DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME BEGINS SATURDAY NIGHT!

You're going to lose an hour of sleep but we'll enjoy more daylight hours beginning Sunday! Remember to move your clocks forward on all devices by one hour and we'll see you in church ON TIME Sunday morning!!

WOMEN’S HISTORY AT NORTHMINSTER

You may have read that the leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention recently “disfellowshipped” Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California because its new lead pastor’s wife is the church’s “teaching pastor” and has preached on a few occasions. Saddleback is (was) one of the largest churches by membership affiliated with the SBC. At the same time the all-male leadership group disfellowshipped four other churches for also having female pastors, including one in Jackson, Mississippi. Crazy stuff, right? Well, as you know March is Women’s History Month, and these events got me to thinking about Women’s History at Northminster. It’s a long, good history, so this may take a few articles. Here is the first installment. It’s a story many of you know, but it bears repeating and remembering and knowing.

Some of what were to be the founding members of Northminster first met for worship and fellowship on the afternoon of the Sunday before Advent in 1988. There were about twenty-five or thirty of us in Kay Southern’s living room. Most of us were hurting because we had all just recently left the church that had been the home for most of us for a long time. Because we were hurting, we thought it would be a good idea if we all shared communion together. We all shared some bread and some grape juice that had been poured into a brass chalice Kay had in her cupboard. It felt good. It felt right.

In fact, it felt so good and so right that we decided to have communion the next time we met which was the next Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent of 1988. I think that is when it happened. Joyce Lofton was asked to serve the bread. Joyce was in her seventies, a retired schoolteacher, and what I called a “Baptist saint”. She had taught Sunday School pretty much her entire adult life. But what she had never done was to serve communion because she was a woman! You see in the tradition from which most of us had come only deacons could serve communion and only men could be deacons. Archaic I know, but it’s still happening. I digress!

Joyce’s hands were slightly palsied, and her voice was a little shaky. I don’t remember exactly what words Joyce used as she served the bread to each of us. Probably something like “the body of Christ broken for you”. Whatever the words were, I knew then that if we continued meeting (and we have now for going on 35 years) communion must be a part of our worship experience. It felt intimate, it felt good, it felt that we should be a part of what so much of Christendom has done in worship at every meeting for two millennia. Probably not many “Baptist” churches have communion every Sunday, but that’s the story of how the tradition began at Northminster. And it’s the story of how at the very beginning of Northminster’s pre-history two women led us. I still get misty eyed thinking about it. Thanks to Kay for providing us a place and communion elements for our early meetings and for being such a strong, early leader at Northminster. And thanks to Joyce for breaking that glass ceiling communion barrier.

More stories next week. Stay tuned!

Craig Henry

Opening Hymn: O Jesus Christ, May Grateful Hymns

This text, written for a Convocation of Urban Life in America, was chosen by The Hymn Society for publication in Five New Hymns on the City. Bradford Webster, a Methodist minister, served churches in his Native New York state for forty years. The hymn is set to the tune, CHARTERHOUSE, by David Evans, 1927.

Middle Hymn:  As We Gather at Your Table

In this hymn, commissioned by an Episcopal parish in Virginia for the celebration of its tricentennial, Carl P. Daw, Jr., utilized a familiar phrase from Isaac Watts’ “Joy to the World,” which was the motto for the celebration: “Repeat the Sounding Joy.” The hymn is set to the tune, BEACH SPRING, from the Sacred Harp, 1844.

Gospel Acclamation: Parable

We sing the introduction and response to our gospel announcing that through parables Jesus reveals God’s truth.

Anthem: If We But Endure to the End

The response to the sermon is from the oratorio "Elijah" by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). It tells us that if we preserve…God will save us.

Communion Anthem: Now the Silence, Now the Peace

The text is by Jaroslav Vajda and set to the music by British composer, John Rutter, from his Requiem.

Closing Hymn:  Where Cross the Crowed Ways of Life                      

This hymn was written for the 1905 Methodist Hymnal by Frank Mason North, a Methodist minister who was deeply committed to the role of the church in urban life. North later served as president of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. The hymn is set to the tune, GERMANY (GARDINER) by William Gardiner and found in his Sacred Melodies, 1815.

We continue to share worship during this season of Lent. May blessings abound.

Pacem,

Debi

We pray for...

Brandy Kimble-Keen (carpal tunnel surgery tomorrow); Bill Krutzer; Mary Dale Hughes (mother of Vickie Krutzer); Lowery & Barbara Thompson; Welton (back in Cornerstone room 529)& Judy Gaddy; Jimmy Curry; Tracy & Mary Sandow (Tracy is in Avalon Place accepting visitors); Jackie Poettgen (grandmother of Erich Hankamer; Buddy Aulds, son in law of Kay Southern; Kade Stapleton (extendeamily of Hannah Clark); Duane Crews (nephew of Hannah Clark); Kay Southern, Judy Eddington, Jay Aro; Our friends and partner church, Iglesia Bautista Enmanuel, in Ciego de Avila, Cuba

We celebrate birthdays with...

Jennifer Clark Richardson (9th)

Sara Younger (9th)

Page Atkins (11th)

Missy Spicer (15th)

March Mission Trunk Emphasis

Renewal Center of NELA

Needs: Styrofoam trays (3-compartment to-go trays), knife-spoon-fork packages (all of which can be found at Sam’s Club). Plastic utensils, adult diapers, feminine hygiene products, Dixie cups, trash bags, toilet tissue, paper towels, Dawn dishwashing liquid, washing detergent, all cleaning supplies, shampoo, toothpaste/brushes, water in jugs or bottles, coffee. Large ticket items needed: Pressure washer, lawn equipment.

Request for Clothes Hangers

Clothes hangers are needed to help with our Immigrant Mission. Mara Loeb requests clothes hangers of any kind, wire or otherwise. There will be a dedicated box near the mission trunk for you to drop off your extra hangers! Thank you!