UPDATED WITH STORY: Week in the Word begins in Morgan City
It was 4:10 p.m. Monday, and the Rev. Marty Harden was tending to the lectern in front of Morgan City Hall.
The lectern faced a Police Department tent that covered 20 or so folding chairs. A couple of people stopped in, and one said there were more folding chairs in a car trunk, if they were needed.
Good, said Harden, the pastor at Patterson’s Bethel Pentecostal Fellowship. They’d wait to see if they needed them. By 4:30 p.m., they did.
More than 50 people attended a Bible-reading from that lectern Monday during the first in a week-long series of outdoor New Testament readings at government buildings in
St. Mary Parish.
The event, called A Week in the Word, was put together by the East St. Mary Ministerial Alliance. The readings, at 4:30 p.m. each day, were set to continue Tuesday at Berwick’s Lighthouse, followed by Patterson City Hall on Wednesday, Franklin City Hall on Thursday, the Baldwin Civic Center on Friday and the Parish Courthouse on Saturday.
The first reading was from Matthew and Mark, and the first reader was Immanuel Baptist Pastor David Scott.
Scott’s reading included the Christmas story, John the Baptist, the temptation of Christ and the Beatitudes.
Harden had been to local government meetings in the last month, seeking councils’ support for a Week in the Word readings. The word of God is important to hear in these troubled times, Harden told the officials.
At Monday’s reading, Leslie Manville of Morgan City said she was there because “the word of God is life and to me it’s everything. I believe everyone needs to hear it.”
Cheryl Gray of Morgan City said she was there “to listen to the word of God, to get all our people together to come of the Lord.”
“If people turn to the Lord,” Jerry Gray said, “he shows grace and mercy to everybody. And he does forgive our sins.”
“The word of God is alive and active,” Scott said before he began his reading.
The Week in the Word readings occur during Holy Week, the week leading to Easter.
Another religious observance, Passover, begins Wednesday. Passover, the Jewish remembrance of the delivery of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, is an integral part of the Easter story. At the time of the crucifixion, Jesus was in Jerusalem for Passover.