4/13/2025 Palm Sunday Announcements

1. *WELCOME to HOSANNA! – *Warmest welcome to all of you, especially if you are visiting or re-visiting! Please let our Welcoming Team give you our welcoming gift of a t-shirt and beige multi-purpose bag! Fill-out a yellow newcomer’s contact card so that we can keep in touch! We welcome you into this family of Christ’s loving arms and remain here for you as His body to grow and flourish together!
2. *DISMISSAL of children (kinder to 5th grade) to Children’s Ministry! – At this time, children from kindergarten to 5th grade can head over to Minister Sewon Cho’s children’s ministry – please proceed to the children’s chapel down the hallway to the left! *Preschool worship children should already be in the preschool worship room with Director Rachel and assistant Ashley, and will continue to begin simultaneously at 10:40am in the preschool worship room.
3. *IT’S PALM SUNDAY! – Today, we celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into the city that would soon put Him to death. Through His sufferings, Christ has triumphed! Mercy triumphs over judgment. As the crowds welcomed Jesus by laid palm leaves on the ground for Him to pass-by, as well as wave the palm leaves in worshipful adoration, let us increase our praise and worship to our worthy Hosanna – the name of our precious covenant church family – as Savior and King over His people!
4. *LENT BIBLE READING THROUGH PASSION WEEK! – We are entering the Passion Week, the final week leading up to Easter, in our Bible Reading Plan. *Today is Day 40 – break day – and tomorrow (Monday) is Day 41 (reading John 13-John 14) as we follow the Bible Reading Plan (https://www.biblegateway.com/reading-plans/lent). During this last Passion Week leading up to Easter, spend time praying and fasting from a usual routine, leisure, entertainment etc. to spend time reading Scripture and renewing your heart with the sufferings and resurrection of Christ.
5. *IMPORTANT REMINDER: BE ON-TIME FOR SUNDAY WORSHIP STARTING 10:40AM & PREPARE FOR EASTER HOLY COMMUNION – An important way to prepare in honoring Christ and His Church through worship is to be on-time. Plan your arrival around 10:20am to give yourself plenty of time to get some coffee/tea, greet one another, look over the bulletin/pre-read the Scripture, and prepare your heart in prayer for worship and the Word. Let us avoid starting worship together with an empty chapel. *This is appropriate especially next Sunday’s Easter worship, where we will be serving Holy Communion – please prepare your heart to receive the Lord’s cup and body at His table. Thank you for your understanding and humble obedience to this!
6. *TODAY, KITCHEN MINISTRY DISHWASHING, 12:40pm @ Kitchen – JOHN life group families will serve us today. Thank you for the JAMES life group that helped prep food yesterday. Let us serve the LORD with gladness in setting and cleaning His table of communion to break bread!
7. *TODAY, HONDURAS MISSION TEAM TRAINING, 1:00pm @ Ezra Chapel – The Honduras mission team has a training today. Please pray for them and support them.
8. *THIS FRIDAY (4/18) GOOD FRIDAY WORSHIP, 7:30pm – 8:30pm @ Ezra Chapel – It is a truly good day when Jesus laid down His life for us! Let us gather with the whole family in the goodness of Christ for Good Friday Worship Service, beginning 7:30pm. *Children will be dismissed after the opening praise at 7:45pm for Good Friday children’s activities with Director Rachel Ko in the Preschool Worship Room.
9. *NEXT SUNDAY (4/20) EASTER FAMILY WORSHIP, 10:40am @ Ezra Chapel – All of our children will be joining us for opening praise, be dismissed with Director Rachel Ko for their Easter ministry activities, and then rejoin us to take Holy Communion together. Joy Chung will receive confirmation of faith. Jonathan & Nara Jeng will be officially appointed as Hosanna’s newest co-shepherds. Pray for all these sacred and joyful events!
10. *4/27 (Sun) SPECIAL GUEST PREACHER: Minister Dr. Will Zhihui Zhao, Solid Rock Fellowship & Highland Park Chinese Church – Our Pastor and family will be taking a pastoral break after the Easter season on 4/27 (Sun). The Session has invited Pastor Chester’s ECO pastoral ordination mentee, Minister Will Zhao, to deliver the Word of God to us. Dr. Zhao currently serves as a resident church-planter at our sister-ECO Presbyterian congregation in the Dallas area, Highland Park Presbyterian Church and in their family of churches, one of which is the Highland Park Chinese-Mandarin Church, led by Rev. Ben Wang. Dr. Zhao has been with HPCC since 2015, and the congregation has grown to plant a new Chinese fellowship in Richardson, TX called the Solid Rock Fellowship, where Dr. Zhao also serves as its primary church-planter. Dr. Zhao was born and raised in China, where he studied and graduated with the Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Peking University in Beijing. He came to the Dallas area to pursue the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he was radically moved to trust in Jesus Christ and came to a saving knowledge of God’s love through Christians on the SMU campus who offered their fellowship and shared the gospel with him. Through this radical transformation of faith and encounter with Jesus, Dr. Zhao immediately gave up his doctoral studies in engineering and enrolled in seminary at Criswell College, where his calling to pastoral ministry began to grow. He graduated with the Master of Divinity degree in 2016, and then went on to Dallas Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 2023 with the Ph.D. degree in Old Testament studies, majoring in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible (especially the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Song of Songs). Currently, Dr. Zhao is a candidate for pastoral ordination in our ECO Presbyterian denomination for Ordained Minister/Reverend, with Pastor Chester as his assigned pastoral ordination mentor. Please welcome Dr. Zhao and pray for the message from the Word of God through him on 4/27 (Sunday)!
11. *UPDATE ON BETHANY KOREAN CHURCH: Congratulations on the Pastoral Ordination of Assistant Pastor Rev. Isaiah Saya Lee – Minister (now Reverend) Isaiah Lee, who is Assistant Pastor of the Bethany Korean Seniors/Elderly ministry, went to Korea this past week to receive his ordination into pastoral ministry as an Ordained Minister/Reverend with the Korean Association of Independent Churches and Mission (KAICAM), an interdependent denominational body. Many of us know Rev. Isaiah Lee, who we see time to time. Please congratulate him and his family! A photo of Rev. Isaiah is at the bottom of our team webpage: hosannapc.org/our-team.
12. *KINGDOM EXPANSION PRAYER – This week’s Kingdom expansion prayers will focus on the Passion Week leading up to this Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
13.  
    Scripture:
     
