Working Together So That All Experience Gracious Invitation Into Life-giving Christian Community
Welcome to the Gethsemane Lutheran Church Newsletter. As 2022 unfolds, and we continue to bring you information virtually, we welcome all who are members of Gethsemane, as well as those who are discovering us for the first time, to join us in our mission journey. We hope to keep you up-to-date in these times of amazing change for our church community. Feel free to forward the newsletter to others and give us the emails of those you think my wish to connect with us and see what great things God is doing with our church each week!
Weekly Update: Share Your Story With Sam!
Do you have a story you want to share with our community that you think will be inspiring for others? Well I’m here to help you share it! With your story, we will be able to spread the goodness of our community members in our church by highlighting it on our social media pages and weekly newsletter so that anyone and everyone can see!

If you would like to be interviewed by me, I can be reached by...

Email (sdocteur@bu.edu) or
Phone (609-431-1369)

Consider contributing today!  
The Camden Shop is Open!


The Camden Shop is now open! After a short prayer of blessing, we opened the doors and shoppers found clothing and housewares that they needed. We are so excited about how this place will help our friends in the Camden neighborhood! Spread the word, and come say hello!


We are open every Saturday of the month at Gethsemane from 12-3pm
Bible Reading: Psalm 130:1-8
Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

    Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cry for mercy.

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,
    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
    for with the Lord is unfailing love
    and with him is full redemption.

He himself will redeem Israel
    from all their sins.

Writer's Corner: Wake Up, Listen, And Move
And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you”. (Mark 4:24)

The very first year I choreographed a Good Friday service was the year Jeff had his internship at Our Savior’s Lutheran on Chicago Ave. It was before we had our dance studio, before our children we born, before he was ordained, and before so many other things in our life took place—even before the old church itself had burned to the ground.

The weather that day was warm, the doors to the church open wide, and I remember the sun was shining. We’d decided to begin the service like we do at Gethsemane on Palm Sunday, by walking down the streets; except a drum was beating and a cross was carried. We collected many people that day on our procession back to the church. How could we not with the pound of a drum and a line of people following waving for others to join in. Everyone was welcomed into their pews and the music began.

That year we danced to sections of Mozart’s Requiem and started off by passing the beams of the cross over both sides of the sanctuary over the heads of the congregants so they could feel the weight and burden of the wood. The dancers pounded pegs into the beams to form the cross and we lifted it up by the altar. Jeff did the readings from the gospel, and we danced with long black dresses and large shawls on our heads. The service of thirty minutes went too quickly and ended with us recessing out the back of the church.

Being the first of dozens of Good Fridays we did was important. It was epic. It was meaningful. At the time we thought it was unique. A one and done type thing. But each year afterwards, the dancers and the churches we were a part of requested the special service again and again. It became a big part of my faith journey and the journey of others.

So how did I come to do that first service? By waking up, listening, and moving.

I heard the music one day and I believe God spoke the choreography into me. I woke up in the middle of the night in our apartment in a high rise downtown—a small boxy place with not much room, our mini- lop running around my feet. I put on the music I had heard that day, Mozart’s Lacrymosa (The Day of Tears) and bowed forward on bent knees with my arms craned behind my back and my head lowered. It felt like a supplication of prayer and I emptied myself. When I started choreographing (or God started) I didn’t know what it would become. I didn’t even know that it would be the final piece of many, or that it would depict the part of the gospel where the women were grieving at the cross and then on their walk to the tomb. I didn’t know how many dancers I would have around me, what we would wear or even that we’d dance an entire service without stopping. I didn’t know that we would carry a heavy cross along the streets of the neighborhood, or later drape different colors of fabric over it by the altar (purple for Christ the king, red for his blood). I didn’t know there would be a drum beating like a dirge as we marched. I didn’t know that we would share the weight of Christ’s burden with his people for a moment, as we passed the cross over head. I didn’t know that the service would make people cry, would leave all the dancers in tears. I just woke up, listened, and moved.

What started as one impetus, one inspiration, one calling by God in the middle of the night turned into something that brought me so much fulfillment in my Holy Week walk. The preparation, the practice, the planning was all a privilege. Something I’ve missed these past years. I missed it so much so, that God gave me another nudge. The first Good Friday of the pandemic, I moved my sleeper sofa aside in my living room, pulled some large branches from our wood pile (tying them together with rope), and draped the cross with black long fabric I found in my basement. I invited my former dancers to Zoom (before I knew much about virtual meetings), put on my long black skirt and we resurrected together our Lacrymosa dance, count by count, in separate computer screen boxes, in completely different places (even states). The experience was as beautiful and meaningful as that very first service. It was because we were lonely, we were frightened, we were very sorrowful, that it even spoke to us more.

So why am I sharing this? What am I trying to say? It’s really simple. Three things: wake up, listen and move. If you get an impetus to do something in honor of God, just do it —you never know where it will lead you and what other wonderful blessings might come. Know that God will take your gifts and use them if you remain open to His call. Following the cross will lead you to the tomb with the stone rolled away and empty, just wait patiently—the resurrection will come. Because even on days of tears there is always the promise of God’s grace, God’s peace, and eternal life in his Son. So wave your palms with joy this Sunday and welcome the Messiah into your life again, renew your relationship with Jesus. Hosanna in the highest! And then on Good Friday give thanks for the burden of the cross that Christ carried for us, and if you can, bow down in prayer at the foot of it and lay down your burdens again.

Amen. 
The Camden Promise: Weekly Food shelf Schedule



Food Giveaway Schedule into 2022:
The Camden Promise Food Shelf feeds boxes of food to community families 6 days a week at noon: Monday through Saturday.

All are welcome!
Gospel Reading: John 12:1-8
1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 

3 Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 

5 “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” 

6 He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 

8 You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
The Prayer Corner
A Prayer on Palm Sunday
Merciful God, as we enter Holy week, turn our hearts again to Jerusalem, and to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Stir up within us the gift of faith that we may not only praise him with our lips, but may follow him in the way of the cross.

Amen
Sunday Worship
Please join us every Sunday for our Virtual Zoom Worship Service. Online "fellowship starts at 10:00 am and Worship Service Starts at 10:30 am.
Gethsemane Lutheran
Building Hope Together
4656 Colfax Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55412
612-521-3575