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As part of the Honor Flight fundraising Luncheon and Trivia Event this Sunday, April 23, we are also having a silent auction to help send our kids to summer camp. See a list of items to be auctioned as well as photos of some of the items.

If you are not able to attend the auction but would like to participate, please call Michelle at 309-648-2786 with your initial bid and your top (final) bid.  We have people monitoring the items for just this purpose.

If Michelle doesn’t answer, please leave your name and telephone number so you can be reached if you win your item(s).

Thank you in advance for your participation!

Come celebrate the resurrection with us on Easter Sunday, April 9! First Light Worship begins at 8:15 a.m., and Traditional Worship begins at 10:30 a.m. Both services will feature the “Flowering of the Cross” on our front lawn. Come experience the joy, hope, and life of the Risen Christ.

Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street       Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live

Eureka Christian Church invites you to a Stations of the Cross prayer experience between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 8.  This event is free and open to the public.

During this reimagined experience of the classic Stations of the Cross, you will move through eight prayer stations as you keep vigil with Jesus at the pivotal moments in his journey to the cross:

• Station One:  In the Garden
• Station Two:  Betrayal and Arrest
• Station Three:  Peter’s Denial
• Station Four:  At Trial
• Station Five:  Torment and Anguish
• Station Six:  Crucified
• Station Seven:  Last Breath
• Station Eight:  Laid in the Tomb

Eureka Christian Church is located at 302 South Main in Eureka, Illinois. 

Join us Easter Sunday, April 9 for a children’s egg hunt beginning at 9:30 a.m. on the front lawn. All children ages toddler through 4th grade are welcome. Bring your basket and join the fun!

We have come to the most significant week in the circle of the church year. From Palm Sunday through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to the empty tomb of Easter Day, we will journey with Jesus through the final moments of his life.

Join us.

April 2, Palm Sunday:  Palm parade in both services at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
April 6, Maundy Thursday:  Service at 7:00 p.m.
April 6-7, 24-Hour Prayer Vigil
April 7,  Good Friday:  Community service at noon at the Eureka Presbyterian Church.
April 8, Community Stations of the Cross in our Chapel from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
April 9, Easter Sunday:  Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.  Children’s Easter Egg Hunt at 9:30 a.m.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday when we remember Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, welcomed by a cheering, palm-branch-waving crowd. In the sermon, I will be talking about Jesus’ crazy, risky love that carried him into Jerusalem that day. The same crazy, risky love he asks us to share. Here’s a preview.

Jesus moved through the world acknowledging those everybody else cast aside. He touched the lepers. He ate with sinners. He stood up for them and defended them too. He interacted with the town pariahs. He recognized their humanity. Tended to their needs. He embodied hope and mercy and compassion wherever he went. He moved through the world bringing love, not condemnation. 

Jesus’ echoing, risky love was for the underdog, the downtrodden, the forgotten, the stigmatized, the disempowered, the persecuted, the judged. Jesus found that little piece of God inside every person and nurtured it, fanned it into a flame of worth and hope and life. 

This is our work too. If we’re going to call ourselves Disciples.

We say what needs to be said. We do what needs to be done. We stand up to those who take advantage of others, those abuse their power. And we stand up for those who have no power, those who have no voice. We take risks. We go boldly. We dare and dream and do. We open our ears and our stubborn, stubborn hearts to the urgent current of need crying out for justice right here, right now. “Hosanna, please!” they cry. “See us. Hear us. Acknowledge us. Be with us. Defend us.” 

Can we do these things, Disciples? Because if we can, we are bearing the fruit of the kingdom.

I’ll see you Sunday.

Jennie

Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street       Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live

In Sunday’s sermon, I will be preaching on the extraordinary raising of Lazarus from John 11. In case you’re not familiar with the story, here’s a quick recap.

Jesus gets word that one of his closest friends is ill. But by the time he arrives, his friend Lazarus has already died. Jesus asks to be taken to the tomb where they have laid the body, and then he says something shocking: “Take away the stone.” Nobody wants to take the away stone because Lazarus’ un-embalmed body has been in that tomb for four days, and you can imagine…well, some things are better left unsaid. Nevertheless, they do what Jesus asks. Then Jesus does something even more shocking. “Lazarus, come out!” he cries, and the dead man walks out of the tomb, still wrapped in his graveclothes. “Unbind him!” Jesus says at the end of the story, “Let him go.”

“Unbind him!  Let him go.” These are good words; they are mighty powerful words. Mighty enough to bring a dead man out of the tomb. Mighty enough to bring change and light, hope and life to us too. 

“Unbind him! Unbind her! Let them go!” Jesus says to you and to me. 

What has you bound? What has you confined? What has you wrapped so tight that all you can manage are tentative, stilted, shuffling steps when God wants us to leap and dance and shout with joy? Life is supposed to be filled with joy!

“I came that you might have life,” Jesus says, “and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Are you having abundant life? If your answer is no, then something has you bound. Something has you trapped.

Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s grief or anger, regrets or old wounds. Maybe it’s insecurity. Or a destructive, toxic relationship. Maybe it’s depression, stress, exhaustion, or addiction. Maybe it’s loneliness. Maybe it’s boredom. Maybe it’s a vision of your life that just doesn’t fit anymore.

Whatever it is, this is not what God intends for you or for me. Instead, God longs for us to be unbound, loosed from whatever it is that traps us, confines us, and keeps us from abundant life.

I’ll see you Sunday.

Jennie

Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street       Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live