Lent 1998: A Way in the Wilderness

 

Seekers Church:
A Christian Community

In the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour

Lent 1998

A Way in the Wilderness

REFLECTION

Wisdom marks our foreheads with ashes
 as we begin the journey through Lent.
She intuits what these forty days may hold in store for us
 and tries to prepare us.
Remembering Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness,
 she knows the trials, temptations,
 and vulnerability one encounters in seeking to reflect,
  to shed, to open oneself, to prepare.
She remembers the wounds to come.

-Jan L. Richardson, Sacred Journeys, p 133.

PRELUDE

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader:

Behold the beauty of the Holy One.
Let us offer sacrifices in God’s tent, with shouts of joy.
Let us sing and make melody to God.

Unison:

O God, you are our light and our salvation;
 Whom shall we fear?
You give us shelter in the wilderness;
 and show us where to find a way.
Hear us as we cry out, O God,
 gathered as part of the body of Christ.

Psalm 27

INVOCATION

HYMN

WORD FOR THE CHILDREN

SILENCE

CHANT OF THE WAY

Leader:

We know by a kind of instinct
 that peace lies in the heart of darkness —
  In the wilderness of soul.
Something prompts us to keep still,
 to trust in God,
 to be quiet and to listen for God’s voice.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, pg. 237.

SILENCE

PRAYERS

COMMON CONFESSION

Leader:

Happy are those whose fault is taken away,
 whose sin is covered.

Unison:

As long as I would not speak,
 my bones wasted away with groaning all day long;
 for day and night your hand lay heavy upon me.
Enough.
 Now I will confess my transgressions to you O God,
  and wait for your forgiveness.

Psalm 32

INDIVIDUAL PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

ASSURANCE

Leader:

God forgives those who confess.
Steadfast love surrounds those who trust in God.

Psalm 32

PRAYERS OF THE COMMUNITY

HYMN

THE WORD

FIRST LESSON

SILENCE

GOSPEL LESSON

SERMON

SILENT REFLECTION

The first Sunday of each month we switch to a Communion Liturgy here.

OFFERING

SHARED REFLECTIONS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

HYMN

BENEDICTION

Leader:

Put prayer, virtue, merit, grace, and all gifts
 in the keeping of the one from whom they all must come.
Peace will be all the sweeter
 because it will be free of every care. Amen.

Merton, pg. 239.