Church Plant in Menomonee Falls, WI

WCMA, a church planting organization that I work with, is working with some other organizations and churches to plant a new church in Greater Milwaukee this coming Fall. The target community is Menomonee Falls. If you would like to follow the plant’s progress and pray for it, you can find the latest update from our church planter, Jerod Walker, at this link: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=301031f422f4725bc1e2f0750&id=54897f1b45&e=154a360ad2.

Westwood Message–April 14, 2011

Food Pantry Donations

The Lord continues to bless the ministry of our Food Pantry, including two recent donations.

We received a donation of a $60.67 credit at Second Harvest from this year’s Million Pound Challenge. The Million Pound Challenge is sponsored by the Princeton Club. Several of our people have taken up the challenge to lose weight or exercise as a way of developing donations to food pantries throughout the area. Our Food Pantry purchases food from Second Harvest that supplements our other food donations. The Million Pound Challenge continues through May.

We also received a donation of 2,872 pounds of food and $500.00 toward purchasing perishable food from Roundy’s Foundation. That donation was presented to our Food Pantry and others in the area on April 11 at the Copps Food Center on University Ave. Gloria Jean Ehlers, our Food Pantry director, received Westwood’s donation. Thanks to Gloria Jean and all of our Food Pantry volunteers who make this ministry possible.

Easter Offering For the New Church in Menomonee Falls Continues Through April

We continue through the rest of April to receive designated gifts for our Easter Offering. That offering will go toward the new church to be launched in Menomonee Falls in the Fall.

Good Friday Service on April 22 at 6:00 PM

Join us for our Good Friday Service at 6:00 PM on April 22. This service is a special service of music, scripture, and readings, as we explore the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Sermon Series for April and May

Upcoming Dates at Westwood

April 22 Good Friday Service at 6:00 PM
April 24 Easter Service at 9:30 AM

A Westwood Message–April 7, 2011

Easter Offering to Go to New Church in Menomonee Falls

Plans are well underway for a church plant in Menomonee Falls which will launch in the Fall. WCMA, a ministry supported by Westwood, is partnering to help fund the plant. Jerod Walker is the lead church planter.

Our Missions Team is asking the congregation to give to an Easter offering toward the church plant. Offerings designated for this special offering can be given throughout the month of April.

Seder Potluck Supper at Mandrake Road Church of Christ

Mandrake Road Church of Christ, 4301 Mandrake Rd., Madison, is hosting a Seder Potluck Supper on April 18 at 6:00 PM and has invited Westwood people to attend. April 18 is the first night of Passover when Jews and Jewish Christians across the world will be celebrating as well.

They request that you keep with the Passover tradition of making food that contains no flour or leavening agents. (Though, since we are under the New Covenant, if someone brings, say, a chocolate cake, they are quite sure the blood of the Passover Lamb will cover such "sins" and many will happily enjoy it anyway!)

There will be ceremonial parts of the meal, following the haggadah (a booklet with readings that everyone will have a copy of), and eating the regular meal will happen midway through that. Children are welcome; there are even some parts of the seder meal that purposely involve children. They expect it will be over by 8pm.

If you would like to attend, please contact the Westwood office and let Chardel know by April 14 so that we can give Mandrake Road a head count.

Compassion International Giving Update

Thank you to everyone that has given over the past couple of months towards Compassion International. We just received some coins collected that totaled $42.88! In addition, someone else gave to bring the balance due to $0.00 right now. So we are current on our giving for Diocaris and Samuel through the month of April. (As a reminder, it's $38/month to sponsor each child, $76/month to sponsor both of them). Everyone's help is much appreciated to share God's love with these two children in the Dominican Republic.

God's Great Blessings to YOU!

Sandy Polcyn
c/o Compassion International

Sermon Series for April and May

Upcoming Dates at Westwood

April 10 Small Group Potluck at 5:00 PM
April 22 Good Friday Service at 6:00 PM
April 24 Easter Service at 9:30 AM

MAKING THE CROSS CENTRAL TO YOUR LIFE AND CHURCH

Imagine a stranger visiting your church some Sunday. The visitor knows next to nothing about Christianity, but is interested and wants to learn. As he drives up to your building, he notices the cross on the outside. As he enters the building, he sees crosses as part of the design on the main entry doors. Moving into the worship auditorium, he notices a cross prominently displayed at the front, one in the design of the pulpit and in the design of the table in the front. He sits down next to a couple and notices that the man has a cross pin on his label and the woman has a cross on her necklace. The opening song refers to the cross. When the part of the service where you have communion begins, the minister refers to communion being a remembrance of the death of Jesus on the cross, and the congregation sings “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

Such a visitor might go away impressed but puzzled by the frequent mention of the cross. It is notable how often the cross is referred to, but it also raises questions: Do Christians really give up everything for the cross? Can Christianity be accurately summed up as a faith of the cross?

The cross is difficult to grasp. We know it is central to Christianity, but even we sometimes are not aware of how often we mention the cross. We become accustomed to our references to it. Further, we must ask ourselves how we are to put the cross at the center of our lives and of our churches. The questions are appropriate as we near our annual focus on the death of Jesus on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter.

This is the issue that comes forward in the Gospel Matthew the first time Jesus introduces the idea of the cross to his disciples. Matthew 16 is a turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. The chapter contains Peter’s confession of faith, immediately after which Matthew writes, “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” From that time on, Jesus makes teaching about and preparing for his death and resurrection central to his ministry.

