The Easter Season or Eastertide is the period of fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, which is held this year on May 24, 2015. During this season of celebration, we can also reflect on the Lenten season just past through many photos which remind us of Good Shepherd events and activities.

• Weekly Wednesday night services using Holden Evening Prayer, followed by a puppet ministry and soup suppers, with three Luther College Choirs participating; Faith Stories shared by congregation members.
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• LWR Basket of Promise Personal Care Kits initiative
• Sunday School Lenten project, Mutuelle Matters
• Special Adult Forums
• Weekly Lenten Bible Study with Pastor April, Going Deeper
• Three noontime organ recitals on the Hook and Hastings Organ
• Palm Sunday (Sunday of the Passion with Holy Communion)
• Maundy Thursday service of Holy Communion with Personal Absolution and Stripping of the Altar
• Good Friday Tenebrae Service
• Saturday Easter Vigil at Washington Prairie Lutheran Church with Bonfire and Holy Communion; offering to support missionaries Mary Beth and Bayo Oyebade at the Mashiah Clinic, Jos, Nigeria
• Easter Sunday Festival Worship Service

Thursday, April 2 – Maundy Thursday
10:00-11:30 am – Lenten Bible Study With Pastor April Ulring Larson
7:00 pm – Worship with Holy Communion, Personal Absolution with Laying on of Hands, Stripping of the Altar   (Foot-washing will not occur.)

Friday, April 3 – Good Friday
8:00 am-7:00 pm – Sanctuary open for Meditation on the Passion and Personal Prayer
7:00 pm – Tenebrae Service with Procession of the Cross

Saturday Evening, April 4 – Good Shepherd Participates in Joint Easter Vigil Service at Washington Prairie Lutheran Church
6:30 pm – Reception and Refreshments
7:30 pm – Easter Vigil with Bonfire and Holy Communion

Notes – Offering will support missionaries Mary Beth and Bayo Oyebade and their work with those affected by HIV/AIDS at the Mashiah Clinic, Jos, Nigeria

Sunday, April 5 – Easter Festival Worship Service
9:30 am – Worship with Holy Communion

Wednesday, March 25
12:15 Organ Recital with Mike Reiter, Luther College Keyboard Technician
5:30 Holden Evening Prayer Lenten service, Faith Story – Barbara Berg
6:00 Soup Supper; Puppet Ministry – Sunday School room

Thursday, March 26
10:00-11:30 Bible Study with Pastor April – Going Deeper
Study: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Phil. 2:5-11; Mark 12:1-15:47 or Mark 15:1-39 [40-47]

Saturday, March 28
5:00 Holy Communion

Sunday, March 29 (Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday)
9:30 Holy Communion
10:45 Sunday School and Adult Forum – Dan Raney: Hindsight 70/150: Hindemith and Whitman on Human Conflict, Loss, and Healing

Special Benevolence Opportunities

For more detail, click on the News/Events tab on the Good Shepherd website.

• Lenten Offerings designated for Pathway to Citizenship (local) and ELCA World Hunger (global)
• Sunday School Lenten Project, Mutuelle Matters
• LED Lighting Initiative
• W/ELCA Basket of Promise campaign
• Vigil offering to support missionaries Mary Beth and Bayo Oyebade in their work with those impacted with HIV/Aids in Jos, Nigeria.

Wednesday, March 18
12:15 Organ Recital with Aaron Burmeister, D.M.A, Indiana University
5:30 Holden Evening Prayer Lenten service, Faith Story – Sarah Wicks
6:00 Soup Supper; Puppet Ministry – Sunday School room

 Thursday, March 19
10:00-11:30 Bible Study with Pastor April – Going Deeper
Study Jeremiah 31: 31-34; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33

Saturday, March 21
5:00 Worship Service

Sunday, March 22
9:30 Worship Service
10:45 Sunday School and Adult Forum (Special Series on the Church)

Special Benevolence Opportunities

For more detail, click on the News/Events tab on the Good Shepherd website.

• Lenten Offerings designated for Pathway to Citizenship (local) and ELCA World Hunger (global)
• Sunday School Lenten Project, Mutuelle Matters
• LED Lighting Initiative
• W/ELCA Basket of Promise campaign

A Special Series on the Church is being offered by the ELCA which provides a 5 week discussion called “Claimed, Gathered, Sent.”  The Adult Forum committee is sponsoring these discussions and then using the topics to organize Forum sessions over the next year.  The topics include:  1. We Are Church.  2.  We are Lutheran. 3.  We Are Church Together.  4.  We are Church for the Sake of the World.  5.  What Difference Do We Make?  Everyone is invited to the Narthex refurbished with a new whiteboard and screen.

March 22:  Pr. Judd Larson – This Sunday‘s Forum presents the Ben Music Project and the liturgy, Behold, I Make All Things New.  Erin Branchaud speaking of Ben’s music wrote, “A heart song is more than a favorite song …a heart song is somehow a part of who you are.  It is a song that, when you hear it, you think it might have just been written for you.  It is that first song you want to sing when you experience joy or pain.  It reaches deep into your heart and opens you to sing your very being.  For me, and I’m sure for many of you, my heart song is a Ben song.  Ben’s music somehow gets to the very core of who we are, and once it is there, it wraps us tightly in God’s love.”  Come and experience Ben’s music!

March 29:  Dan Raney – Hindsight 70/150: Hindemith and Whitman on Human Conflict, Loss, and Healing.  In commemoration of the end of the American Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, Dan Raney will explore Paul Hindemith’s 1945 “Requiem,” When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.  The discussion will focus on Walt Whitman’s landmark 1865 elegy, and on the common human conditions of conflict, loss, and rebirth expressed through poetry and music.