Planning Lent and Easter for Congregation, Group and Home, Year B

Why Lent? Lent is a season of preparation, accompaniment, and journey. The whole church prepares itself to live more deeply into the baptismal covenant in worship, in small-group meetings, and through personal and corporate disciplines of devotion, worship, mercy, and justice.

But why do we do this? It's not just for ourselves. Lent isn't some kind of personal spiritual marathon! We do this as congregations so we can be midwives for the work the Holy Spirit is doing in others in our midst. Some of those others are preparing for baptism. Some are preparing for confirmation. Some are seeking reconciliation. And some may be discerning or getting ready to take a significant next step in their discipleship and ministry in the name of Jesus. It's challenging work to be midwives -- to be those who accompany others in major new things the Spirit is bringing to birth in their lives. We may be more accustomed to having programs designed by experts that we rely on to tell people on journeys like this just what to do. But that's not our real calling -- in Lent or ever. Our calling as congregations is to walk this "journey of gestation" with others, trusting the Spirit to lead, and trusting that the Spirit has given us everything we need so the Spirit's work can be delivered. We have to die to any notion that we can program or control such outcomes. And so we begin Lent together on Ash Wednesday, acknowledging the sobering reality of our mortality. We will all die. We never stop there. Death does not have the last word, though it does have the first. And we need it to have the first. But for us, Christ is the last word, Christ victorious over death. We will all die. But we who are in Christ will all be changed.

Beginning the Journey: Resources for Ash Wednesday.

Many churches begin Lent on Ash Wednesday, using ashes made of the previous year's palm leaves used on Palm Sunday. You can find guidance for this service in The United Methodist Book of Worship [BOW], nos. 320-324. If you’re interested in a more multisensory version, try our Contemporary Service of Ash Wednesday. Read more about the use (and dangers!) of ashes in "Water and Ashes Do Not Mix!" If you're involving children (and we hope you are!), you may find "Making Ash Wednesday Accessible for Children" helpful. To give the journey's goal concrete focus, put the font where it will be seen throughout Lent. Look at the text of no. 2138 in The Faith We Sing, "Sunday's Palms Are Wednesday's Ashes."

Invite people to use "Connecting Worship and Daily Living in Lent" as a tool for practicing spiritual and ministry disciplines during Lent. Adapt the resource to your context and opportunities for service and growth in prayer.

Focus on the need and process of conversion throughout the season by using The Revised Common Lectionary, Year B (see the readings in BOW nos. 230-231, or the Official Program Calendar for 2012). Think of the readings as the flow for a short course on the great themes of conversion and baptism. But remember: Don't turn worship into a classroom! Keep the biblical stories and the journeys you are taking together up front.

Week One: We are driven into the wilderness with Jesus. (Mark 1:9-15)

Week Two: Jesus lays out the expectations for his disciples. (Mark 8:31-38)

Week Three: Jesus confronts religion. (John 2:13-22)

Week Four: We need repentance. We are offered new life. (John 3:14-21)

Week Five: Discipleship to Jesus calls us to die. (John 12:20-33)

Every week, a new and deeper call. Every week, we draw nearer to our need for Christ and the realization that the Spirit gives us what we need to live our baptismal vows to renounce the evil powers of this world, walk away from our sinful ways, resist evil, injustice and oppression in every way they present themselves, and entrust our whole lives to the grace and Lordship of Jesus.

And every week, as we hear absolute calls from Jesus, we may come nearer to recognizing the absolute nature of life in him. Our baptismal vows are also absolutes, no gray in sight. We either renounce, or we do not. We either resist, or we do not. We either repent, or we do not. We either follow Jesus, or we do not.

Absolutes are hard to declare in a public venue such as worship. Such demands -- and they are just that -- are often unwelcome there, and so may need to be framed in worship, at least, as invitations to follow Jesus fully. Consider with your worship planning team how to make this translation from demand to invitation where you are.

This very likely means the actual process of following Jesus fully will require some other context in people's lives where these absolutes and demands function precisely as absolutes and demands.