When he introduces the topic in Matthew 16, we find that we have a choice to make regarding the centrality of the cross in our lives and in the church.

(1) We can stand in the way of the cross. The disciples could not understand the idea of the cross when Jesus introduced it, because they believed him to be a king who would deliver them from Rome. A king could die, but had to be protected, but Jesus explains to them that he must die. Peter, just after his confession of faith, says to Jesus, “Never, Lord. This shall never happen to you.” Peter responded to the first mention of the cross by standing in the way.

Have you ever stood in the way of the cross? Does your church stand in the way of the cross? Are we too often comfortable taking the easy path in following Christ? Do we do things our way instead of God’s way? Does Jesus need to say to us as he did to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan”?

(2) We can take up the cross. Jesus puts a hard teaching in front of us: If you are going to follow Jesus, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him wherever he leads. We are in the middle of the practice of Lent. Perhaps some of you have given up something for Lent. Such a practice reminds us that we are to give up ourselves to follow Christ, but we must be careful to remember that living by the cross is an ongoing commitment, not just a seasonal one. Indeed we must take up the cross, as Jesus told his disciples, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

Are you practicing that kind of commitment in your life? Are you asking people in your church to practice that kind of commitment? As we go through this Good Friday and Easter, make the cross not just about words, but make the cross central to your life and the life of your church.

Thinking About Heaven

If you would like a perspective on heaven in light of the current evangelical discussion taking place about heaven and hell -- in light of Rob Bell's new book -- give Gordon MacDonald's new piece a read. I have read MacDonald for quite a few years in Leadership Journal where he is editor-at-large, after a long career in ministry: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/currenttrendscolumns/leadershipweekly/leavingpeace.html.

Westwood Message–March 31, 2011

Easter Offering to Go to New Church in Menomonee Falls

WCMA, a ministry supported by our Missions Ministry, is partnering on a church plant that will launch this Fall in Menomonee Falls. Jerod Walker will lead the plant.

Our Missions Team is asking the congregation to give to an Easter offering toward the church plant. Offerings designated for this special offering can be given throughout the month of April.

New Small Groups To Begin

Part of our church mission statement says that we exist “to exalt God…by building people to maturity in Christ, connecting people into the body of Christ…” Part of growing to maturity and connecting to others can take place within a small group where you study and fellowship with other believers. In an informal setting such as a home, people can discuss, ask questions, and grow through interaction.

Such experiences are important to our development and growth as Christians. Small groups provide significant experiences toward such growth. Some of you are already in a small group, such as our Tuesday evening Bible study that meets at the church office and our morning women’s groups. We are once again going to begin some new groups, and we would like for you to consider becoming part of one.

In order to facilitate and discuss the formation of new groups, Mike Notaro and Dawn Zimmerman arranged a meeting of interested people. The meeting will be a potluck dinner on April 10 at 5:00 PM at our building. Each family should bring a meal item to pass or dessert to pass. There is a sign-up sheet on the table in the back of our worship center.

Worshipping and Waiting Together Community-wide Prayer Service

Join together with other Christians in the greater Madison area to worship and pray this Friday evening, April 1, at 7:00 PM at High Point Church, 7702 Old Sauk Road, Madison. This is the second of six such events planned for this year in the Madison area.

Sermon Series for April and May

The Experience of a Lifetime

Three experiences have marked Christianity from the very first days of the church: experiencing the cross, the resurrection, and life in the church. If you experience all three, you cannot help but have the experience of a lifetime. We will set out to realize such an experience through our April and May worship services.

First, we will experience the cross as we move toward Easter where the church focuses on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Then we will experience first the resurrection and then life in the church as we move from the resurrection toward Pentecost, the beginning of the church through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection.

The small coastal town of Arroyo Grande, California, has recently been disturbed by events surrounding the theft of a cross that weeks later was discovered set aflame outside the bedroom window of a 19-year-old woman of mixed race.

The 11-foot wooden cross was stolen from Saint John's Lutheran Church in Arroyo Grande, California. The cross was later found burning after being erected in a neighbor's large front yard adjacent to the house rented by the woman and her mother. Now authorities are investigating the case as a theft, arson and hate crime.

The cross has created controversy since Jesus first announced to his followers that he would go to Jerusalem to die. In fact, in one of the passages we shall study about the cross, Paul says that the “message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” and he calls “Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentile.”

The cross was even controversial before Jesus died. Each time during his ministry that he predicted his own death, someone tried to talk him out of it. There must be some other way, they were saying, and they tried to urge Jesus to find it.

Yet God has chosen the cross as the symbol of Christianity and as the cruel means by which his only Son would die. John Stott writes in his book The Cross of Christ that Christians could have chosen any of seven symbols that he names as a suitable pointer to some aspect of Jesus’ ministry. “But instead the chosen symbol came to be a simple cross.”

Why would God choose something so brutal, so terrible, so controversial as the means of his Son’s death and the symbol of his followers? The answer is both simple and complex: a sacrificial death by the perfect Son of God is the only possible path to salvation and eternal life for imperfect, sinful people.

So, we will once again look at the cross during the first three Sundays of April and then we will share in its power during our Good Friday service before turning our attention to the Resurrection. We will find that both provide us with the experience of a lifetime.