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*April Fools!

Sorry…I couldn’t resist an April 1st joke. You know I can’t preach just four and a half minutes on the most important event in the history of the world! But I can promise this: If you will bring your friends, they will be welcomed warmly and treated to the most hopeful, promising message that anyone could hear: the story of the Risen Christ. So, I’ll see you starting tonight, through Good Friday and then at the celebration on Easter.

Meanwhile, here is an Easter message for you from ACNA Archbishop Bob Duncan.

In Christ,
David+

Dear Friends,

I have been busy inviting people to Christ Church. I have a small stack of the little invitation cards that we gave out here a couple of weeks ago. I have left them in people’s mailboxes (is that against the law?); I have given them to clerks as I check out of stores; I gave one to a man I met in Seattle who asked me if I was a pastor! (Do I have that ‘look’??) I also leave them alongside a generous tip at restaurants.

One of four designs of Christ Church invitation cards

Have you? Now is the time and this is the season to invite your friends and the people you do business with. The little cards are yours free…and they are available by the hundreds in the Fellowship Hall each week. But this week especially, God will use your heart-felt desire to introduce people to Christ and to the Christian Church.

True story: One of our staff members was at a home improvement store a few months ago. He struck up a conversation with the woman at the register. He invited her to church. She came. I recognized her in the Narthex and introduced myself. She told me how she found Christ Church: through the personal invitation of a member of our church.

A few months later I was at that home improvement store where she works. I found her and asked her about her experience visiting Christ Church. She said, in so many words, “It’s the church I have been looking for ever since I moved here many years ago.” The joy and the grace of God are blessings to others when they hear them or see them or experience them in the Body of Christ at Christ Church. Don’t be shy! Reach out and invite.

Here are a few other things you should know this week:

Fasting Tomorrow
Friday, March 26 is the second of two days that Christ Church set aside during the Lenten season to fast together as a church family. I encourage you to explore this discipline. If you are new to fasting, read about it here.

How will you engage Holy Week?
This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday and it is the doorway into the most holy of weeks in the Christian year. As you know, we have been taking the long route, week by week, to look into the actions and teaching of Jesus on the last week of His earthly life. This weekend, The Week That Changed Your Life will enter into the mystery of the death and resurrection of our Lord. Please be here…it will make your Easter celebration much more meaningful!

In point of fact, the Season of Lent ends on Sunday, Palm Sunday. The Christian Year actually gives “the week that changed your life” its own name: “Holy Week”. And the question that should be hanging over your life is this: How will I engage this week?

I will explain this a bit more this weekend, but it is our tradition to offer the “full blown” Easter service on Saturday evening at 5:30. This is actually a huge help because it allows many more guests and visitors to come on Sunday morning and find a seat. In the last few years, Saturday evening Easter has been on par with the main services at 9 and 11 a.m. So, as you are planning your Easter weekend, remember to consider the Saturday option. Click here to see all the service times and details.

‘See you this weekend.
David+

Dear Friends,

I am writing this letter just before the start of the Triduum, the three-day journey of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Services of the Resurrection. This morning as I finished writing my message for tonight, I wrote out this prayer for us all. I ask you to pray it on behalf of our church leadership, our ministries in worship and music, me, and for the hundreds of guests and visitors we have with us over these next three days:

Father God, we are at the threshold of three days that changed our world; grant us the grace and the privilege to stay close to your Son Jesus in His Passover meal, his Cross, and His Resurrection. Increase our faith. Focus our minds. Shape our hearts. Conquer our wills. Expand our horizon. Clarify our vision. And help us to see. And in seeing, know; and in knowing, love, and by loving, honor Him who gave his life for us. AMEN.

Here is what you need to know…

1. Tonight is called Maundy Thursday for a reason. It refers to the “mandate” that Jesus gave His disciples to love one another. (John 13:34) It is also the remembrance of the first Lord’s Supper. (Luke 22) And when we come together tonight, you will be set in mind of the great love that God showed his People in the Passover, the Lord’s Supper, and in the hope of heaven.Go here and take a look at these pictures. I will refer this these in my message tonight…they are simply amazing. All from here. When you come tonight, you will understand where I am going with this.
2. Tomorrow is the most somber day of the year: Good Friday. The offering in the evening will touch your heart deeply, I promise. I have been listening to Rutter’s Requiem for about two months…almost every day. Few other pieces of music have moved me as much. Read about it here. It has a dimension and depth that seem to capture the mood of the sorrow and hope of Good Friday. As I have encouraged you to do, invite a friend…or a few friends. Come early, too.The Stations of the Cross is an equally moving experience. There are outdoor and indoor venues for it…but it all starts in the Sanctuary at noon on Friday and ends at 1 p.m.
3. Parents, I hope you are planning to bring your children to the Children’s Easter Celebration on Saturday. And about Sunday, I want to emphasize one particular thing about the Easter services: The Saturday night service is the same at the Sunday morning services…and many of our members prefer to attend at 5:30 service on Saturday. Keep that as an option for your family.
4. In addition to all of our Holy Week and Easter preparations, lots more has been going on in and around our ministries. Here are a few post-event reports that will give you a great idea of the ministry that takes place at Christ Church week by week:
   High School Retreat Report
   Peru Mission Trip Slideshow
   Prayer & Praise Night Reflections

I want to make an observation…and I may flesh this out this evening a bit more. I think our church seems ready and eager to enter into a season of spiritual growth. I sense a hunger for more of the Word, more of the Word of God, and a deeper and richer life in Christ. I am more excited these days about our future than I have ever been…and I look forward to our years ahead together.

