Lent at Faith UMC
Lent is a period of 40 days (not including Sundays) prior to Easter. Traditionally, Christians observe a period of spiritual practices like prayer, fasting, service, and giving. Maybe you have heard people talk about giving up chocolate or coffee or meat. Others might add a time of prayer. Still others might make space each day to show love by writing a letter to someone. There are lots of ways to try new spiritual practices during Lent.
​​
Lent is a time for remembering Jesus’ teaching, the way he gathered followers, his persecution and death, and it is a time for remembering how that story meets us in our daily lives. It is also a time to look forward to the promise of eternal life – life beyond a physical body, beyond the material needs of being a body.
​
Sundays are not part of the 40 day count because every Sunday is a “little Easter” - a Sabbath break from whatever discipline we have taken on to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. (Did you know that EVERY SUNDAY is a little Easter all the time? Not just during Lent!)
​​
Join Us this Lenten Season
FEBRUARY 14: ASH WEDNESDAY
Worship with the imposition of ashes at 7:30 p.m.
Rooted in the ways that ashes were part of ancient practices of repentance and mourning, we gather for prayer and song, scripture and word, and we end our time be receiving the sign of the cross in ash on our foreheads or hands. The tradition reminds us that we were created from dust and we will return to dust. With children, Pastor Laura is more inclined to remind them that every person is made up of the same dust that makes the stars…isn’t it amazing to think that we are made of stardust!?!?
MARCH 28: MAUNDY THURSDAY
Worship with communion, hand washing, anointing at 7:30 p.m.
The word “maundy” comes from a Latin word meaning “mandate.” The service on Maundy Thursday remembers Jesus’ time of gathering with the disciples for his last earthly supper – it was a time when he “mandated” that they love one another. He also asked that they remember him in bread and wine and that they serve one another as he had demonstrated in washing their feet.
MARCH 29: GOOD FRIDAY
Worship in gathering darkness at 7:30 p.m.
On Good Friday, we hear the seven last words of Jesus as we extinguish candles, eventually draping the altar in black and leaving in silence. Jesus has died, and we wait in a time of suspended animation for the miracle of resurrection. We know death does not have the last word, and yet it is important to remember that Jesus suffered and died.
MARCH 31: EASTER SUNDAY
Worship in the Memorial Garden at 6:45 a.m.
This small gathering includes breaking bread and greeting the new day with the wonder Mary had in John’s account of the resurrection. What must it have been like for Jesus to call her name and in hearing his voice, for Mary to recognize her teacher?
EASTER FESTIVAL CELEBRATION
Worship in the Sanctuary with special music at 10 a.m.