And so the next question for your worship planning team, as well as and your formation teams, is how you will make sure that people ready for the demands have access to small groups that will help them face them and meet them. These may be new or existing Covenant Discipleship Groups, or Emmaus 4th Day groups, or other groups that have a rule of life based on the baptismal vows to which they hold one another accountable.

Let the church be pregnant! Lent is a season with ancient roots in forming people to be born anew in baptism at Easter. And Dan Benedict has developed a powerful set of resources for group work and corporate worship to help folks on that journey in his book, Come to the Waters.

When the church is not expectant and gestating new Christians, it manufactures other and often less helpful reasons to observe Lent. Note the "Invitation to the Observance of Lenten Discipline" that includes the line, "During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism" (BOW, no. 322). It is a good time for confirmation preparation, preparation of parents presenting children for baptism, and for forming youth and adults for baptism and baptized living.

For more on the ancient catechumenate, visit the North American Association for the Catechumenate website.

Keep the tone of worship aimed toward Easter. Lenten Sundays are "little Easters," as are all Lord's Days. Worship should not be primarily penitential (though it may and should include some penitential elements). Nor is worship through these weeks a kind of extended Holy Week. These weeks are not the time for songs about the cross, for the most part, but rather songs about the demands and disciplines of discipleship to Jesus, chosen for how they fit the texts for each week. So, let Lent be Lent, and Holy Week be Holy Week!

Climax the journey with full-blown Holy Week and Easter worship. There is no more intensive engagement with the gospel than Passion/Palm Sunday through Easter. Stretch your worship muscles! The Book of Worship offers resources for planning worship all through the week. Discipleship Ministries worship website offers many additional resources at no charge.Marcia McFee's "Worship Design Studio" provides (for a fee) planning helps and thought starters for your team to use to design powerful services for each day in Holy Week. Make good and imaginative use of our rich ritual and these additional resources and aim at the body and the emotions as well as the mind.

Keep in mind that these services, from the beginning, have been richer in ritual action than words -- except that, on Good Friday and Palm/Passion Sunday, a key part of our ritual action is the reading of the story of the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus, first from Mark (Sunday) and then from John (Friday).

So do not feel obliged to have a sermon at every service! Let readings, storytelling, hymns, percussion, film, actions (washing feet, kneeling at the cross, candle lighting), gestures, and light and darkness speak most profoundly. Where necessary, use words. Take the full plunge -- with light, music, Scripture, flowing water, bread and wine. Consider using our Alternative/Emergent Maundy Thursday service. On Saturday night after sunset or in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday morning, offer an Easter Vigil (BOW 368-376 or our more interactive version). If you have not experienced the Easter Vigil, plan to participate in it at a nearby church that does it well. Then, with that inspiration under your belt, you can plan for it next year.

Organize small groups and families (however configured) to keep times of prayer, self-denial, intense reflection and action based on the Scriptures. John Wesley urged "self-denial" as a way of increasing our liberty to respond to God's grace. Invite families to some discipline of saying "no" to something (TV, overeating, unnecessary spending, etc.) in order to say a stronger "yes" to God and to neighbor (times of quiet, serving a meal at a shelter, visiting a shut-in, etc.). Organize small groups for those who are willing to "go further" and seek to work on living the demands of the gospel for each week, preferably with each group including one or two persons preparing for baptism. Provide guidance and resources, such as a booklet of meditations created by church members, and use a resource for daily reading and reflection based on Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings throughout the entire season, not just Holy Week. One such resource is A Disciple's Journal, which provides a journal format for daily morning and evening prayer for the entire year, quotations from the Wesleys, and opportunities to grow in the practices of the General Rules.

Remember, if you don't do it all this year, next year will allow you to improve and expand your congregation's observance of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. So trust God and the wisdom of the larger church, which has celebrated these days for two millennia; and give it your best effort with the help of the Spirit.

Taylor Burton-Edwards is Director of Worship Resources with Discipleship Ministries. Daniel Benedict retired from the staff of Discipleship Ministries in August 2005.