Worship Connection for April 24, 2022

Good morning!  This page is intended to both serve as a continuing worship option for those participating in our worship service from home, and to serve in place of print resources during our in-person worship.  Following the worship service on Sunday, one or more video recordings from the service will be placed on this page, including the sermon.  This may take several hours, due to the time needed to process the videos.  We will email the congregation when the recordings have been posted.  If you would like to be added to our congregational email list, please contact pvcob.alive@gmail.com.

• Softball is starting soon so mark your calendars for May 9! There will be three practices leading up to the start. Sunday May 1 at 6pm, Wednesday May 4 at 7pm, and Sunday May 8 at 6pm. Please contact Kyle Myers with any questions.

• Brethren Woods is looking for donations for their Spring Festival on Saturday, April 30th.  Donations are needed for the yard sale and auction.  Item suggestions are: comforter’s/quilts, crafts, theme baskets, collectibles, artwork, wooden items, antiques and baked goods. I will be glad to take small items (that will fit in my car) to Brethren Woods.  These donations need to be dropped off in the Church Library by Sunday,April 24th. Plan to come out to bid, buy and take home a treasure. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Emily Ashby at 540-480-1313

• Is there a special place in the Valley that brings you peace and clarity? As part of our mission of refugee resettlement, Isabelle Garber has started a new project, Places of Peace. She’s asking for submissions from the PVCoB community members that she will then compile into a bound book to give to the refugee family. This mission intends to serve their mental health, help them feel adjusted to the area, and help them get to know us better! If you’re interested, please write a short paragraph describing your place of peace and why it’s important to you (photos are also optional but encouraged!) Please email Isabelle Garber garberisabelle@gmail.comwith submissions by April 15th (late submissions accepted)!

• Backpack Pals are accepting donations of Pudding Cups and Ramen Noodles! Pudding cups are especially needed. Please leave any donations in the blue bin located in the Narthex.  Thank you!

• The 22nd Annual SDDA Golf Tournament is Friday, May 20th at Heritage Oaks Golf Course! You can pick up more   information in the Narthex found at the trifold display. If you have any questions, please contact Don Landes. 

One warm early spring a few years ago, I was walking around the church when I noticed something disheartening. While other trees around the church were starting to bud and bloom, the big oak tree in front of the church was not responding to the warming weather. I reached up to examine a twig and it snapped off, dry in my hand. This tree was probably at least 75 years old and over the winter it had died.

It was a great deal of work, cutting down this great oak, along with some other trees around the church that needed to be removed. Some had died, and others had become overgrown. But there was still possibility, even in the dead wood. David Weade took a piece of the wood. He infused it with resin, and turned this beautiful urn. He had to infuse it with resin, because the death had been going on in that tree much linger than we knew. The wood had already become fairly soft and pithy. It needed new strength in order to become anything, But now, infused with resin, It becomes the bowl we have here.
It will not replace the beautiful tree that we have lost, but I pray it will serve as a reminder that even death is not the end in Christ. Instead, in Christ, we find a strength and beauty that truly is beyond what we can bear.

Where do you need more of Jesus presence infused in your life? Where are you worn out and tired? Where do you long, hope, and pray for God’s spirit to come down, to enter in, to raise us up and make us so much more?

Confession

Almighty God, we confess to You
we want the easy answers, the shortcuts,
the quickest way to get what we want.
The ways of this world tempt us toward an easier life,
in which we do not care about others,
but only our own desires.
Forgive us for these desires that are not Yours.
Show us Your way of life,
that seeks justice for the oppressed,
relief for the suffering,
and love for the least.
Guide us into Your way,
That seeks truth and healing
even when it painfully strips away our illusions.
Keep us on the path of knowledge and insight,
knowing that You are with us, always.
In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Adapted from a prayer at rev-o-lution.org

Assurance of God’s Grace

Based on Jeremiah 31

Thus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar
Do not weep,
wipe the tears from your eyes;
there is hope for your future.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Again I will build you, and you shall be built.
I will put my law within you, and I will write it on your hearts;
I will be your God, and you shall be my people.
You shall all know me, every single one of you are mine.
For I will forgive your iniquity, and remember your sin no more.