Preparing for the Passover and the Holy Communion

We conduct the Lord's Supper or holy communion first Sunday of every month, so this Sunday I am conducting the Lord's communion. This is especially significant as it will be a preparation for Good Friday or the Passover that we shall be celebrating on 18th April and Resurrection Sunday on 20th April. I shall be preaching in both services and conducting the Lord's supper on Good Friday as well. It's never easy. Although I am not preaching this Sunday even preparation to conduct the Lord's communion has taken me two full days as I shall be reading from Luke 22:1-30 a fairly lengthy passage this time to prepare the church to celebrate the Passover Feast on Friday the following week. It will be at least 10 minutes of sharing and then another 10 minutes members taking the elements of bread and wine (for us it is ribena or red cordial).

As we are holding our AGM this Sunday, it will be a long day for me this Sunday. I don't expect my day will end before 3 or 4pm. As I have been preaching non-stop including twice outside of Kota Kinabalu (Ranau and Sandakan) in March and also February, I look forward to a short break after the Good Friday but then there is an important meeting just before that to elect office holders of the church, as our AGM only elects deacons and deaconesses, but office holders are reserved for the first meeting of the newly instituted church council. 

This time it will be only 12 deacons and deaconesses, instead of 19 the last term making it hard for meetings to be properly constituted as the quorum is half of the members of the church council. Plus two elders and myself as pastor, this will be a 15-member council with 8 members needed to be present to have an effective quorum and meeting. I have spent more than 4 months in preparation for this AGM, coming in as pastor last December and knowing that 2025 is our election year, which first meeting I chaired mid-Dec last year, I had set the ball rolling, conducted one Seminar and one Leaders' Retreat and preached a couple of occasions on leadership and requirements of leadership as per Scripture, the holy Word of God that is eternal.