Hope you all are staying warm and enjoying watching the snow fall!
*Please note that this weekend is the Women’s Retreat and there will not be a Discipleship Hour on Sunday. Also, our congregation will look a little different with many of our women away at the retreat. 🙂
In this week’s Update you will find information on the following (more details on each of these below):
- Anchor Fund Offering
- Lent Begins Wednesday
- Churchwide Evangelism Training on Friday
- Youth News
- NEST Outreach Opportunity
- Wanting to be Baptized?
Anchor Fund Offering
The Diocese that we belong to, the Diocese of Christ Our Hope, has created the “Anchor Fund,” and has asked that all of the congregations in the Diocese prayerfully consider how they can be a part of this offering. Please take a few minutes to go to this page: https://www.adhope.org/anchorfund, which explains more about how the Anchor Fund will substantially strengthen the work of the Diocese to support churches in their growth. Check out the video and begin praying about how God would have you, as an individual or as a family, respond!
Lent Begins Wednesday
The Lenten season begins this week on February 26th with an Ash Wednesday service at 6:00pm. Lent lasts for 40 days, and is a time of repentance and fasting, leading up to the celebration of Easter on April 12th! Make sure to grab the Lenten resources available in the Fellowship Hall to help you intentionally observe Lent. The book Lent: The Journey from Ash Wednesday to Holy Week is also a great resource, and is available in the Fellowship Hall to purchase for $10.
Don’t forget: this is the last Sunday to bring in your palm crosses from last year’s Palm Sunday, since they will be burned and the ashes used during our Ash Wednesday service.
Churchwide Evangelism Training on Friday
Would you like to grow more comfortable in sharing the Good News of Christ? Do you want your friends and family to know The Truth, but you don’t know how to tell them? Starting this Lent, CtR will begin using the CCQ course format of “Connect, Content, and Question” to grow into an intentionally evangelistic church.
Next Friday, February 28th, we will kick off the Evangelism Training with a potluck dinner and teaching time from 6:00pm – 7:45pm. Childcare will be provided. We are encouraging all Life Groups to not meet that week, but instead come together as a congregation. The Training will continue in a special Discipleship Hour class, starting March 1st and offered every week during Lent!
Youth News
Youth parents please download the Group Me app on your smart phones in order to help streamline communication within the Youth Ministry! Also, save the date for the next Youth Group night, which will be on Sunday, March 1st , 6:00- 8:00pm at the Inman’s house. Contact David+ at revdavidwatts@gmail.com if you need the address.
Don’t forget that registration for Camp Booyah is open! Only 4 slots are left so now is the time to register! More information can be found on their website or you can contact David+ if you have any questions.
NEST Outreach Opportunity
We have a local mission opportunity coming up on the week of March 4th – 11th, to help Crossroads Church in ministering to the homeless through the Norfolk Emergency Shelter Team (NEST) program. The homeless guests are picked up by buses and taken to area churches for a hot meal, housing for the night, a hot breakfast and a take-away lunch. We can help by assembling the bag lunches at CtR each afternoon during March 4th-11th, 4:00 – 5:00pm and deliver them to Crossroads.
Please sign up through this link or on the paper lunch bags in Fellowship Hall if you and/or your family are able to help! Also, we will need funds to purchase the lunch foods and bags. If you want to contribute to this outreach, send a check or money to CtR earmarked for NEST. If you have any questions you can speak to Temple: 757-620-0740 or t.richardson@cox.net .
Wanting to be Baptized?
We are planning to celebrate Baptisms on the second Sunday of Easter (April 19th). If you and/or your children are interested in being baptized, please contact Father Brian at revbriancampbell@gmail.com.
“O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain; Grant that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
– Collect for The Last Sunday of Epiphany, Transfiguration (BCP 2019)