This Week @ Lake Harriet week of March 31-April 4

All the events below take place at Lake Harriet:

• Open Sanctuary Wednesday 6:45 p.m.

• Bell Choir Wednesday 6:45 p.m.

• Circle of Prayer Wednesday 7:45 p.m.

• Lectionary Group Thursday 7:45 a.m.

Disciple Identity Survey Results Online

Last fall the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) conducted an online survey to help discern who we are as Disciples in the 21st century. The results are now available as well as a place online to discuss those results. To find out more, go to http://www.disciples.org/21cvt/.

Minnesota Foodshare

March 30 is the last Sunday to recieve offerings for the annual March Campaign of Minnesota Foodshare. As the economy worsens, foodshelf use starts to go up. Minnesota Foodshare has a good list that gives a snapshot of hunger in Minnesota.

So, this Sunday please consider bring a nonperishable food item to church. Better yet, consider writing a check. The foodselves that are supported by Minnesota Foodshare can buy more food with $5 than we could with the same money. Simply make out a check to Lake Harriet and put "Minnesota Foodshare" in the memo line.

As an Easter people, let's help the "least of these" live into the ressurection of the everlasting God.

Easter @ Lake Harriet

Easter Sunday was...a tad odd. Since it was so early this year, we had the rare experience of having a snowstorm on Easter. Driving to the early service was a hassle.

However, once we started, things went well. Our early service this year was a group effort, with our youth, Brad and Lester offering music. Brad played a wonderful tune on the sax and Lester plugged in his electric guitar. Brad's mother, Karin rythmically opened the baptistry where a light was streaming to signify the opening of the empty tomb.

Our regular 10am worship had the bell choir play "Thy Word," and a regular "tag-team" sermon by myself and Tammy. To top it off, we had a wonderful song by Bob Rhea, our octogenerian tenor.

Sometimes Easter worship can take on the air of a performance. But this year, at this place, the people worshipped together. We all left knowing that Christ was truly alive and well.

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!

Good Friday at Linden Hills

On Good Friday, Lake Harriet was invited to worship with Linden Hills United Church of Christ. Linden Hills has a quiet, service of meditation, where people go from station to station of Jesus' life and reflect and pray. I took some pictures of the sanctuary as it was being set up:

The Last Supper:



Jesus and Barrabas:



Jesus at the Cross:

News from the Upper Midwest Region

Here is the latest news from the Christian Church in the Upper Midwest:

Camp Forms Available
A week of camp can change a persons life, help a congregation grow their own youth ministry, recruit new ministers for the next generation and help bring congregations together in a ministry we do together. Go Here for more information.

2008 Easter Special Offering
This offering provides financial resources for general ministries of the church. Contributions to the 2008 Easter offering benefits many ministries including Disciples Hurricane Recovery Initiative, Global Ministries, web and internet ministries, Ministerial Relief and Assistance plus many more. Click to read more .

Transforming in Troubled Times
Mainline churches are in distress. The old ways aren't working. Congregations are struggling. And people feel overwhelmed by the rapid change taking place all around them. It's in times such as these, that bold and decisive action is needed.

The Congregational Transformation Task Group invites all ministers to attend a three day event, "Transformation In Troubled Times, May 1-3 at West Des Moines Christian Church. Lay leaders are encouraged to attend on Saturday. The facilitators include Dr. Ben Bohren, Regional Minister of the Christian Church in Northern California/Nevada and Dr. Barbara Blaisdell, pastor of United Community Church in Hilo, HI. Please go here to register.

Holy Week Events @ Lake Harriet

Hiho,

Just wanted to let you know of all the Holy Week Events taking place at Lake Harriet. Some of them are going to be in conjunction with Linden Hills United Church of Christ in South Minneapolis.

Without further ado, here is our video explaining Holy Week.

Palm Sunday Sermon @ Lake Harriet- Tammy Rottschaefer

On Palm Sunday, the sermon was given by Rev.Tammy Rottschaefer, Associate Pastor and Rev. Dennis Sanders, a member of Lake Harriet and a regular supply preacher at the congregation. Tammy and Dennis have frequently shared the pulpit on Sunday mornings during this time of transition as the congregation is searching for a new Senior Minister. Below is the second sermon given by Tammy Rottschaefer. The text for this Sunday was Matthew 21:1-11.

WHAT CAN A WEEK HOLD?

Assoc. Pastor Tammy Rottschaefer

WHAT CAN A WEEK HOLD? ....



Well, here we finally are! We have once again entered Holy Week. As Christians, each year we "wade in the water" of Jesus the Christ's final week of human earthly life.



It's frustrating though. We've just gotten a good party goin' this morning with a little palm waving, if even only in our imaginations...and its interrupted...by challenges of life. Not only the repeated stories of Jesus' troubles, but everyday troubles of our own as well.



