6pm Lenten Pastorates

Every Wednesday until April 5, 2017

6:00pm – 8:00pm

Lent Pastorates 2017 web

Our Lenten Pastorates will be offered during Lent as a way we can practice together various spiritual disciplines. These pastorates will not only offer you insight and wisdom into the Christian life, but opportunities to practice your faith in tangible ways. Join a pastorate that will stretch your spiritual muscles and that will strengthen a weak area of your discipleship. As we prepare for the great celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday, walk in His footsteps, deny yourself, and follow Jesus in a new and fresh way. Sign up in the foyer on Sundays.

40 Days with St. Ignatius
Fr. Ross Guthrie
begins Sunday, March 5 at 6:00 p.m.
The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations on the life of Jesus, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries the Exercises were most commonly given as a “long retreat” of about 30 days in solitude and silence. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on it as a “retreat in daily life” for modern people. In this 40-day “Do-It-At-Home Retreat,” we will set aside an hour a day for prayer, reading, and reflection. Opportunities to meet with Fr. Ross, one-on one, to discuss one’s spiritual life are encouraged as well as making confession with a priest toward the end of the Lenten season.

Observing Holy Week
Gary Osborne
begins Sunday, March 5 at 6:00 p.m.
Easter morning is the zenith day of our faith—Jesus rose from the dead! The promise of eternal life is now a reality. But what about the week prior to the resurrection? Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and includes Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. These three days are known as the Triduum. The goal of this pastorate will be to anticipate, with a wide range of emotions and practices, the great day of Easter as we commemorate the passion of Christ through special designated days.

Disciplines of Abstinence
Barbara Reed
begins Wednesday, March 8 at 6:00 p.m.
In this world of noise and constant demands, we will be looking at Disciplines of Abstinence. Drawing closer to Jesus Christ does not mean always taking on more to do; it can mean making our loads lighter and easier to bear. Solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, and sacrifice are some of the Disciplines of Abstinence suggested by Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Margaret Guenther, Esther de Waal and others. Join us as we venture down the path of “less is more.”

Meditation on the Sermon on the Mount
Nancy Thomas
begins Wednesday, March 8 at 6:00 p.m.
So often our vision of Christian living gets cloudy and most resembles the culture that surrounds us. Fr. Wes recently challenged us to focus on the Sermon on the Mount and allow it to transform us for living in the world. Each week we will consider the words of Jesus and how they influence our daily Christian practices as we learn to live in the kingdom of God here “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Pilgrimage
Fr. Brian Larsen Wells
begins Wednesday, March 8 at 6:00 p.m.
Pilgrimage has long been considered an essential aspect of the Christian faith. The Israelites of millennia past would travel hundreds of miles to visit the temple in Jerusalem, singing psalms and spiritual songs as they ascended. People today visit places where our Christian ancestors lived out their faith. This Lent, we will endeavor to see the spiritual discipline of pilgrimage as a worthy act of devotion that will lead us to greater love of God, His people, and His glorious creation!

The Practice of Writing
Joy Moore
begins Wednesday, March 8 at 6:00 p.m.
This pastorate will consider writing as spiritual discipline and as invitation. We’ll commit to a habit of writing (specifics are up to you) and each week discuss how the challenges of writing open us to new opportunities and insights. In particular, we’ll look at how the act of writing invites us to discover, listen, reimagine, and converse. We’ll focus on the process of writing more than the chosen forms in hopes that we might have a conversation engaging to journalers, essayists, poets, fictionists, and bloggers alike. Novices, dabblers, and regular practitioners are welcome.

Putting to Memory
Fr. Wes Gristy
begins Wednesday, March 8 at 6:00 p.m.
In a world where we have every gadget and timer at our disposal to help us remember things, the practice of memorization has fallen out of style. We can barely remember our own phone numbers! And yet by saturating our minds and hearts with Scripture, over time the very words of God can become the bricks that pave the pathways of our lives. Join us as we seek to plant God’s Word deep into our hearts through the spiritual discipline of memorization.