Worship with us this coming Sunday Sunday, March 16, 2025 Second Sunday in Lent
8:30 am in the Chapel 9:30 am in the Palmer Gym or online 10:30 am in the Sanctuary or online
This week's readings:
Philippians 3.17 - 4.1; Luke 13.31-35
Come to the table... Lent 2025 Potluck Dinners and Conversations Wednesdays through April 16
6 pm to 8 pm, Pierson Hall
All are welcome and encouraged to join us for food and fellowship on Wednesday evenings throughout the season of Lent. Bring a dish to share and your own table service; beverages will be provided. On March 12 through April 9, our meal will be followed by Bible study and table conversation, designed for collaborative learning among children, youth, and adults. On April 16, we will share a presentation from the Kent Environmental Council as an opportunity to live more sustainably in relationship with our neighbors and with the goodness of God’s creation.
March 12: “Bread of Life”—John 6.25-40 March 19: “Bread for Growth”—Luke 13.18-21 March 26: “Bread for Each Day”—Matthew 6.9-13 April 2: “Bread for Sharing”—Luke 14.7-14 April 9: “Bread for Community”—Luke 19.1-10 April 16: Presentation on sustainability (Kent Environmental Council)
This Lent, join us as we break bread together, savor the generosity of God, learn from each other, and rise to share with the world out of the abundance we have received from the bread of life.
At-Home Resources
Please use one or more of the following resources by yourself, as a family, or with a group of friends and neighbors to help nourish your journey through Lent. (Resources are available now in the atrium.)
Eight devotions—one for Ash Wednesday, one for each Sunday in Lent, and one for Easter Sunday—are designed for individual contemplation and conversation with someone in your home or in your community. Each devotion includes a passage of scripture, a reflection that connects the scripture to the season of Lent, discussion questions, and a prayer. This may be used alongside or apart from any of the “Bread of Life” resources below.
Eight devotions—one for Ash Wednesday, one for Each Sunday in Lent, and one for Easter Sunday—are designed especially for families with children, youth, and adults of all ages. Families are encouraged to explore the material together and set aside time each week to gather and re-center. Each devotion includes a passage of scripture, a reflection that connects the scripture to the season of Lent, discussion questions, a suggested family activity, and a prayer.
Lenten Spiral
Images of this daily calendar are available in full-color or black-and-white (the latter, so you can color the picture as you go). Beginning Ash Wednesday, each day of Lent offers a simple activity for you or your family to complete. During the course of each week, you will find a scripture verse to provide foundation for the rest of the week; a spiritual practice to engage the theme; a Friday family conversation prompt to discuss together; a Saturday nature walk to encourage connecting with other parts of creation; and a Sunday feast day to celebrate God’s presence while sharing a meal.
Coins for Lent Giving Calendar
During the season of Lent, we are invited to consider the patterns of our lives and ways we can positively impact our neighborhoods. Each day on this calendar includes a prompt to consider the simple material blessings that are part of our lives and then to donate a coin for each as an opportunity to express our gratitude through generosity. You can decide the type of coins you want to collect or simply mark the number each day and write a check for the total at the end. Bring your total donation on Easter Sunday (this year, on April 20), and all donations will be given to support community feeding programs through Kent Social Services.
Community Easter Egg Hunt
Saturday, April 12, 1 pm to 3 pm
On Saturday, April 12, from 1 pm to 3 pm, we will join with Kids Kare Daycare and Tree City Preschool to host our 2nd Annual Community Easter Egg Hunt on our property. All children up to age 12 are welcome and encouraged to participate and will be asked to register in advance (details on registration will be provided in upcoming weekly email newsletters).
This will be a great opportunity, also, for our whole congregation both to connect with the daycare and preschool and to reach out with God's love to children and their families in our neighborhood. Please prayerfully consider being involved in any of the following ways:
Help with planning the event;
Donate small individually wrapped candy; or
Serve as a host on the day of the event (from noon to 3:30 pm).
All are welcome to join us for our next monthly book discussion. March's book will be The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
As Indigenous scientist (and author of Braiding Sweetgrass) Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community, and this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.” Please join us for our conversation on Tuesday, April 1.