This weeks prayer concerns in our midst have grown...

Palm Sunday Sermon @ Lake Harriet- Dennis Sanders

On Palm Sunday, the sermon was given by Rev.Tammy Rottschaefer, Associate Pastor and Rev. Dennis Sanders, a member of Lake Harriet and a regular supply preacher at the congregation. Tammy and Dennis have frequently shared the pulpit on Sunday mornings during this time of transition as the congregation is searching for a new Senior Minister. Below is the first sermon given by Dennis Sanders. The text for this Sunday is Matthew 21:1-11.

“It's Sunday, But Friday's Coming.”
Matthew 21:1-11
March 16, 2008 (Palm Sunday)
Lake Harriet Christian Church
Minneapolis, MN

A little over nine years ago, I was on one of the most life-changing trips of my life. I was in my second year of seminary and decided to use the January-term to take part in one of the cross-cultural experiences all seminary students had to take. I decided to do the one in Honk Kong/China. It was led by Paul Martinson a professor at Luther Seminary, who happened to be born in China to Lutheran Missionaries. We spent two weeks in Hong Kong, learning about life in the city, especially after the changeover from British territory to a part of China. But far more interesting was the week we spent in Mainland China. We flew from Hong Kong to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in Western China. Our objective during this part of the trip was to see Chinese Christianity in action, especially in the small villages that we an hour's drive from Kunming.

We were greeted by the villagers as if we were movie stars. They gave us the royal treatment, the best food and a place of honor at the local church service. For many, this was the first time they had seen Christians from the outside world and they were excited to see us.

I remember one such greeting. We got out of our bus and had to walk a short distance to the village. We could see from the distance that the town had pulled out all the stops. The townsfolk lined the streets and there was a banner welcoming us. There was loud cheering as we walked down the Main Street. It was a joyous day to meet fellow Christians from the other side of the world.

Easter People...Resurrection...Born Again

From Associate Pastor Tammy Rottschaefer:

March begins, and like the snow-shrouded ground forced to be introspective by nature regarding its coming growing season, we find ourselves in that every-year time of waiting for the resurrected life of Spring to burst forth. No wonder that through the ages the coming of the new-life season of spring and the celebration of Easter, marking Christ's resurrection, have been woven together.

Etymology Dictionary

Easter O.E. Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from P.Gmc. *Austron, a goddess of fertility and sunrise whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *austra-, from PIE *aus- "to shine" (especially of the dawn). Bede says Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory practices for their Mass of Christ's resurrection. Ultimately related to east. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of L. Pasche to name this holiday.

resurrection c.1290, from Anglo-Fr. resurrectiun, O.Fr. resurrection, from L.L. resurrectionem (nom. resurrectio) "a rising again from the dead," from pp. stem of L. resurgere "rise again" (see resurgent). Replaced O.E. æriste. Originally a Church festival commemorating Christ's rising from the dead; generalized sense of "revival" is from 1649. Also used in M.E. of the rising again of the dead on the Last Day (c.1300).

In the weeks since our Sunday morning text was taken from John 3 (the nighttime conversation between two Rabbis, Nicodemus and Jesus), I have continued to be moved by this particular passage:

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.' ³Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.' ⁴Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?' ⁵Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above."

--John 3:1-7

Perhaps it is the "season" of my own life, in which I find myself more attentive to the deaths and births of life. When I was younger, life seemed all about birth. Now I have just been to a memorial service celebrating the life of a dear friend who, just before diagnosis of his own life-taking illness, had recently spoken about the loss of so many friends to death; I daresay he had become more focused on the deaths of life. In my own middle years of a life's expected span, I find that I am keenly aware, and surrounded by, both birth and death.

As Jesus talks to Nicodemus, I hear him trying to help us understand that we all live our entire lives as Easter people, renewed over and over again in the cycles of life, until we die from this earthly life, to be born again in resurrection through the ultimate healing and living power of the God of wholeness.

During our lifetimes, we yearn to live into that ultimate vision of God-wholeness over and over again; loving God, neighbor and self in all the myriad ways that we can. When we do come to the end of our earthly days, love of the kind Jesus showed us becomes the womb by which God overpowers death, and we are born again.

Jesus the Christ not only told Nicodemus of that born-again-resurrection; we know of the risen Jesus calling us forth to a coming resurrection from the stories of the garden on the third day following Jesus' burial. We tell the stories of Jesus' resurrection each year. Do we believe that God sent him to tell us, that in Christ, this is our story as well?

If resurrection only belongs to Jesus, as a story, it isn't real. It is only real if it is truly believed to be our own story as well.

This Easter, do we have a story to tell?

"Dying is a wild night, and a new road."

--Emily Dickinson. (1830-86)

Tammy Rottschaefer

Associate Minister of Spiritual Formation

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper