Great News in Worship

Dear Holy Cross Partners, 

This Easter season, we rejoice together in the GOOD NEWS that is really GREAT NEWS!

GREAT NEWS: At our midweek Lenten services, we’ve had students from grades 1-5 lead singing and the Junior Choir students share six dramas taking us on a full Tour of Jerusalem! By encouraging our young students to lead worship, they are actively increasing their singing, speaking and presentational skills and growing in their faith-walk. And by involving those 247 students we also welcomed almost 200 families to worship! What an awesome mission outreach! Thank you, Holy Cross Partners for taking time to welcome others. Especially thank you to those teams and individuals who brought food for our Lenten suppers: the Pickleball Team, the Hospitality Team, the Senior Saints with Mom Helpers, the Be R.E.A.L. Women's Group, and the Comfort Dog Team with Jared. Remember folks, we hear the Word of God preached while sitting in the pews AND we form the Body of Christ by developing relationships with one another by breaking bread together, or serving alongside one another. Thank you for investing time and energy to build relationships with your brothers and sisters in Christ! Keep it up!

GREAT NEWS: Our Junior Choir, albeit very small this year with only 22 students is singing up a storm! In March alone they sang a concert for grade K-4 students, earned a gold rating at ISSMA in front of three judges, led worship at a 10:30 service, and participated in the Lutheran Fine Arts Festival singing a rousing rendition of Ride the Chariot. Please keep them in your prayers the weekend of April 22-24 as they travel to St. John Lutheran Church in Plymouth, WI to share God’s Word through song. (The Minister of Music at St. John’s is Tim Huebschman whom some of you may remember as Ray Huebschman’s son, as Ray was a DCE here at Holy Cross in years gone by!)

GREAT NEWS: Opportunities in worship abound! The Lord’s work is never done! I used to joke in my previous church, with one Sunday service, that Sunday is always coming around again. Well here, at HC, Saturday, Sunday x 2, Monday and Wednesday x 2 are like the Energizer Bunny of Worship in Lent and just “keep going and going…”. I LOVE IT! And, it means that we really need YOU to help serve in some capacity to make our worship the best it can be. That might be as an Usher, Hospitality Team member, Altar Guild member, Techie for the Sound, PowerPoint or Streaming needs, Music Maker, Team Helping Hands (prepping the sanctuary & welcome center space), and Team Visual Arts. Incredibly, there are almost 800 of us worshipping each week. Where might the Lord be asking you to serve?

GREAT NEWS:  With you, we celebrate our growing attendance, our multiple worship offerings and a post-pandemic engagement in the sanctuary again!  We all appreciate your prayers as we seek to lead worship of our Great and Glorious God that is done with His biblical instruction: that we worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), that we worship the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27 and Matt. 22:37), and that we worship utilizing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Col. 3:16 & Eph. 5:19). However, I really need to ask for your help on this latter concept as the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs must be sung…by us all…collectively…together. Carl Schalk, the Father of American Lutheran Music, wrote this about the importance of actively singing our faith in his article “Paradigms for Praise”.

“In concluding his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15, Luther makes a particular point of the imperative for Christians to sing the faith that is within them. ‘And now St. Paul appropriately concludes with a song which he sings: "Thanks and praise be to God, who gave us such a victory!" We can join in that song and in that way always celebrate Easter, praising and extolling God for a victory that was not won or achieved in battle by us ...but was presented and given to us by the mercy of God.... But we must ... sing of this victory in Christ. For Luther, to "say and sing" was always a single concept resulting from the inevitable eruption of joyful song in the heart of the redeemed. Perhaps nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the first stanza of what is perhaps his most familiar and best-loved Christmas hymn:

From heaven above to earth I come
To bear good news to every home;
Glad tidings of great joy I bring,
Whereof I now will say and sing.

Let’s invite our brothers and sisters to worship together with us, let’s make them feel truly welcome (say hello to folks you don’t know!) and let’s worship with “raise the roof” singing that is truly about JESUS CHRIST, our Savior and Lord. I encourage you, in this season to make your attendance a regular occurrence so that you can “say and sing’ His Word with joy every week.

~ Dr. Patricia Cotton, Minister of Worship & Music

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