The Journey of Lent

Today marks the beginning of Lent, which is the 40 days (excluding Sundays) before Easter. Lent has been a part of the church calendar since about the 4th century. In the ancient church, new believers were baptized and welcomed into the church on Easter Eve and those who had wandered away from God were brought back into the community at that time as well. The forty days represented a time of preparation for those entering the church and for those receiving them. This season remembers the time that Jesus spent in the desert, fasting and praying and gaining spiritual strength before the start of his life of ministry. So too, for us it is a symbolic journey into the desert to prepare to receive once again the glory of the resurrection and all that God has done for us. It is common during Lent to focus on prayer, reflection, fasting and charity. As someone who did not grow up observing Lent, it has taken me some time to come to realize that it is not a time of guilt or heaviness. Instead the reality is that we have an opportunity to see our over-filled hands and to lay something down that may keep us from fully grasping the life God has for us. So if you desire to fast in some way during this season, look at the things (or attitudes) that keep you from loving God fully and being formed in his likeness. Perhaps it is busyness, noise, technology, entertainment, food, or money. Maybe it is something not at all bad, but giving it up will remind you to draw close to God. The journey into the desert is to let go of that thing for an hour or a day or even the full forty days and spend the time with God. Again, we don’t only lay something down as a sacrifice, but we pick something up that will draw us into the heart of God: prayer, giving our time or money to benefit the poor, meditating on the will of God for our lives. If this is all new to you, start simply. Maybe give up that daily Starbucks and donate the money you save to a charity or ministry that serves the marginalized in our society. Each morning you can reflect on God’s heart for these people and pray for the ability to see and love them as God does. Maybe it will involve turning off the radio on the way to work to make space to pray about your day and the people you pass. There are as many ways to participate in Lent as there are people. Experiment. Look for the joy that is hidden in the sacrifice. Open your hands to God.

The Year Ahead

Since this is the Elder Board blog, I’d like to mention a few key things we’ll be doing in the year ahead and ask you to pray with us for our church.

Prayer

We will continue to pray with people desiring healing at our regularly scheduled Elder Board meetings at 6pm in the Prayer Room. Contact Sharon to schedule a date, or watch the bulletin for an announcement. We usually meet on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month, but this is subject to change.

Starting on Palm Sunday, we plan to be available for prayer and anointing during our Communion services (1st Sunday of the month).

Look for an invitation to join with us in prayer for our church (especially our finances) in the months ahead. We did this last year and feel that God answered our prayers in amazing and unlooked for ways. We continue to pray regularly together for our church at all of our meetings, but it was wonderful to open this up to the church and we hope to do it again.

Strategic Plan

At our member dessert at the end of last year, Kent and Mike mentioned that we would be developing a strategic plan this year. We are looking forward to this process with expectation for two reasons. Firstly, there are many great things our church could get involved in, but with reduced finances and staff support we want to carefully get behind those things that will be the most meaningful for our church and will best support our vision and goals. Secondly, we look forward to seeing the church from a wide variety of viewpoints. Many of you have helped in one of the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of our church. In addition to people from the congregation, the staff, Elder Board, and Administrative Council have met to do this exercise. We expect to have the results from the various meetings presented to the Elder Board by the end of the month. From just the one meeting I attended, I’m sure we will fill our agenda with interesting conversations for a long time to come! However, we will not only be talking about perceptions, opportunities, and things to tweak, but we will be coming up with some action plans. Stay tuned for more information. Many, many thanks to Rick Carr and Keith Aldrich for their hours of help in making this a reality.

Worship

Last spring a sort of worship “think tank” was formed to meet weekly over the course of a couple months to discuss the theological aspects of worship. This group read books and articles on the subject and engaged in the work of thinking rigorously on this topic. Out of those discussions and readings a working paper has been written and the Elder Board (as well as the Worship Planning Team) will be wrestling with this document to further refine it to express what we at Oak Hills believe about worship. You may have already noticed some of the results of this in the bulletin Order of Worship. I encourage you to read Pastor Kent’s blog http://kentycarlson.blogspot.com/ on emotions in worship and help us to continue to develop our thinking. When we have a final document, you will be able to find it posted on the church website if you’re interested.

Twenty-fifth Anniversary

This year marks the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Oak Hills Church! Look for details of our celebration in early fall.


Other business

Naturally, we will continue to have on our agenda the ongoing needs of our church as they arise. With the economies of our nation and state in disarray, the pressures on our church and our church families are immense and will naturally be something we look at each time we meet.