Holy Week is Here

To say this has been a busy month would be an understatement.  But it has all been good.  There have been so many good things happening at PCMK it is hard to take it all in.  Some of the highlights of the month have been:

• Confirmation meetings early Sunday mornings.
• Family fun night playing 'sardines' in the sanctuary.
• Guest preacher, Rick Ufford-Chase (Wow!  If you missed Rick's sermon you can listen to it on our website at pcmk.org, or watch it on our youtube channel: pcmkny)
• Life's Tough Decisions Workshops with professional speakers.
• Beginning of Youth mission shares sales.
• Palm Sunday with children's procession.
• The arrival of spring?!

It is a busy time of year, but Holy Week is the most important part of the church year.  We celebrate with palms, but we also remember the pain of betrayal and crucifixion.  Then we come together to remember that death does not have the last word.  Christ lives!
I hope you are able to join us for Maundy Thursday service and then for Easter.  Sunday, March 31st is going to be a climactic finale for a spiritually full and rewarding month.
See you in church,
Pastor Dale

Getting to Know Each Other

Sunday evening the Youth Mission Team held our first planning meeting.  We met in the home of Jeff and Suzette Kraus (Juliet is coming on the trip).  Their hospitality was wonderful as we had the use of a warm family room and we had great food including sushi! (But what would a youth group meeting be without pizza, so we had some pizza bites). 

A main purpose of the evening was to get ready for the start of our Mission Shares Sales which begin this Sunday, the 17^th.  I know the congregation will get behind these wonderful young people and “invest” in this project.

After the business part of the meeting we played some games to get to know each other better (after all we are going to be living and working together for a week this summer!).  Sarah pulled from her bag of tricks some games that made us cooperate to achieve a goal.  We had some measure of success, and there were lots of laughs along the way.

This is a great group of young people that I am looking forward to getting to know better.  A Mission trip can be a time to grow closer to God as we serve others.  It can also be a time to grow closer to one another, and to that end we are off to a great start!

See you in church,

Pastor Dale

Lent on the Homestretch

We are past the halfway point through Lent, and that is a good feeling.  There is much that I enjoy about Lent—I try to enjoy the spiritual journey.  But the destination is what it is all about.  The Lenten journey takes us to Easter, and boy am I ready for Easter this year.  Part of it may be that I am ready for spring, as I am sure you are.  Even skiers would admit we are due for spring (spring skiing can be some of the best).  As I write this we are enjoying another blast of winter with almost a foot of snow.  I returned home from a meeting last evening and for the fourth time this winter I could not get up the driveway to the manse.  I had to park the car and walk through the church building.  But that was a nice detour because I saw Terry and Lisa Flanagan wrapping things up in the sanctuary after choir practice.  I always enjoy seeing these good friends and colleagues in ministry.  They always are pleasant with a ready smile.  And we always have something to talk about--Terry and I have our ministry in common, and Lisa always keeps me up to date on the hockey scores (go Penguins).

So just some random thoughts as I wrap up another week of Lent on the journey towards Easter.

See you in church,

Pastor Dale