Welcome to Northminster
Join us this Sunday!
The Latest from our blogs…
News & Announcements for Sunday, March 22, 2026
CONGREGATIONAL MEETING – NEXT SUNDAY, MARCH 29
The Session has called a congregational meeting for next Sunday, March 29 following the worship service for the sole purpose of correcting an error in the Pastor’s Terms of Call.
POTLUCK LUNCH – NEXT SUNDAY, MARCH 29
We are excited to invite you to an Easter potluck luncheon next Sunday, March 29th which will include an “upside down” Easter Egg hunt. The church will provide meat, drinks and bread. Please bring a side and a dessert. We look forward to breaking bread with you!
COMMUNITY LENTEN SERVICES CONTINUE WED. MARCH 25
The Community Lenten Services continue Wednesday, March 25. Each ~30 minute service is at noon at a different church in Madison Heights, with a different pastor preaching each week. This week’s service will be at Madison Heights Baptist Church, with Rev. George Harris (from Madison Heights Christian Church) preaching. Following the service, you are invited to stay for a community lunch.
WOMEN’S BOOK CLUB – THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 10:00 AM
Northminster’s Book Club has been rescheduled for Thursday, March 26 at 10:00 in the morning. We are reading The Miracles Among Us by Dr. Marc Siegel. Please bring a food item to share during our meeting.
EASTER LILIES FOR THE SANCTUARY
Northminster is continuing our tradition of placing Easter Lilies in the sanctuary on Easter morning. The lilies are $11.00 each. If you are interested in purchasing an Easter Lily, a sign-up sheet with information form and envelope are available on the hall bulletin board. Please place your order no later than Sunday March 29.
MISSION FOCUS FOR MARCH: BURUNDI HOPE PROJECT
Our mission ministry for the month of March will be the Burundi Hope Project. You may make a donation to this important ministry by specifying Burundi on your check memo line.
HELPING HANDS OFFERING – NEXT SUNDAY, MARCH 29
Each 5th Sunday, any undesignated offerings placed in the collection plates go to Helping Hands, a ministry of churches in the Madison Heights-Elon area of Amherst County to help residents in need. It is administered through Madison Heights Baptist Church.
Read more...
News & Announcements for Sunday, March 15, 2026
JOIN US FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL
If you’re looking for an opportunity to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ, we encourage you to join us Sunday mornings for a intergenerational Sunday school class, from 9:30-10:30. We look forward to seeing you!
COMMUNITY LENTEN SERVICES CONTINUE WED. MARCH 18
The Community Lenten Services continue Wednesday, March 18. Each ~30 minute service is at noon at a different church in Madison Heights, with a different pastor preaching each week. This week’s service will be at Randolph Memorial Baptist Church, with Rev. Josh Beeler (from Madison Heights Baptist Church) preaching. We look forward to celebrating Lent with you and our fellow brothers and sisters in the area.
WOMEN’S BOOK CLUB – THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 10:00 AM
Northminster’s Book Club will meet on Thursday, March 19 at 10:00 in the morning. We are reading The Miracles Among Us by Dr. Marc Siegel. Again, we will ask you to bring a food item to share during our meeting. Looking forward to another lively discussion about our book and many other topics that randomly come up. Feel free to bring a friend!!
EASTER LILIES FOR THE SANCTUARY
Northminster is continuing our tradition of placing Easter Lilies in the sanctuary on Easter morning. Northminster members and friends may provide an Easter lily in honor of, or in memory of, a loved one. These lilies will be in the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, April 5 and you may take one home after the Easter service. The lilies will be $11.00each this year. If you are interested in purchasing an Easter Lily this year a sign-up sheet with information form and envelope are available on the hall bulletin board. Please place envelope with form and money in the offering plate or forward to the church office no later than Sunday March 29.
MISSION FOCUS FOR MARCH: BURUNDI HOPE PROJECT
Read more...