Sunday Afternoon Walk
Sunday, April 13, 4 pm
Dix Park
Enjoy the beauty of God’s creation—both outdoors and in each other! Invite a friend or a neighbor and join us. All are welcome. We will meet in the parking lot of Dix Park (7318 State Route 44, Ravenna) at 4 pm and then walk some of the trails together.
A Lenten Invitation
from Bishop Hee-Soo Jung
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” – Mark 1:12-13 (NRSVA)
Each year we take a journey from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday called Lent. This is a time of introspection and devotional reflection. Many people make commitments to give up something they enjoy throughout this period, a symbolic gesture of sacrifice and self-denial. But beyond giving up chocolate or coffee or sweets or television, the Lenten period is a time for deep personal evaluation and reassessment. Lent can also be a time to think about what more we can give instead of what we can give up.
This year I invite us all to give more time and attention to what makes us faithful Christian disciples. Our challenge is to enter into a wilderness time with Jesus, to give Jesus our companionship throughout the weeks leading to Easter. Day-by-day, step-by-step we journey into wilderness – a place that is unfamiliar, dangerous, challenging, unknown, and filled with temptations. This is an invitation to make a conscious and intentional decision to go places that might be uncomfortable, threatening, frightening, or overwhelming for some, but we all enter in knowing that “angels wait on us,” and protect us.
This wilderness region stands between us, where we are now, and true and foundational beloved community, where God is calling us. Our current reality is that we tend to stay where we are most comfortable, where things are familiar, seem safe, secure, and normal. But one of the “beasts” we will encounter in our wilderness journey is normativity – the deceptive perspective that what is normal, comfortable, and beneficial for us is also normal for everyone else. In the glorious and divine creation of God, where the global community is one of widely diverse cultures, rituals, practices, values, moralities, preferences and tastes, there is simply no one-size-fits-all normal for everyone.
There are many significant challenges to such an audacious and ambitious goal, and we will encounter many of them in this Lenten season together. For many of us, we may feel threatened and discomforted by such phrases and concepts as racism, white privilege, white supremacy, colonialism, oppression, and racially based injustice. We may feel our defenses rise, we may even be offended and alarmed. This is what happens in the wilderness. Wilderness is never a safe place, but we must enter and cross the wilderness if we ever want to arrive at the Promised Land of Beloved Community.
It is true that humanity is seriously suffering from environmental and ecological problems and is suffering greatly. Of course, it is not easy for us, who live in a consumer culture, to talk about the preservation of the ecosystem and justice for all creatures. Our prayer for a green theology and our confession of faith that everyone is called to preserve God’s creation is a reality that demands urgent practice. It is precious that we pray for and care about justice for all creatures, along with the invitation to walk the actual path of the wilderness during this Lenten season. As vibrant church communities across Ohio stand as earth stewards for the preservation of creation, praying and learning together, this is one of the ways God wants us to preserve justice.
I am deeply moved to see our church open pantries for the homeless and the poor, regularly prepare and provide food, and extend God’s love to those who are left behind in the gaps of social injustice. The impactful mission of providing food, neatly organizing clothes, and providing free shelter for the poor neighbors is a proud practice of discipleship. I am grateful for this participation and prayer, and I am strengthened by meeting volunteers who are unconditionally committed and serving.
Our journey will be uncomfortable, offensive to some, and challenging to all. We openly and honestly admit this up front. But this is an important journey – an essential and inescapable journey – for The United Methodist Church to be faithful to its bedrock commitment to social justice through the unconditional love of God for all God’s people. Keep in mind that we make this journey with the angels, the emissaries of God who will keep us grounded in God’s Word and Will throughout our days.
“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” – Revelations 22:12-13 (NRSVA)
This Lenten season will be a prayerful time, a discerning time, a time for individual introspection as well as shared conversation. It is my prayer and desire that in this journey we will all feel God’s guiding hand and empowering Spirit, and that we will arrive together at a greater, deeper, and wider understanding of what it means to be a citizen in the Beloved Community of our Lord.
