Thanks for a great celebration!
We had a wonderful celebration on Easter. It was really lively to have all the seats full as we gave thanks to God for raising Jesus and bringing us in on his resurrected life! Many persons work each week to help this congregation worship. For Easter we take note that Kristie, Harold, Dale, Alex, Debra and others worked to make the pre-service breakfast and post service GraceFeast yummy affairs. The musicians worked hard to pull together an eclectic variety of music. Anonymous someones brought plants and flowers so the place was beautiful. (by the way, those flowers need to be thrown out and the plants planted. Could someone please do that?)
Last week we received money from a grant we wrote… a long time ago, $2000! The grant money is to help defray the cost of GraceFeast! Special thanks goes to Vivian and Laurin who primarily wrote the grant and to friends, Linda Fecher, Mary Reardon and Alex Ladaku who wrote personal testimonies to the value of GraceFeast for them.
Pastor Fecher will be “swapping pulpits” with Pastor Scott Kramer of Lakeridge Lutheran. It might sound illicite but it really isn’t. Fecher preaches at Lakeridge and Kramer preaches at GoG. The swap will happen May 6th. The purpose is to allow GoG to get to know a ministry neighbor in south Seattle and to allow Lakeridge Lutheran get to know GoG!
On May 20, Kira Elliot will preach and lead worship at GoG. Pastor Fecher will be in Berkeley for the seminary graduation of Valerie Carlson. Valerie is the 5th person to graduate from seminary, for whom GoG has been the sending congregation.
God has made us a rich congregation with a rich ministry. Let’s give heart felt thanks together that we are allowed to participate in God’s work on the corner of 40th and Meridian!
Holy Week 2012
The Cross veiled in White at Gift of Grace Lutheran Church symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning
The Gift of Grace community will celebrate Holy Week beginning this Sunday, April 1 with Palm/Passion Sunday. We will raise palms in praise of God as we remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem a week before his murder and resurrection.
Join us at 7:00 pm, Thursday, April 5 (Maundy Thursday) for the commemoration of the arrest and betrayal of Jesus Christ. There will be a service of hand and feet washing followed by the traditional stripping of the altar as we approach Good Friday.
Good Friday services marking the crucifixion of Jesus Christ take place on Friday April 6 at 7 pm.
Holy week will lead us to the most significant celebration in the history of the church — Easter Sunday Service of Christ’s Resurrection on April 8 at 10:30 am. A special GraceFeast Easter Brunch follows.
Lent
My friend recently had a near death experience that brought him face to face with
his mortality. It was, all at once, terrifying and a miracle. It changed his
life. He said it was like he was in the Matrix, (referring to the movie of
1999) and just awakened to realize it. It was a paradigm shift! When the lights
come on, they illumine what you want to see AND what you do not want to see.
That’s what it is like to genuinely face mortality, to bump up against human
limits, to realize I am in the hands of the Eternal God, that I will die and I
have nothing to say about it. It is terrifying and life-giving all at once.
Lent is a season when followers of Jesus mimic Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness
when he was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). It is like Jesus’ own near
death experience. The devil’s temptations intend to convey Jesus’ experience of
squarely facing his own mortality’s relationship to the augustness of Eternity.
In this scary position Jesus refused to rely on his own resources and relied
instead, only on God’s word, which in the end gave him the victory.
For 40 days (not counting Sundays) we mimic Jesus. We do something different
(extra worship, certain worship themes, personal devotional acts, etc…) to
help us face our own mortality and limits, in light of being in the hands of the
Eternal One. We dedicate ourselves to letting go of foolish self-reliance,
relying instead on God’s word to us in Jesus Christ, his path, his cross. The 40
days of Lent end in a crescendo of the great three days, Good Friday, Easter
Vigil and the Resurrection of our Lord. The entire event, Lent and Easter,
point again to our circumstance in relationship to the Eternal One. It is
terrifying and life-giving all at once, for our God is mighty and merciful.
Advent and Christmas Services at Gift of Grace
The season of Advent marks the beginning of the church year and is observed by the church as a season of preparation and joyful anticipation for the coming of Christ. Advent begins four weeks before Christmas and continues until December 24 when the season of Christmas is upon us and lasts for 12 days. Please join us for worship during the Advent season on Sunday’s at 10:30am followed by GraceFeast at noon. Gift of Grace will hold a candle light service on Christmas Eve at 7:30pm. Christmas Day services will be held at 10:30am, followed by GraceFeast.
Pre-Christmas Concert – Saturday, December 3, 2011
Concert December 3, 2011
Community, SHARE, GOG set meeting
Located in the lower level of the Discovery House building, the entrance to Mosaic is on the corner of 2nd Ave and NE 44th St.
The meeting follows the opening of the shelter this week amidst community concerns regarding the preschool that also operates within the church. The SHARE shelter is scheduled to operate only in the evening hours when the preschool is not operating. Some parents expressed deep concerns not only about the safety of their children, but also about the lack of community notification for the SHARE shelter. Most of the neighbors around the church were notified days before a September 12 meeting, and less than a week before the shelter’s September 15 opening at Gift of Grace. Gift of Grace leaders say the school knew of the shelter plan earlier but did not inform parents regarding plans for the shelter.
Saturday’s meeting will be the first of two scheduled meetings at Mosaic and will be moderated by Woody Pidcock, a member of the Gift of Grace congregation. The second meeting on Saturday, October 23 is designed to be a community feedback session after the shelter’s first month of operation.
For more on the shelter controversy, read the following:
WallyBlog, the official blog of the Wallingford Community
http://www.wallyhood.org/2010/09/share-homeless-shelter-coming-wallingford-gift-grace-church/comment-page-3/#comment-24431
Seattlepi.com City Brights, a blog by Gift of Grace member, Barbara Sehr
http://blog.seattlepi.com/barbarasehr/archives/221436.asp
Initiating Communications — a letter from Pastor Fecher
The Rev. Jami Fecher, pastor of Gift of Grace Lutheran Church in Wallingford
Dear Friends and neighbors,
As promised I am (barely) meeting my deadline to communicate with you. This initial communication is purely an effort to set up further communication. The thing we are communicating about is presence of the SHARE shelter at Gift of Grace. At the informational meeting with SHARE last Sunday, hosted at Gift of Grace, among the many thoughts expressed, I am lifting out two things that can help us move forward: 1) an open and broad public forum 2) a team of people who more or less monitor any impact the SHARE shelter is having on the Wallingford neighborhood.
Since there have been many concerns raised there is a lot to sort through. One articulate neighbor suggested that we proceed with public conversations in a two-pronged way, 1) an immediate public forum to hear and understand concerns 2) a forum planned further out that considers how those concerns are addressed after a reasonable period of time, like 6 weeks or so.
read more » »
WE ARE BACK!
The ecstasy begins anew. The agony of Web crashes, spam attacks and interruptions in our Web presence are over for the moment. We have put together a brand new site at a new host, and hope you’ll keep coming back to www.giftofgrace.org.
You’ll find a few old favorites missing, a different content management system in place, and no need to register your presence — unless you want to participate by leaving comments on this site. This remains the home of Gift of Grace Lutheran Church, doing God’s work at 40th and Meridian in Seattle. This remains a reflection of our small, but vibrant community that reaches out each Sunday to share worship and GraceFeast with our Wallingford neighbors. Feel free to leave us suggestions on how this site can serve you better. We are here to fulfill our mission:
“To invest our whole selves in lifting up Christ for our neighbors, inviting them more deeply into the Life of God. “