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 Dear friends,  

This is a holy time. It is a time that is set apart, sacred, not the ordinary.  

This coming Sunday, April 10, is the congregational vote on “the Leadership Team recommendation that Grace become a Redevelopment Congregation and enter into a Redevelopment Covenant with the ELCA Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod.” It is an important day in the life of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, a culmination of several years of hard and faithful work done by your Leadership Team, Pastor Chris, the congregation, and from the Synod -- Bishop Mike, Brother Chris and Pastor Tracey. I hope that you will make every effort to be here in person or on Zoom and to make your own convictions known by your vote. It is clear to me that God is in this work!  

Next week is Holy Week.  

On April 14, we’ll gather in the sanctuary at 7pm for Maundy Thursday worship. We’ll hear scripture about communion and the new commandment that Jesus gave his followers; we’ll share communion together at the rail; we’ll witness the sanctuary being stripped. Maundy Thursday has long been one of my favorite worship experiences of the year, as we share the gift of breaking bread together, are reminded of the importance of serving others – sometimes in uncomfortably intimate ways, and are drawn into the reality of human betrayal and denial of Jesus, including our own.  

On April 15, we’ll again gather in the sanctuary, this time for Good Friday worship. This hard, somber, service reminds us all that we have prepared a cross for our savior. It encourages us to  sit with the ugliness and pain of Jesus’ crucifixion. The service does not wrap everything up with a nice bow, but leaves us in the darkness of Jesus crucified, being taken down from a cross only to have his body placed in a cave hewn into some rock in a hillside.  

My personal tradition is to spend some time on Easter Saturday in a cemetery. I need to sit with the enormity of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us so that I am ready for the great good news of the alleluias we will hear and say on Easter.  

And April 17 is Easter. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!  

This is a holy time.  

Grace and peace,  
Pastor Kim