News & Announcements for Sunday, March 8, 2026
JOIN US FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL
If you’re looking for an opportunity to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ, we encourage you to join us Sunday mornings for a intergenerational Sunday school class, from 9:30-10:30. We look forward to seeing you!
COMMUNITY LENTEN SERVICES CONTINUE WED. MARCH 11
The Community Lenten Services continue Wednesday, March 4. Each ~30 minute service is at noon at a different church in Madison Heights, with a different pastor preaching each week. This week’s service will be at Rose Chapel Baptist Church, with Rev. Derik Hamby (from Randolph Memorial Baptist Church) preaching. We look forward to celebrating Lent with you and our fellow brothers and sisters in the area.
WOMEN’S BOOK CLUB – THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 10:00 AM
Northminster’s Book Club will meet on Thursday, March 19 at 10:00 in the morning. We are reading The Miracles Among Us by Dr. Marc Siegel. Again, we will ask you to bring a food item to share during our meeting. Looking forward to another lively discussion about our book and many other topics that randomly come up. Feel free to bring a friend!!
EASTER LILIES FOR THE SANCTUARY
Northminster is continuing our tradition of placing Easter Lilies in the sanctuary on Easter morning. Northminster members and friends may provide an Easter lily in honor of, or in memory of, a loved one. These lilies will be in the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, April 5 and you may take one home after the Easter service. The lilies will be $11.00each this year. If you are interested in purchasing an Easter Lily this year a sign-up sheet with information form and envelope are available on the hall bulletin board. Please place envelope with form and money in the offering plate or forward to the church office no later than Sunday March 29.
MISSION FOCUS FOR MARCH: BURUNDI HOPE PROJECT
Our mission ministry for the month of March will be the Burundi Hope Project established by Mark and Susan May. The work of Burundi Hope includes schools for deaf and blind students, a fish farm, sewing center, chicken business, church support, and training for pastors and teachers. You may make a donation to this important ministry by specifying Burundi on your check memo line.
Read more...
News & Announcements for Sunday, March 1, 2026
JOIN US FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL
If you’re looking for an opportunity to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ, we encourage you to join us Sunday mornings for a intergenerational Sunday school class, from 9:30-10:30. We look forward to seeing you!
COMMUNITY LENTEN SERVICES CONTINUE WED. MARCH 4
The Community Lenten Services continue Wednesday, March 4. Each ~30 minute service is at noon at a different church in Madison Heights, with a different pastor preaching each week. This week’s service will be at Northminster EPC, with Rev. Matthew Heckman (from Amelon United Methodist Church) preaching. We look forward to celebrating Lent with you and our fellow brothers and sisters in the area.
WOMEN’S BIBLE STUDY – TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 3:30 PM
Women’s Bible Study will be meeting on Tuesday, March 3 from 3:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon. We are using the book, “Sermon on the Mount” by Jan Wilkin. Homework is to read and answer questions for week 5, “You Have Heard That it Was Said” – pgs. 62 – 73. Grab your book, your Bible and a snack that you can share with the group and come on over for an amazing Bible study. Come, even if you don’t get your homework completed. As always, bring a friend. Any questions, talk to Karey or Sharon.
MISSION FOCUS FOR MARCH: BURUNDI HOPE PROJECT
Our mission ministry for the month of March will be the Burundi Hope Project established by Mark and Susan May. The work of Burundi Hope includes schools for deaf and blind students, a fish farm, sewing center, chicken business, church support, and training for pastors and teachers. You may make a donation to this important ministry by specifying Burundi on your check memo line.
EASTER LILIES FOR THE SANCTUARY
Northminster is continuing our tradition of placing Easter Lilies in the sanctuary on Easter morning. Northminster members and friends may provide an Easter lily in honor of, or in memory of, a loved one. These lilies will be in the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, April 5 and you may take one home after the Easter service. The lilies will be $11.00each this year. If you are interested in purchasing an Easter Lily this year a sign-up sheet with information form and envelope are available on the hall bulletin board. Please place envelope with form and money in the offering plate or forward to the church office no later than Sunday March 29.
