Lent: Encountering Choices, Finding Identity
Ash Wednesday Service, 7 p.m. February 6
A service of song and meditation in the style of Taizé, including celebration of the Lord's Supper and the imposition of ashes, (a sign of our mortality and dependence upon God).
Monday Night Lenten Series: Encountering Choices, Finding Identity
A five-week series beginning February 11th, 6:30-8:45 p.m.,
Led by Margee Iddings, Ashley Goff, and Jeff Krehbiel
Throughout Lent, the five week period that begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with Holy Week, we will focus on gospel encounters with Jesus that shaped his identity-- and also, in the process, led him to the cross. For our Monday night series, we will focus on Jesus' encounter with women in the Gospels. We will explore how each encounter shaped Jesus' ministry. What choices did he face, and what choices did he make? How did those choices move him toward the cross? What do these encounters teach us about what it means for us to be Jesus' followers?
We will begin each week with a soup and bread supper, followed by a time of worship, Bible study, and reflection on the encounters that have shaped our own lives, the choices we face, and the risks we are called to take as Jesus' disciples. Participants will be invited each week to practice a "discipline of risk-taking." Even if you cannot attend each week, you are encouraged to attend as many weeks as you are able.
Sunday Morning Adult Education in Lent:
9:30 a.m. beginning February 3rd
The Sacred Art of Fasting
Led by Margee Iddings and Doris Hendershot
Upstairs in the Youth Education Room
Fasting, along with prayer and almsgiving, is a traditional Christian spiritual practice long associated with the season of Lent. What would it mean to revive this ancient practice for contemporary Christians, especially in a Protestant context? Drawing on the work of Father Thomas Ryan, Doris and Margee will lead a discussion where those who attend are invited to experiment with different approaches to fasting during the Lenten season, and then to share their experiences with one another during the Sunday morning class. Father Ryan writes, "Fasting as a religious act increases our sensitivity to that mystery always and everywhere present to us... It is an invitation to awareness, a call to compassion for the needy, a cry of distress, a song of joy. It is a discipline of self-restraint, a ritual of purification, and a sanctuary for offerings of atonement. It is a wellspring for the spiritually dry, a compass for the spiritually lost, and inner nourishment for the spiritually hungry."
Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday
Led by Jeff Krehbiel, Downstairs in the Bird Room
Where was God on the day in between? For Jesus’ first followers, Saturday was the day after the world came to an end on the cross of Good Friday, with Easter Sunday not yet even a thought on the horizon. After Easter day, the early Christians confessed that God was in Christ incarnate. What then does it mean for us to confess, with them, that God was with Jesus in the grave? What are the implications of such a dramatic and difficult assertion? What does it mean for us to make such a confession in a world that is more closely acquainted with the loss of Good Friday and the hopelessness of Easter Saturday than with the new life of Easter? How does that shape what it means for us to be disciples of the one crucified and risen? Drawing on the work of the late theologian Alan E. Lewis, we will explore a contemporary theology of the cross by paying close attention to the “three day story” at the heart of the Christian faith.
