It was a wonderful night at Cornerstone tonight celebrating the coming birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. I always love the candles, it is such a reminder that Christ is the one who brought light into the darkness of this world, and walked among us as well. Merry Christmas everyone.
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This week our church lost a dear friend as the Lord brought home Erin Stephens. Erin touched this church and the Auburn community in so many ways, and this was quite evident by how many people came to say goodbye to her today. It was a privilege for me to be a part of that and I felt quite blessed to be able to share this time with her family. It’s always amazing to be able to celebrate a life lived for Christ, and that’s what we did. Her service was as she requested to her husband and family, a celebration of her life and a time of worship. One of my favorite verses from was read, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die”, from John 11:25 along with a great message of encouragement from Rusty. We also sang How Great Thou Art, I Will Rise, and You’re Beautiful, a great song of worship by Phil wickham from the Cannons album. I love the last verse of that song, which says…
When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful
Here are a few photos from today’s worship. It really was beautiful.
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So today was finally the day we have been leading up to since Ash Wednesday, more than 40 days ago, Easter Sunday. This is the great day on the Christian calendar where we celebrate Christ as the risen savior and Lord over all creation. It was an exhausting day, but a wonderful day filled full of Christ’s redeeming work. It is always a fantastic site to see so many people gathering together that perhaps normally wouldn’t even know each other except for the common bond of Jesus.
Easter Sunday is always an extremely busy day of course and today was no exception. But because Easter is one of those days on the calendar where many people come to church, perhaps out of a mental obligation to the date on the calendar (or any number of other reasons), it’s also a day where staff and volunteers in the church are on their game. Not out of sense of trying to paint a pretty picture of life, but out of an attempt to fulfill the great commission and point people towards the cross and away from themselves. I only wish many of them could have also shared in the days leading up to Easter as well since it is all part of the story of God’s work.
Our sunrise service for the first time in several years was almost completely covered by clouds, but it wasn’t freezing outside, which was nice. There was some sun as you can see from the shots below, but it didn’t really matter, the important part was the celebration. I hope this season of lent has been meaningful to you and your family. Below are some of the photos from this morning, you can see the full gallery of the whole weekend on the Holy Week 2011 gallery.
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It seems that every day since Cindy Wall [AU press release] died I have found out more and more about what a great person she was and how much she meant to so many people. Yesterday there was a beautiful memorial service for Cindy at Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Auburn where many people shared what an impact she had with the Auburn Athletics department and the Auburn students in general. Today during the Auburn vs Tennessee football game, Auburn University has said they are going to fly the traditional pre-game flight of either Nova or Spirit (sorry, don’t know which it is today), one of the eagles in the Auburn Raptor Center, in honor and memory of Cindy.
I don’t actually recall Auburn doing anything like this before but I am sure they have. Either way, it is a great show of how much Cindy meant to so many people at the Auburn Athletics department. Below is an image from her celebration service at CUMC. I will be at the game today and will post the images of the game later tonight (hopefully). Let’s hope the Tigers fare better against Tennessee than they did against LSU last week.
[Update] The game yesterday was hot and loud but fun… the pregame did have a special memorial to Cindy Wall and the photo is posted below. The stadium announcer did say the Auburn University eagle (Nova) was flying in her honor that day, and I took a quick photo of the AUHD sign as Nova flew.
