Pastor's Top 10: March 2024

Join us in worship at Hayfield Secondary School (Door 9) as we continue our Wandering Heart: Figuring Out Faith with Peter sermon series during the season of Lent. Children's care and Sunday Christian education is offered for all kids 0-5th grade during worship. Catch up on our series and watch virtually on our Kingstowne app, website, or YouTube channel.

Interested in discussing the themes of this sermon series and your faith with others along for the journey? Join us (and RSVP) for our next Sermon Discussion Lunch gathering.

Our monthly kids common table is meeting this Sunday for lunch at Roy Rogers and a clean-up project at Rising Hope. Register your child now and add to calendar. Email sam@kingstownecommunion.net to get your student connected on-going.

Check the Kingstowne App, under the "Children and Youth" tab (recommended!), or the Kids This Week or Kids Last Week pages on our website) for this week's nursery, children, and youth activities; this month's family activities; upcoming events and more. Use these fun and accessible resources if you miss a Sunday or to dig deeper and re-enforce as a family at home. These resources are password protected for copyright reasons. Use password: KCkids.

DAY 1: SAT, MARCH 16 AT FRANCONIA GOV'T CENTER
Join us for a family-friendly, kid-centric, all-ages-welcome Lenten gathering where adults and children will engage with the stories of Holy Week and Easter through experiential prayer stations, music, craft, service opportunity, and FREE lunch catered by Provision Church. This is a family, parent-and-me event for the whole family be formed and guided together in faith. Register now for Neighborhood Holy Week(end) and add to calendar. 

DAY 2: SUN, MARCH 17 AT HAYFIELD
Then, join us on Sunday morning for a celebratory morning of worship and children's ministry, including an (early) children's Palm processional performance during worship, a St. Patrick's Day lunch for all, and an Easter egg hunt after worship. Register your kid(s) now for egg hunt and add to calendar. 

We also welcome help and donations of stuffed eggs! Sign-up here to donate.

Next Sunday, join us for a St. Patricks Day celebration during and after worship. Learn more and add to your calendar.

Here's what's worth looking forward to:

Refresh. Replenish. Reconnect. Retreat with us through fellowship, faith-sharing, spiritual practices, friendship, relaxation, and pampering. Join us for a local (1 hr away), women's retreat at a house in Delaphane, VA, beginning with dinner Friday evening, April 5 and concluding with Sunday worship & closing communion together before we depart the retreat home by 11am. Daily registration is also available for those who can't stay overnight. (There is no in-person Sunday worship on April 7 as we take a Sunday-after-Easter Sabbath Sunday.) Learn more, register & add to your calendar.

Did you hear about our ministry partner Provision Church's news? They have finally found a kitchen and perfect location to continue to grow their ministry at Central United Methodist Church's new mixed-used development in Arlington. Read more about this incredible opportunity!

HELP US SUPPORT PROVISION'S GROWTH: 40-DAY CHALLENGE
We're already 1/3 of the way to our goal! As of Friday, March 8, folks in and connected to the Kingstowne Communion have donated $680 and Kingstowne has matched that with an additional $680, for a total raised so far of $1,360. View our progress here.

This Lent, we invite you to help the Kingstowne Communion address housing insecurity, raise the living wage for a crucial community connector in our area, and invest in a person (not just a cause) for the wider community good, by helping us sponsor the increase in hours and salary of a crucial community-connector with Provision Church who is currently housing insecure from $600/mon to $1000/mon, beginning in March 2024. Our goal is $4,000, and the Kingstowne Communion will MATCH any donation up to $2,000. Learn more and donate now.

After a four-year delay due to the pandemic, the 2020 General Conference of the United Methodist Church will finally take place April 23-May 3, 2024 in Charlotte, NC. The United Methodist Church has no pope. But it does have a General Conference — the only body that can set official policy and speak for the international denomination and that brings together lay and clergy delegates from four continents.

And what makes the 2024 General Conference especially different is that in the eight years (because of COVID) since the last General Conference, a quarter of the United Methodist churches in the United States have departed and disaffiliated under a disaffiliation policy that began in 2019 and expired at the end of 2023, and there are many pieces of important legislation anticipated to come before the body in 2024, most notably ones related to:

You might hear about this conference and its outcomes in the news. Learn more about UMC General Conference 2024 and the implications of any decisions made, as well as watch any of the 10-min informational videos on the four key legislative themes above.

Join us for Palm Sunday with the Kingstowne Communion at Hayfield Secondary School (Door 9), beginning with our annual palm processional celebration of Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem and concluding in solemn acknowledgement of and preparation for Christ's passion for us that goes all the way to the cross. Learn more and add to your calendar.

All will be provided with full-size palm branches in worship that we encourage you to take home to adorn your crosses, windows, and doors with throughout Holy Week and well into Easter and spring, as a sign of the God who saves, triumphs over death, and gives us new life!

Join the Kingstowne Communion, Rising Hope Mission Church, and Wesley United Methodist Church (at Wesley UMC) for a collaborative, family-friendly Holy Thursday worship experience from 6:30-8pm, with dinner, song, message, and prayer, in three movements. Learn more and add to your calendar.

GOOD FRIDAY: PUBLIC STATIONS OF THE CROSS
Join the Kingstowne Communion this Good Friday for a public, experiential, prayerful, self-guided Stations of the Cross exhibit set-up in the Helen G. Wilson Community Room at the Franconia Government Building. Drop-in anytime between 10am and 8pm to walk through our stations at your own pace and reflect on Jesus' arrest, crucifixion, and death. Learn more and add to your calendar.

GOOD FRIDAY: VIRTUAL WORSHIP ON-DEMAND
In addition to in-person Stations of the Cross, a virtual on-demand Good Friday worship service will be available on all Kingstowne Communion media platforms for online viewing anytime.

Join the Kingstowne Communion at Nalls Produce for one of two Easter Sunday worship services (7am Sunrise & 9am Family Service), complete with a live band leading in song, a children's moment, a compelling message, Easter communion, and an opportunity to cover the cross in buds of beauty! Learn more and add to your calendar.

Enjoy complementary coffee and pastries, as you worship surrounded by fresh flowers, crowing roosters, and one very friendly pig. Easter experience kits will be provided for children. As always, we need multiple volunteers to make this happen. Sign-up to Volunteer this Easter.

THE GREAT EASTER DIPES & WIPES DRIVE
This Easter, we're aiming to make an impact as we gather! Collaborate for the common good & celebrate new life with us this Easter by bringing with you to Easter worship donations of diapers and/or baby wipes for local families resourced by Rising Hope Mission.