Good morning, friends of Auburn FUMC!

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to share an Emily’s Musings update—I was out of the office for 10 weeks of maternity leave, and as soon as I got back to work it was time for Holy Week and Easter!

I’m so thankful to Nyla Witzel for leading worship during my leave, and it’s been a joy to be back to doing ministry with this wonderful congregation.  Holy Week was beautiful, as always: we had an energetic “palm parade” on Palm Sunday, we joined our Presbyterian friends for a quiet and contemplative Maundy Thursday service, we hosted a reflective Good Friday worship, and then we had a noisy and joyous Easter Sunday! Even though Mother Nature pulled a mean April Fool’s joke by dumping several inches of snow on us, we didn’t let that dampen our spirits…we held our traditional children’s Easter Egg hunt in the fellowship hall, and we celebrated the miracle of the empty tomb in our warm, flower-filled sanctuary!

Getting ready for the egg hunt!

And now that we are making our way into the rest of the Easter season, I’d like to introduce our upcoming sermon series: The Gospel According to Disney.  This is a series that I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time—I love looking for religious and spiritual meaning on the silver screen, and there are a number of Disney films that provide substantial “food for thought.”  Here are the movies that we’ll be exploring over the course of this series:

• 4/8– The Lion King: Remember Who You Are
• 4/15– Frozen: An Act of True Love
• 4/22– Moana: Called and Chosen
• 4/29– The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Finding a Sanctuary
• 5/6– UP: The God Who Won’t Stop Knocking

See you in worship!  Be blessed!