On Saturday, June 24, from 9am-4pm, we will host a Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training, led by Mental Health First Aid Ohio. MHFA teaches how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illness and substance use disorders. This training gives participants the skills they need to reach out and provide initial support to someone who may be developing a mental health or substance use problem and help connect them to the appropriate care. This training is FREE, but registration is required; please use this link (https://form.jotform.com/MHFACollaborative/62423-celebration-lutheran) to register. Lunch and refreshments will be provided by Celebration, 10621 Auburn Road, Chardon, OH 44024. Please share this information with your friends! You can download a flier here.
News and Events
Save these dates!
Watch this space for more information, but save these dates!
July 16 will be our annual Polka Worship service, featuring the Chardon Polka Band. Weather permitting, this service will be held outdoors on the church grounds. Lunch will be provided by Celebration Lutheran Church. Gathering with coffee and donuts begins at 9:30 a.m. Worship will be from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m., followed by lunch and a concert!
This fall, we will celebrate Celebration’s 30th anniversary! Bishop Laura Barbins, former pastor of Celebration, will join us to preside over worship, and we will of course enjoy a festive feast afterward. Date TBD!
Earth Day Weekend
In honor of Earth Day, April 22, our April 23 worship will lift up our call as Christians to care for Creation. After worship, we’ll share lunch and a screening of the documentary “The Ants and the Grasshopper,” which follows a Malawian activist as she travels to the US to talk about the impact of climate change on the world’s most vulnerable populations.
What a day!
Our annual Beer & Hymns concert and feast, featuring the Chardon Polka Band and benefiting Sub Zero Mission, was a huge success! We raised over $3100 for Sub Zero Mission!
We filled Sub Zero’s van with donated coats, sleeping bags, boots, gloves, etc.
Thanks to everyone who turned out – to host, to play, to dance, and to simply enjoy the show! If you missed it, you can see the concert on CPB’s Facebook page.
Dorothy’s Porch & the Mobile Food Pantry
Dorothy’s Porch and the Mobile Food Pantry are two of our long-standing ministries to the community. You can read more about Dorothy’s Porch, a community give-away, in the Geauga Maple Leaf. The Mobile Food Pantry serves as an outpost for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. If you are seeking to receive food, please check out the State of Ohio guidelines, here. See below for event dates!
Continue reading “Dorothy’s Porch & the Mobile Food Pantry”
Preparing for Lent
Midweek Lenten Worship: Join us on Wednesday, March 1, 15, and 29, for a soup supper at 6:15 p.m., followed by a short worship service at 7:00 p.m.
Even though Ash Wednesday comes more often in February than it does in March, it still feels “early” to me, this year! But today we enter the liturgical season of Lent, a forty-day period during which we who follow Jesus devote more intentional time to reflection, repentance, and reformation: how closely do our lives align with what we understand to be the will of God? How closely do we pattern our conduct after the life of Christ? The forty-day span recalls Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness (Matthew 4:2, Luke 4:1-2), as well as Moses’ forty-day fast on Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:28).
This past Transfiguration Sunday, at the end of our worship service, we “put away the ‘alleluia,’” following a centuries-old Lutheran Lenten tradition. We will not utter the word again until we celebrate Easter Sunday. The tone of Lenten worship changes somewhat, as well, becoming more penitential and reflective. Each Sunday service will begin with a sung confession, and we will encourage periods of silent reflection and prayer during the prelude and postlude.
We will have midweek soup supper-and-worship on March 1, 15, and 26. Supper begins at 6:15 p.m., and worship begins at 7:00 p.m. We’ll have sign-up sheets on the oak table for contributing soup and sides. On the Wednesdays in between – March 8 and 22 – I will offer a short online (Zoom) prayer service, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Email Pastor Marilyn for the link.
As you begin your own Lenten journey, there are many good resources to guide and accompany you. Below, I share a number of them. Peace and blessings – Pastor Marilyn