NEWELL—Neighbors gathered for an evening of fellowship, food, and fun to celebrate Holy Thursday on April 2 at Newell City Hall.
Everyone was invited to the community program and encouraged to bring a friend! Meat was provided; the choices were lamb and chicken. For the potluck, each was encouraged to bring a side dish, salad, or dessert to share. Pastor Terri Dutton Blanchett with the Dakota Life Christian Center welcomed everyone and gave the blessing before supper. “We’re so glad you’re here joining us tonight. We’re going to say a prayer over our food, there’s plenty of it,” she said.
After everyone finished their hot, fresh food, Pastor Terri and her son Jason Blanchett invited the audience to sing along with them as they guided everyone through the hymn Amazing Grace.
Jason then took the microphone and gave words of encouragement. “I’m not going to speak too long, but, you know, I was praying about what to talk about a little bit for this service today, and I felt the Holy Spirit give me the word family, and how that ties into this weekend and us celebrating Easter and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus,” he said.
He looked up the word family and learned it was basically a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption, and wondered how that coincided with what is celebrated on Easter Sunday. He then referred to John 3:16 and read, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The speaker then explained that God loved us so much, He sent His only Son to die on the cross, to sacrifice Himself in blood for us to become family, and that we are children of God or family. And that as a true father, God sacrificed for us, His children. He then likened the relationship to those who have children and would do or sacrifice anything for them. He said, “we help them get through school, get education. When they graduate, we try to help them, get married, get good jobs. I mean, all anything we can do as parents to help them to succeed, God’s doing the same thing for us.”
Communion was offered for anyone who wanted to take part; it was led by Fred Wilson. He explained, “when we really think about communion and attitude, our attitude toward communion should cause it to be one of the most sacred and holy things that we do, and that should be our attitude.”
Sabrina Harmon, Director of Whatever It Takes Coalition, was a driving force in putting together the evening. She thanked everyone for coming. “I want to thank you guys all for coming out. I know with this weather—we had a lot of calls for people trying to get their cattle in before the storm and and such. But I really appreciate you guys, because it is a lot of work to put this together, and you never know if you’re going to serve 50 or 150,” she said. She then invited everyone to take leftovers home for another meal later.
Pastor Lance Putnam of Newell Christian Fellowship gave the closing prayer. He also thanked everyone for coming out. “Thank you everybody that worked so hard to put this together. Thanks everybody for coming out tonight as well,” he said. Putnam then went on to take prayer requests and finished the evening in prayer.
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