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LENTEN HAPPENINGS
Living Well Through Lent 2023: Practicing
Compassion with All Your Heart, Soul, Strength,
and Mind
Available now, an 84-page daily devotional that provides a
foundation for seeking a deeper experience of Lent, an
experience that will help prepare us for the true meaning of
Easter.
The devotional includes reflections from: The Rt. Rev. Jennifer
Baskerville-Burrows, Martha Johnson Bourlakas, Robbin Brent,
The Rev. Laurie Brock, The Rev. Jan Kwiatkowski, The Rev.
Kyle Oliver, EdD, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Jake Owensby, The Rev. Dr.
Scott Stoner, The Rev. Jana Troutman-Miller, The Rev. Dr.
Dawna Wall, The Rev. Deborah Woolsey, The Rev. Chris Yaw.
You can find copies of the devotional in the back of church,
the chapel and the office.
One Church, One Book
After-Dinner Lenten Discussion Series:
Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other, and
the Spirit of Transformation by Stephanie Spellers
Conversations in Lent
Wednesday evenings 7-8pm
Parish Hall or by Zoom
A few years back, just before the pandemic changed
everything, the entire community at St. Matthew’s read
Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted
Territory by Tod Bolsinger. This shared experience set the
church on a path of missional identity (with a new mission
statement at the end of much discussion, debate, and prayer)
and the start of a time of experimentation, which continues to this day.
Our new mission – Welcoming all in community; doing God’s work in the world / Welcoming our neighbors from near and far – set the stage and the parameters for our initial set of experiments. Stephanie Speller’s book Radical Welcome makes for a rich conversation partner for us as we tackle our new mission statement with vigor. With hearty theology, practical questions, and deep lists of impactful resources to explore, Radical Welcome offers us a navigable course as we explore where this new mission statement could lead us in the “uncharted territory” of our current moment.
I hope that you will consider reading the book (or reading it again!) and discussing it this Lent.