Monday, April 21, 2014

Looking Back From Easter Day
This post was written on Easter Monday, Holy Week  behind us Easter Celebrated both in Gander and Benton, as literally hundreds attended the various forms of Worship provided in our Parish.

The podcast for Maundy Thursday had a recording glitch, so it is not available.
Confession is good for the soul ... (actually I plugged the output jack of our sound board into the headphone jack of the Computer we use for recording....my bad.)

Good Friday Services were well attended again this year.

Hour One  

A  liturgy Led primarily by our young people, including the Message.
A fair number of our Confirmation Class  2014,have expressed great interest in Worship and mission, and have become willing participants in both the Liturgy and ongoing life of the Church.

The Second Hour
of the Good Friday Service Was our "Stations of the Cross" led by Our Associate Priest Revd. Brian Candow, and a host of people from the Church.

Hour Three
was the Good Friday Liturgy from the Book of Alternative Services. At the Same time, Bishop David Torraville was leading a Good Friday Worship in Benton.

Revd John provided the Address.
The Podcast of the sermon is available here: Good Friday

Easter Services
The worship for Easter consisted of a Holy Saturday at the Church in Benton.
On Sunday:

8:30 Communion at St. Martin's
10:30 Communion at St. Martin's
Later that afternoon Revd. John and Revd. Jim Beaton, held a service of Holy Communion at Golden Legion Manor;  Revd. Brian spent the afternoon and evening in the neighbouring parish of Gander Bay, helping provide Easter Communion worship.
Our 10:30 Eucharist was the main service of our day.
It was, as our Easter worship should be, energetic, diverse and Joyful.
Our youth choir, Cathedral Choir, Emily Laite and Leslie Hewlett along with her Father provided special music and song. Children were everywhere, and they had a ball and made lots of noise! (even providing a huge surprise by changing the settings on the slower sound board when the mikes were off and know one was looking....when we turned them on for a song, it sounded like a banshee was in the Church!)

The Rector took on the challenge of preaching a full Easter Sermon designed to face the realities of Christianity today in the midst of the doubt and antagonism that challenges the Faithful today. http://ourcommunion.org/easter2014.mp3
Here is the Outline of the Address : The podcast is available Here

Easter Sermon Outline:
• Beginning with an Opening Quote from J.B. Phillips:
The trouble with many people today is that they have not found a God big enough for modern needs. While their experience of life has grown in a score of directions, and their mental horizons have been expanded to the point of bewilderment by world events and by scientific discoveries, their ideas of God have remained largely static. It is obviously impossible for an adult to worship the conception of God that exists in the mind of a child of Sunday-school age, unless he is prepared to deny his own experience of life. If, by a great effort of will, he does do this he will always be secretly afraid lest some new truth may expose the juvenility of his faith.
Continuing with a discussion of these points:

• The Gradual Change in Society’s views of Christianity
• The development of an anti religious/Anti Christian Culture
• The Negative Influences that HAVE affected you and I
• Is Science the Nail in the Coffin of Christianity?
• How Science Upholds the presence and actions of a Living God.
• The Challenge, the Warning and the Blessing for Us on Easter Sunday



HAPPY EASTER EVERY TO ONE
CHRIST IS RISEN!

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