Amen

Maundy Thursday

Read: Luke 22:14-23

Discuss: Imagine sitting at that table with Jesus. Hear him speak. Have you ever shared what turned out to be a last meal with someone (before they left home, moved, or died)? Recall that experience. Now reflect again on Jesus’ last supper with the disciples. How might the disciples have felt when they looked back on it?

Pray: Ask family members to contribute to a prayer using the ACTS formula—Adoration (focus on the attributes of God, offer praise and worship), Confession (confess your sins to God), Thanksgiving (for all you have received) and Supplication (requests on behalf of others and yourself).

Good Friday

Read: John 19:17-19

Discuss: Talk about the victory revealed in the title Pilate put on the cross. Ask each person present to complete the sentence “To me the cross means…”

Pray: Dear Lord God, let us bow in awe beneath your cross so that from it, we may feel and learn the importance of it in our lives. Amen

Holy Saturday

Read: Exodus 15:1-11

Discuss: How does the song Miriam sang at the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt fit the events of  Holy Week? How do our lives reflect our knowledge of the events of Easter? What could we do today to celebrate God’s majesty and power?

Pray: O Lord, our strength and our salvation, praise be to your name. Amen

It was a historic day this past Sunday as adults and children were given the opportunity to sign the charter for Catalyst Covenant Church. This is not something that most people get a chance to do in their lifetime, and around 100 adults and 36 kids put their names on the line to covenant with God and one another to become Catalyst Covenant Church. Mike Brown, director of church planting for the Northwest Conference of The Evangelical Covenant Church, challenged us from Acts 2:42-47 to model ourselves after the early church in Acts—to be sold out to God and each other; to share all that we have with those in need; to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in all we do. Thanks to Shane Wichtendahl for a delicious celebration lunch following the service.  It was a great morning! The Catalyst Church charter will remain open for three more weeks. We will have the charter available to sign on Sunday mornings for anyone who was sick or unable to be in attendance this past Sunday and would still like to sign.

We live in a lonely world.  We can communicate instantly–through text or Facebook messages, e-mails, or (gasp!) even phone calls–with most anyone and everyone.  Yet we seem lonelier than ever.

This weekend on the radio, someone said that “Minnesota Nice” means people will stop and give you directions anywhere–except to their own home!  We’re great at keeping people out–while at the same time longing for someone to call, to drop by, or just to be present with each other.

And sometimes, it seems, just as we do let people in, they move away.  Sometimes literally–they move to another town or state.  But sometimes we move away from each other emotionally.  When I was a teenager, I could ask a girl out on a first date fairly easily.  But it was much harder to ask a girl out on a second date–because she might think, then, that I really liked her, and that this relationship might go somewhere.

I think a lot of us are still like teenagers when it comes to relationships and friendships–with others and with God.

What we long for, the state we all desire, says the poet T.S. Eliot, is to find  that “still point in a turning world.”

The way to move towards this stillness, says the author Ron Rolheiser, is through commitment and fidelity–to people, places and projects.  It’s not fashionable to talk about these things.  Many would rather not commit.  Some even build a spirituality around moving from one thing to the next, never really belonging, never staying faithful.

But our God is a covenant-making, commitment-keeping God.  And love flourishes, we find, with commitment and faithfulness.  Children thrive.  And strangers and guests find a home.

It’s one reason why God is calling people attending Catalyst to sign their names to our church charter on Sunday morning, March 25.  Because we are reflecting the nature of our ever-faithful God  Because our commitments shape us.  Because we want to create an alternative to lonely, independent living–a family of faith.  And because Christ makes himself known to a turning, changing world, through a community that finds its stillness in the One whose faithful love endures forever.