Sandra: One of my greatest delights in our ministry was helping Ken prepare for the annual Lord’s Supper service: a fully candlelight service, lace tablecloth, the emblems, setting up for the feet washing, selecting special hymns to play for the prelude. Since it was conducted by candlelight, you knew as you entered the chapel there was something special about this occasion. Fresh flowers sat on the table where the emblems were prepared. Appropriate hymns were softly played as you found your place and meditated on the true meaning of this special service, celebrated only once a year.
When Ken and I were preparing to retire in the spring of 2011, he wanted the last service of our pastoral ministry to be the Lord’s Supper. The final act we would perform at that service was for Ken to wash the feet of each man present, and I washed the feet of each woman who attended. It was one of the greatest joys we have experienced and one I will never forget.
Ken: We must never forget that every year the Lord’s Supper is “Remembering our Lord’s death till He comes back.” In over fifty years of Lord’s Supper services, some memories stand out, to be never forgotten. Personally, I recall when circumstances provided my wife and I our own private Lord’s Supper. Washing her feet was deeply meaningful. Later in Redmond, Oregon, we provided the classrooms for couples who could choose to have a private foot washing. Serving the emblems and washing feet in hospitals, jails, nursing homes, and private homes and serving people who were terminal, disabled, and one dying from AIDS: Many of these memories still bring a tear. One of the best was in Redmond, when Guy Houser (local elder), in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, was given a few moments of clarity at the Lord’s Supper and said the closing prayer. What seemed impossible became perhaps the most moving prayer ever heard by this pastor.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only . . .” (NKJV).
Ken and Sandra Lawson are enjoying their retirement in Cottage Grove, MN. Ken also serves as superintendent of the Central District.
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