Easter is just around the corner!

It is hard to believe that Easter is almost here. As we talked about this past Sunday, Easter is very early this year and of course that means that we have to get ready extra early. This Sunday is Palm Sunday, which means that Good Friday and Easter Sunday are just about a week away (depending upon when you are reading this blog). I wanted to take a moment and give a few words of exhortation coming in to Easter.

First, I want to encourage everyone to take some time over the next couple of weeks to really focus in on what Easter is all about. This time of year provides many distractions that can keep us from focusing in on Easter. For instance, Spring Break starts this weekend and I know that many of you have plans for this week. Another distraction is the NCAA Tournament that has its opening round the same weekend as Easter. I am not saying that we can't enjoy Spring Break or the NCAA Tournament (I plan to fill out my bracket like normal). But Easter is a very important event each year in our lives and it is good for us to take some time to focus on the cross and remember Christ's sacrifice for us. I want to encourage all of us to not let the other things that are happening around Easter, keep us from experiencing God during that time.

For those of you who are parents, I also want to encourage you to make sure that you are helping your family focus in on what Easter is all about. As a family, we like to do devotions each evening (for the days or weeks leading in to Easter) that are based on Christ's sacrifice. We started two nights ago with a book called "Benjamin's Box." This book (along with others like it) use the "Resurrection Eggs" which are eggs that help you focus in on the Easter message with your children. If you don't want to do a book or use the eggs, you can always just spend time reading about the events in Jesus' life leading in to Easter. If you want other suggestions, please feel free to give me a call.

The last thing that I want to encourage us all about is the community-wide Good Friday Tenebrae service that we are going to have at Community Church of Columbus on Friday, March 21. The Tenebrae Service is a wonderful way to focus in on Christ's sacrifice for us and this year we also have the opportunity to do that along with other believers from the Church as a whole in Columbus. This is a great time to come together as "one Church" in our community and focus in on Christ's sacrifice. This is not a CCC event that we are planning to attend, it is a combined effort with 5 churches in our community and we had a major role in pulling this all together. We will have several people from our church involved in this service and I am hoping that we will also have several more in the congregation. The service is at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, March 21, at Community Church of Columbus. I hope that you can be there.