Eggstravaganza!

Mark your calendars:  APRIL 17th, at 2:00 PM Rain or Shine!

Thought for Lent: When Enough is Enough

From our friends at Touchstone Magazine

St. Paul writes "There is great gain in godliness with contentment." (1 Tim. 6:6) These two things we must admit run against the flow of unbridled consumerism, which many wrongly see as the engine of a robust economy that supports a free and virtuous society.
In the wisdom literature of Scripture, restraint and self-control and contentment are praised.

Remove far from me falsehood and lying' give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, "Who is the Lord?" or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God." (Proverbs 30:8-9)

There is great gain in knowing how much more is enough so we "seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." We've already died, says St. Paul, and our true life is hidden with Christ in God. The problem is its hiddenness. Without an active faith, we don't see it or how it relates to the day-to-day world. We think it's a Sunday-only sort of thing, but it never goes away. Grasping it is a means of great gain, much greater than anything a consumer can buy.

April Men's Retreat at Liberty Corner

Pastor Jerry McGlynn will be leading the REC Men's Retreat April 29-30 at the Fellowship Deaconry in Liberty Corner NJ.  Sign-up deadline is April 27th.  Registration forms are in the Church Lobby.

Sometimes, A Song is Worth A Thousand Words

To Help Japan

The Anglican Relief Fund is collecting funds to assist the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami. 

ARDF Japan Relief Fund to Give Assistance to Earthquake Stricken Japan and Surrounding Areas

Japan struck by 8.9 magnitude earthquake, triggering massive tsunami

March 11, 2011

Dear Members and Friends of the Anglican Church in North America,

A powerful 8.9 earthquake shook Japan at 2:46 pm on Friday, March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami.  The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch, New Zealand last month.

To read more and to give online, click here

Lenten Devotional Booklets

Please make sure you pick up your Lenten Devotional Booklets in the Narthex large table.  This year, the booklet will contain collects for each week and Bible readings for every day in Lent.  The Bible readings will focus on the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Penitential Psalms (and the Passion narrative during Holy Week).  In addition, there is a passage from an Early Church Father for each week.

A Cup in the Lord's Name

Our parish mugs have arrived!  We want each family in the parish to have one free of charge.  If you wish to have additional mugs, please make a donation of $5 for each additional mug to our outreach fund.  Every first time visitor will receive one of these mugs on our first follow-up visit.  Special thanks to C&C Ceramics for doing such a fine job in producing these mugs.

5 Things to Take Up This Lent - Guideposts

Every Lent my teenage daughters give something up—or at least consider it.
It’s the usual things. Chocolate. Pop. A favorite TV show. Once Lulu gave up meat. Last year, Charlotte renounced caffeine, a sacrifice she found especially challenging since it meant going without her beloved Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar.

Still, she told me, it was easier than the other act of self-denial she’d been contemplating: “no technology”—that is, 40 days without Facebook or texting.
“But why are you doing it? What does it mean?” I routinely ask, hoping for some impressive spiritual motive.

Penitence, perhaps, or the desire to share in Jesus’ suffering. Judging from their answers (the universal teenage non-answer, “Just ’cuz”) and their spotty success, I’m guessing the closest they come to any spiritual goal is guilt.

“I know it’s supposed to make me think about God,” Charlotte told me last year as we neared Easter, “but, to be honest, it doesn’t always.”
Thinking about God is what Lent’s about. Having discovered my faith after spending two decades abstaining from everything God-related—decades of lonely, hungry atheism that might be called “my long Lent”—I like to devote the Lenten period to seeking out and indulging in God’s presence.
Lent doesn’t always mean forbidding ourselves some pleasure. It can be an opportunity to seek the pleasure of God’s presence.

Read the rest of the essay:
5 Things to Take Up This Lent - Guideposts

Especially for Ash Wednesday: Death by Imposition

The Rev. Russell Saltzman, Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church, Kansas City MO
First Things

There was an Ash Wednesday when the only oil I had to mix with the ashes was clove oil, an unwise choice as I learned. I didn’t know the stuff burned crazy on the skin, and if left on too long would leave a red mark one could see in the mirror the next morning. I didn’t really start feeling it until about halfway through the sermon. I had been the first one to receive ashes, and then my parishioners started catching up with me. They did let me stay on a while longer as pastor, but I still think my farewell reception was poorly attended.

But then we call the central act of Ash Wednesday the Imposition of Ashes, don’t we? Maybe it should burn a little and leave a mark—no pain, no gain, they say; no cross, no crown. Death intrusively imposes itself upon us, sometimes in the oddest ways, with aged gerbils and sheep disappearing down the road and boats a man will never sail in again. “Remember,” I will say as I impose the ashes upon my people next Wednesday, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” They do not need me to remind them. “Change and decay around is all I see,” intones the old hymn.

For all the losses we endure in life until we have lost life itself there is, we will say in our liturgy, this hope: “Bring us with all your saints to the joy of Christ’s resurrection.” Never are we left in the dust.

Read the entire essay here

New Jersey REC Youth!

Noah and I were in attendance at the gathering of NJ REC Youth last night at Covenant Chapel in Basking Ridge.  Worship was led by a small praise band, and Pastor Jerry from Emmanuel Church in Somerville led a Bible Lesson.  The group, full of enthusiasm, is set to meet on the first Wednesday of each month.

Best of all, on April 6th, the Youth will be present at the Lenten Service at St. Luke's Church!  Afterwards, they will convene at Friendly's for ice cream.