Doing something a little different this year with the Ash Wednesday service at Liberty - they gave the service to me and as soon as I recognized my 6 months of "no change" was up already, I promptly threw a curveball. Well, it didn't work quite that way. I wasn't all that concerned about doing something out of the ordinary based on my tenure - although as I reflect, I have made "getting to know people" a top priority over "getting a program changed/started." Down the road I think this is a better strategy, but that's not what I'm concerned about here.Anyway, I'm "preaching" tonight, if you can call the few minutes I'm going to share during a 30 minute service preaching. It'll be more of a homily or sermonette. But I'm titling it "Marked by Christ" and my curveball is that everyone will be exiting the service and receiving ashes at the same time. My goal is to send people out with the message that they have been marked for service by Christ. That is their sole purpose. Lent is a season of preparation, not simply sitting on our hands all pie-in-the-sky and all. Preparation is work. So, if we've been marked to serve during this season of preparation, people should know we've got work to do. Hopefully, that message will come through tonight and people will feel moved to serve with the love of Christ - and maybe it might even carry over past Lent, or at least through next week...
3 comments:
I love it - "marked to serve". That is a book title in the future no doubt. I love the image of individuals leaving the building as they are being marked.
Great work on making Ash Wednesday something other than "just another" day on the church calendar...
Ash Wednesday is not even on the calendar out here. I completely forgot about it. Instead, I worked from 7 AM to 10:30 PM straight and that equals BURNOUT
Maybe not an entire book, but certainly a chapter!
Yeah, it was very interesting. I preached with a microphone, complete with cord attached, in my hand, walking back and forth in the chapel. I didn't know until the end that it was for the recording!
Careful - don't kill yourself, one Christ is enough, thanks!
Yeah, so I walked into Mish's school yesterday and all these Catholic teachers and students had a big grey smudge on their forehead. Suddenly, I felt really self-conscious that I didn't have a mark! The little grey smudge was such a powerful symbolic reminder of how we are marked by God, that without the smudge I felt exposed, vulnerable and way on the outside!
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