All of our kids and leaders are having a wonderful time this week learning about Jesus. Some of the pictures from this years event have been posted to our photo gallery.

This Sunday our worship service will start at 10:30 instead of our normal 9:30 AM start time.

This change (only for this Sunday) will allow us to prepare for the VBS Carnival and lunch which will immediately follow the worship service to celebrate the weeks activities.

We deeply mourn Loreto’s passing. He was a major part of the life of this church, the youth in this community through his involvement with and support for Young Life, the Presbytery of San Diego,  his many friends, and of course his family.

There will be a Celebration of Life for Loreto at Northminster on May 22, 2010, at 10:30 AM, with a reception and light lunch following the service.

Don’t hesitate to go to the Loreto Remorca Memorial Facebook page and make a post.  You can also make a post to this site if you do not have Facebook access.

This Sunday (June 14) will be an out-of-the-box time of worship for Northminster! Instead of gathering inside the sanctuary this weekend, we’re going to explode out into the neighborhood around us!

At 9:30 a.m. we’re going to put our hands and feet to work, worshiping God by blessing our community. What exactly are we gonna be doing? We’ll clean up the alley between Cole St. and Dubois Dr. We’re going to repair fences, clear weeds, trim vegetation, and paint walls. By the time we finish, it will be a brand new alley!

If you’re not sure what to do with your kids, bring ‘em!  We’ve got a bounce-house and all kinds of fun activities for the kids.

At 12:30 p.m. we’ll finish our work and have lunch together in Congdon Hall to celebrate what God did through us that morning!

If you’re a regular at Northminster, I can’t wait to see you this Sunday!

If you’re not, you’re more than welcome to come give us a hand!

Pastor Markus

P.S. – Plan to arrive by about 9:15 so that we can be ready to work by 9:30…

Northminster would like to invite you to  join us as we journey with Jesus through his final week before Easter.

Thursday Communion Service, 7:00 p.m.:  This is traditionally known as Maundy Thursday—the night Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples.  In this service, we will experience the passion of Jesus through the use of our senses:  taste, touch, seeing, hearing, and smelling.

Good Friday Service, 7:00 p.m.:  In this service, we will journey through the suffering of Jesus toward the cross.  It will be a service of darkness, as we begin the service in full brightness and leave the service in total darkness, representing the darkness of the death of the Son of God.

Please don’t miss these opportunities to reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus this week.  Make it a priority—as a follower of Jesus—to walk with Jesus through his suffering and crucifixion.

And then on Easter morning let’s celebrate the resurrection with passion, with eagerness, and with deep love for our wonderful Savior!!

This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, that season preceding Easter during which we begin to prepare ourselves for the death and resurrection of Jesus.

I want to invite you to Northminster’s Ash Wednesday service this Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. (Feb. 25).

Some of you hear the words “Ash Wednesday Service” and think to yourselves, “Wow…  That sounds boring.”

But not at Northminster!  This service will engage your whole person–mind, spirit, and body!  It will be a time for reflection, meditation, and confession–and we will do this in a way that many of you may never before have done this.

If you are in a small group, come with your whole small group!  If you’re not in a small group, you come, too!  And if you’re a guest looking for a place to worship on Ash Wednesday–you are more than welcome to come join us!

And if you have kids, bring them!  Older kids will probably enjoy the service.  We’ll have childcare available for the younger kids.

I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday evening at 7:00 p.m.

Pastor Markus

The worship band at Northminster is more than just a collection of musicians who get together to practice and help lead worship on Sunday mornings.  We are a family that shares good times and troubled times.  We laugh and we pray.  We go places together like the Chris Tomlin concert coming this March to the Rock Church and to the Spirit West Coast celebration in May.  We meet each other in small groups to increase our understanding of our place in God’s plan for His church.  We are a collaboration of musicians, each of whom brings talents and suggestions to provide heartfelt and powerful worship experiences to our congregation.  We are all committed to bringing only our best before the throne of Christ.  We invite you to join us every Sunday morning at 9:30.  Come see what God is doing on the Mesa!  If you are a musician who feels God encouraging you to share your talents, please give us a call.  We will welcome your interest with prayer.  Northminster might just be the place where God wants you to be!

In addition to the Chris Tomlin concert and the Spirit West Coast celebration, coming events include a work-day to build a stronger platform in the sanctuary and a family off-road bike ride.  Call the church office for details.

This year, we will have one Christmas Eve Service at 7:00 p.m.  The service will be what we call a “Darkness to Light” service in which the lights in the sanctuary are gradually brought from–well–darkness to light!  It’s a neat way of experiencing in a visual way the coming of Jesus into our dark world.

The service will end with candle-lighing on the patio.

We hope that you’ll join us!

(If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call:  858-490-3995)

This Sunday—December 7—is an exciting day here at Northminster!  At 4:30 p.m., Nate Landis will be ordained as an evangelist within the Presbytery of San Diego—and we get to host the ordination service here at Northminster!

Here’s the other exciting part of this—once Nate is ordained he will officially be Northminster’s parish associate!  As an evangelist, he will continue to be involved in Urban Youth Collaborative, a San Diego based youth outreach organization that Nate founded a couple of years ago.  As our parish associate, he will be a resource to us as we continue to learn what it means to live missionally—and we will be a resource to him as we work with him to reach to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of our city.

Please come and support Nate on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. at Northminster.  This service will be both a time of great worship and the joy of witnessing what God is doing in Nate’s life.  After the service, we’ll have reception in Congdon Hall with lots of good food!

See you Sunday!

Pastor Markus Watson

Northminster is welcoming you, your neighbors and friends to a Christmas Music Sing Along!  Please join us Saturday, December 13th from 4:30-6:00pm as we come together to sing familiar holiday songs and carols in this wonderful holiday event.

Please come and enjoy music, cookies and refreshments!

Just a reminder that we will have a special VBS Celebration service this Sunday from 9:30-10:30 a.m.  We’ll have all kinds of good food before and after the service.  We will see some videos from the week and listen to the kids sing!  This Sunday will be all about our VBS kids!

Also, all families whose kids came to VBS this week will receive a free DVD with videos from this past week after the service!