    For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. (1 PETER 3:18)
     
    Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (JOHN 11:25-26)
     
    He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (LUKE 24:6-7)
     
    Prayer (by Pastor Chester):
    Heavenly Father, we lift up to You this sacred week of passion – the week of Your sufferings of Your one and only Son Christ Jesus our Lord, who like a sheep before its shearers is silent, willingly and lovingly and wholly laid His life down. You were pleased to see it, for it was Your will to crush Him, as an offering for guilty sinners, to make many be accounted righteous. Lord, who are we to claim we know everything about the cross of Christ already? Open our eyes again to see our chief suffering Servant, Jesus, who bore all our sins in His own body so that we today can have life in His Name. You did not withhold Your beloved Son in heaven, but gave Him up for us all. He knew no sin, yet He became sin, so that we might become Your righteousness. Lord Jesus, you suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that You might bring us back to the Father God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit. Help us believe wider and deeper again, that You are the resurrection and the life, and that whoever believers in You, though we die momentarily, we shall live. And everyone who believes in You shall never die as You sweep us from its grip and take us into eternity with You. Holy Spirit, give us a vision of resurrection again – show us Jesus is not in the tomb, but has risen. Bring to remembrance what He told us – the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. So make us arise with Christ today, on our 40th day of the Lent Bible ready, as the John families serve our dishwashing ministry, as the Honduras mission team trains for mission. Give us a resurrected Good Friday worship this Friday with all our children, youth, young adults, and families. Bless and fill our approaching Easter worship in the confirmation of faith for Joy, in Your appointment of new co-shepherds Jonathan and Nara, and Holy Communion through Your cup and bread together. Through the goodness of the Name of Jesus above every name, who died and rose back to life forever as our High Priest of heaven, as both Lord and Christ we pray, Amen & amen.