Bring a friend for worship this weekend. An invitation to experience the Glory of God in the face of the Risen Christ is the greatest gift you can give your friends.

Yours in Christ,

David+

Let’s get real before God. That is the title of my sermon this Sunday and I am eager to open God’s Word together.  The service outline for Lent is a bit different during this season. There is an important element of worship that takes place at the very beginning. (Hint: Don’t be late!) But all in all, the emphasis and focus of Lent is on the hope we have in God and God alone.

It is a perfect time to bring friends to church. As you might imagine, the whole North Dallas community is in need of hope and a deepening faith in God. We have been made painfully aware in recent months that the grasp we thought we had on our life–the securities of the world–is tentative. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and I am so grateful to God for all the people He allowed us to minister to. I saw many of you, but I also saw a lot of faces I haven’t seen in awhile. And I even saw a lot of new visitors. In fact, our Ash Wednesday attendance was up by about 150 over last year. Over the past several days, we gave out around 1,500 of the Lenten Devotional Books! So what does this all mean? I think it means that people are hungry for the comfort that a church can bring in times of need. They want a reminder of the truths of God that never change. And Christ Church is perfectly poised to deliver the gift of Christ’s message to this community. So please continue to invite. The gift that gets us through these tough times…and gives us more security than we ever imagined…is hope and faith in God. A friend of mine sent me this quote by the great preacher, C. H. Spurgeon: “-Little faith will bring your souls to Heaven, but great faith will bring Heaven to your souls.”

Fran read me a portion of her journal the other day…and I asked her if I could reprint it here for you. She wrote:

We are each called to pursue the journey of sanctification—

• lives that are totally surrendered to God
• lives that reflect and worship Him alone
• lives that are disciplined to honor all He has done
• lives that are content in all things
• lives that are useful at all times
• lives that please and glorify HIM alone
• Soli Deo Gloria

That is what we are talking about and that is what I will try to express in my message this week.

Then, on this coming Monday, Fr. Ron McCrary will offer a workshop on the biblical spiritual disciplines. I know many committed Christians and people who work hard year after year to deepen their faith, but few are as knowledgeable and practiced in the biblical spiritual disciplines (the ones Jesus Himself practiced) as Fr. Ron. You will be blessed by his presentation and you will love meeting Ron, so please carve out two hours to come!

Here are a few things you need to know:

1. Saturday is the day of Ordination for Daniel Adkinson, Jason Bowman, and Susan Freeman.  These three candidates are known to many of you in the church.  But I assure you that they have been through an extensive process of study, preparation, examination and consideration.  They have all attained Masters level degrees in pursuit of this call.  They have been shepherded along the way by Fr. Jeff Rawn and other members of the staff and lay groups. The service will be at 10:30 a.m. this Saturday. I have the honor of preaching.  Our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Philip Jones, will conduct the service. You are invited!
2. On Sunday we will be joined in worship at 11 a.m. by nearly 100 of Christ Church’s finest young people, our Middle School youth.  They will be fresh off a great weekend called “DiscipleNow.” Wow…they bring a lot of life and joy to our church. Get ready!
3. The Vestry election is this weekend as well.  These are great men and women, and the church has a very difficult task of making these selections.  We are electing four to serve on a board of 12. In the Anglican tradition and the by-laws of our parish, the vestry serves to assist the rector (me) in the execution of the ministry. They vote to approve a budget (which will be available for you to see this weekend too), they serve as a counsel of advice, and they protect the financial integrity of the ministry. Only members of the parish are allowed to vote. Our by-laws allow us to hold our “annual meeting” as a worship service in which people are allowed to cast their ballot. Results will be in next week’s edition of The Call. I am personally thankful for the ministry of the out-going members of the vestry: Terre Michaels, Harry Harrison, Bill Breckinridge, and especially our Sr. Warden, Scott Tuthill. Click here for the current vestry member list.
4. I want to encourage our married and seriously dating couples to come to the seminar I am doing called The Biblical Vision of Marriage.  It may not sound like an exciting topic…but I assure you it will be.  I will outline for you the biblical definition of marriage, what God wants for our marriages (based on His Word), how men and women are to get along as husbands and wives, the purpose of sex and intimacy, and a few pointers that might be helpful to all married and seriously dating people. It’s Wednesday, March 11 at 6:30 p.m.

That’s it for now.  It is a very busy time, but our activities are focused on only three things: the Worship of Christ, our Growth in Christ, and our service to Christ. Sound familiar?

As you heard on Ash Wednesday, I invite you to the observance of a Holy Lent.

David+