March 30

I've just returned from Asbury's Good Friday Tenebrae Service. It was awesome! Thank you, actors, choir members, musicians, audio technicians, and livestream technicians for helping us have such a powerful experience. I also want to thank our greeters and ushers for welcoming people, and a special thank you goes to Gerry and Marlon Harman for being our acolytes — which are very important roles in a Service of Shadows.

The Season of Lent comes to its climactic end on Sunday with Easter — which is really just the beginning. It's the start of new life, new hope, new opportunities. The Easter Service at Wesley Oak will starts at 9:30 a.m. and at Asbury Memorial at 11:15 a.m. If you want to get an extra dose of Easter, go to both services!

When I was an actor in New York, trying to deal with the rejection I would receive at auditions and trying to keep pushing on with my career, I would often go to the early morning service at Marble Collegiate Church, and then remain in the sanctuary for the 11:15 Service. I would hear Dr. Arthur Caliandro at the early service and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale at the second service. By the time I got out of church, I felt like I could jump over the moon! So maybe going to both services will be just what the doctor ordered for you on Easter Sunday!

I also hope that you will invite someone to church. Everyone needs a dose of hope and a dose of love...and there's going to be plenty of hope and love going around on Easter Sunday. So, invite, invite, invite! 

In the early 1990s, an Asburian named Steve Prewitt helped us create our first Living Cross in the church courtyard on Easter Sunday. Steve, unfortunately, passed away at a young age, but his idea of a Living Cross has remained and become one of Asbury's great traditions. 

What is a Living Cross, you ask.

Well.....you are invited to bring flowers to the courtyard to be put on a large wooden cross covered with chicken wire. When everyone's flowers are placed on the cross, it is transformed into a celebration of life and beauty. Many people love getting pictures with the Living Cross after the service. Also feel free to take pictures of the streams of living water in the sanctuary after the service. Since Lent will be coming to an end, this will be our last Sunday with our waterfall and streams of living water. So, if you are able, come to church with cameras and flowers to help us have a beautiful Living Cross.

One of the great traditions for Easter Sunday is having Easter Lilies in the sanctuary — lilies that are in honor and/or in memory of Loved Ones. Thank you for everyone who helped supply the Lilies. An insert will be in the bulletin with the names of those who are remembered and honored.

We also thank Helen Downing and Callie and Ken Hardigan for supplying the large, beautiful Easter Lily Cross in memory of Dr. Ned Downing.

We'll be having an Easter Egg Hunt at our Wesley Oak campus tomorrow, March 30th, from 10:00 a.m. to 12 Noon. All children are invited! 

Rev. Lynn Drake served as an associate minister at Asbury Memorial in the 1990s and then became the senior minister at Wesley Oak, where she served for many years until she retired last December. Next Sunday at 1:00, we'll be having a covered dish celebration of Lynn's ministry on the Wesley Oak Campus. So instead of having a BIG Coffee Hour after church on Sunday at Asbury, everyone is invited to bring their vittles over to Wesley Oak after church. 

I'm really looking forward to worshipping with you on Sunday. I love the hymns we sing on Easter. The music is going to be great! 

The message I'll be preaching is going to be one of the most important sermons I've ever preached. I'm looking forward to it. Please keep me in your prayers as I work on it.

Love & Blessings,
Billy