From Pastor Rod - From April 2025 Newsletter

As I write this, we are preparing to enter Palm Sunday, Holy Week, then Easter Sunday, it’s a good time to reflect on renewal.

I’ve been spending a lot of my days lately back and forth to Manhattan, through the Flint Hills. It’s been burning season, and much of the Flint Hills has been burnt off over the past two weeks. It’s an amazing site at night, driving through the hills all aglow with these controlled burns to help renew the grasses of the prairie.

The first few days, the hills were black from the burning, a few here and there, and soon, almost the entire prairie had been burned. During these few days, the prairie looked dead, bare and desolate. Like it had been killed.

But in nature’s amazing way, within just a few days, you can now see new growth sprouting from the dark, burnt ground. The prairie will just survive. It will be renewed with new growth. And because of the burning, the tallgrass will grow back. Thicker. Stronger. And in better shape than before.

That’s what Lent and Holy Week can be for us. A time of renewal. A time to burn off the old, to cut back some of our nastier habits, our unkind comments, our prejudices, and negative thoughts. Lent should be a time to reflect. A time we take annually to get ourselves square with God, and to look forward to a Spring and Summer of resurrection and new growth. If we “burn off the old” every year, we give ourselves a chance to grow back even better in future years.

I hope you’ll join me in these last few days of Lent, to do just that.

God’s blessings to you all,

Pastor Rod