Weekly Greeting for March 29, 2024 – Easter Grace

Easter grace to you all,

I invite you to our noontime Good Friday service today at UMCA. Tomorrow (3/30) we will gather to celebrate the life of Brian Peppe at 2 pm. The service will also be available for viewing on livestream. On Sunday, we begin with an Easter SonRise service (6:15 am) at the Keene’s (775 N. River Road, Auburn), followed by an Easter Breakfast at UMCA from 8 am to 9:30 am (donations/Helping Hands Discretionary Fund). Easter Resurrection services are 8:30 and 10:30 am. The Youth Group will be offering an Easter Egg Hunt for church school children and a model of the City of Jerusalem has been set up in a church school room for display. Following 10:30 am worship, we invite you to linger for carrot cake fellowship served by the Youth Group. Over the next two Sundays, we will welcome 14 new members to UMC of Auburn!

This will be the last Sunday to order Maple syrup as part of the Maple Syrup Mission project annually offered by Joel and Janet Irish. Distribution will take place on April 6-7. City Mission is the beneficiary of the mission proceeds. In addition, City Mission was given a $5,000 grant by 100 Women Who Care, a benevolence group in the L/A area. This enabled City Mission to apply to the national organization for an additional $2,500 grant which has also been awarded (Thank you for applying, Nancy Craig)! On April 14th, the church is invited to a Birthday Luncheon celebrating everyone’s birthday all at once! There will be a sign-up sheet at Easter worship services for those participating.

I close this greeting with a quote from George MacLeod, an influential Scottish soldier and clergyman: “I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew, Latin and Greek; at the kind of place where cynics slander, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about.”

May these holy days center your soul on God’s amazing grace,

Pastor Steve Bascom UMC of Auburn/Calvary UMC of Lewiston