Celebrating "Jesus Week" with your family

Some interesting thoughts from the Worshiping with Children blog, as we look towards Easter Sunday. From the blog:

Lent is impossibly long for children – almost six weeks and no real story to go with it.  That is forever!  But, Holy Week lasts only eight days and is filled with action stories.  Children are ready to focus for that time on the key stories of the Christian faith.  For them it is Jesus Week. 

http://www.worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.ca/2013/03/celebrating-jesus-week-lent-is.html

Take some time this week with your family. And if you're able, join us for Maundy Thursday's agape meal together, or the Good Friday choral meditations. See you for celebrations Easter Sunday!

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is always one of my favourite days of the church year.  I really enjoy it when the adult choir, children's choir and children of the church school enacted the excitement of the return of Jesus to Jerusalem.  It is invariably invigorating to see the children parade in with their palm branches, and this year was no exception.  I was also well pleased and proud to hear the children's choir sing this morning.  

I also enjoy Palm Sunday because it foreshadows spring.  It was fun to see the youth group this morning as the young people worked to construct a small greenhouse and plant seeds.  The seedlings that grow will be transplanted by the youth this year into CHEO's Healing Garden: http://www.cheo.on.ca/en/healing-garden  where they will be used as teaching tools for patients of CHEO's eating disorders clinic to help them learn about healthy eating, and where they will be enjoyed by CHEO inpatients who will be able to eat the vegetables and fruits they grow, work in the garden, and simply enjoy being outside.

Palm Sunday is a time that foreshadows new beginnings, and after a long, difficult, cold winter, and I look forward to Easter next week.

Rebecca

Pause Table

Over the past few years during exam time in December and April, St. Andrew’s supports the Pause Table at Carleton University.  This is coordinated in conjunction with the Carleton Ecumenical Chaplaincy.   The Carleton Ecumenical Chaplaincy is not funded by the university budget.  The university welcomes and accommodates the Chaplaincy but it is a not-for-profit corporation (charity) that depends on religious organizations and people of good will for its financial support.

The goal is to provide a ‘pause’ and a snack for students during exam time.  St. Andrew’s may partnered with another church for one morning during the exam period (10-2).  St. Andrean’s volunteer their time and either prepare or send goods to be shared with the students.  We are contacted by the Chaplaincy as to the date.

The following items have been popular:
- bananas, oranges, clementines, apples
- granola bars
- yoghurt
- bagels, cream cheese, peanut butter, jam
- baked goods - muffins, scones, biscuits, cookies
- sandwiches
- chocolate milk
- Wagon Wheels, Rice Krispie squares

The Chaplaincy supplies apple juice, coffee, tea, milk, sugar, stir sticks- coffee cups and cups for cold drinks as well as a coffee urn, kettle and toaster

We're volunteering with the Chaplaincy on April 16th, please sign up in Grant Hall if you're able to donate or spend a morning giving out snacks at Carleton.

Blog from Scots Kirk, Paris

Office_12 by Jason Jones on Flickr.

This morning, I shared greetings from St. Andrew's Ottawa and was asked to take the greetings of the Scots Kirk in Paris and Rev. Cowie back to Ottawa.

The sermon was entitled 'A Covenant Relationship'.  For the children, Rev. Cowie used a paper plate and a paper clip and asked the children what would happen if he turned it over.  He then used a magnet on the back of the paper plate and asked what would happen if he tried the same thing. 

He could not stump them!  He explained that a magnet attracts things are metal.  The most powerful 'magnet' in the world is Jesus' love.  Like the paper clips, some are attached strongly, others dangle because they are stuck to another clip and still others fall.  With God's love we cannot break the covenant even if we fail or fall.

Jeanie H.

Being willing to sprout

"Ready to spring" by Mike Lewinski on flickr

I feel fortunate to live in a part of the world where spring is just beginning to come around during the season of Lent.  We considered darkness during the beginning of the Prayer of Thanksgiving and it was so vivid, with the darkness of winter still fresh in my mind. Even though this morning was a snowy one, we could feel spring in the air.  And when Huda talked about seeds during the children's story, I knew that outside beneath the snow, the tulip bulbs were gathering their strength to make their appearance soon.

What brought it together for me was the liturgy we read at the end:

Like the Israelites, we foolishly complain. We love the darkness rather than the light.  God challenges us to live in the light rather than in darkness. God challenges us to stop indulging ourselves and ignoring the needs of others.  God challenges us to do the work that we are called to do, willingly and cheerfully.

As Jesus explained to the disciples (John 12:24), unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. We weren't made to be seeds.  We were made to stretch outside of the comfortable dark soil, and to grow into plants feeding on the light. Huda talked about how our aversion to pain makes us want to protect ourselves and so we forget to look at those around us.  But Jesus taught us that we need to stretch and grow and look at those around us, to be willing to be uncomfortable in order to show God's love to those around us.

Maureen R.