Read more...
MARCH 2026 PASTOR’S CORNER — SPIRITUAL PATHWAYS
“This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”
— Jer. 6:16
We just wrapped up our Epiphany series on the Aaronic Blessing in Numbers 6:24-26. Through that series, we found that many of our presumptions about how blessing works were turned upside down. We view blessing as transactional — drop your quarter of obedience or good behavior into the vending machine, and God will dispense blessing in your life. Yet God gives the blessing before the people earn it (in fact, He gives it to them while they are rejecting Him!). If we want to keep God’s face turned toward us, we have to make sure we don’t mess up and disappoint Him. But we saw that what God wants from us is for us to rest in Him, to turn our faces toward His face, to listen to what He has to say to us. It seems that God is much more interested in our “being” rather than our “doing.”
I’ve often thought it somewhat ironic how hard it is for us to “be” in Christ. It is just so much easier to “do” for Jesus rather than “be” in or with Him. And yet, we are human beings, not human doings. Back to blessings for a moment, as an example: God blesses us not because of what we have done, but because of who we are. We haven’t earned His blessings, rather He has chosen us as His children and turned His face toward us in grace. We are His children, and so He has chosen to bless us. In the life of the disciple of Jesus Christ, what we do is meant to flow out of who we are, which presents another irony. It is quite possible to spend your life doing things for Jesus without ever being in Him, but when we focus on being in Christ, the doing will naturally and almost automatically flow out of it. Our primary focus as Christians should be, as we said at the end of the ‘Blessed to be a Blessing’ series, on keeping our eyes on Jesus and listening to Him. Simple, but not easy.
Of all the seasons of the Christian calendar, the season of Lent is most associated with the disciplines of the faith, particularly fasting. For many of us, we see Lent as a season of deprivation. Coming at the tail end of winter, when most of us have gotten sick and tired of the dark and cold, the church comes along and says, “Since you’re already miserable, you should give up something that brings you joy (like, say, chocolate) so you can be a little bit more miserable, so you can learn to love God more.” That’s weird, right? But that’s not the intent of Lent at all. Lent comes from an old English word that means “springtime.” When spring comes around, we get about “spring cleaning” — cleaning up the cruft and detritus that’s built up in our homes and yards over the long cold of winter so the new spring growth can burst forth. Lent is an opportunity for spring cleaning of the soul. It’s not about giving up things that bring us joy, but looking for habits that might have taken root that keep us from being with Jesus and getting rid of those things. In their place we learn new ways, new disciplines, that bring us into the presence of our Savior.
Over the course of the 2,000 or so years since Jesus ascended into Heaven, the Church has struggled with this and so developed a series of disciplines, of tools, to help faithful followers of Christ learn how to do those very things. Yes, there’s a third irony: being is more important than doing, so here are some thing to do to help you be. As Richard Foster explains in his classic work, Celebration of Discipline, “God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving His grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us… By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.” These disciplines provide something of a path toward spiritual growth, of teaching us how to keep our eyes on Jesus so we can listen to Him.
Through the season of Lent, we’ll focus on six particular disciplines: fasting — the pathway to spiritual nourishment; simplicity — the pathway to spiritual riches; fellowship — the pathway to love; worship — the pathway to God’s presence; meditation — the pathway to Scripture; and prayer — the pathway to spiritual intimacy. In addition to the Sunday messages, we’ll provide a study guide for you to use through the week to learn more and provide opportunity to being practicing that week’s discipline. It is our hope and prayer that as we intentionally spend time being with Jesus over the season of Lent, we will find ourselves living more of a life that reflects His love and grace into the lives of those around us.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” — John 15:5-8
Blessings,
Rev. David Garrison
Read more...
