Preparing our children and our families for Lent.
The next two Sundays are the final in the season of Ordinary Time before we make a big shift to the season of Lent.
On Sundays 2/20 and 2/27 children will be learning about the Circle of the Church Year in Sunday School, looking ahead to the Mystery of Easter, and bringing home some Lenten resources that will support their observance of the season in their whole lives, and hopefully share with their families!
Immediately following church on 2/20 and 2/27, we will invite all children to stay in the sanctuary with Rob Stevens and members of the altar guild to tour the altar and the sacristy (the room behind the altar where we keep all the colored vestments, candle sticks, and other special items that get cared for each week and each season of the church year).
We might take it for granted that the altar cloths change to purple at the beginning of Lent… but this is a powerful signal for all of us, especially children. Why does it change? Who changes it? How do they know what to do? Where do we keep these mysterious items? Can I touch them?
These questions and more we will encourage in our time exploring the sacristy and altar together following the 10am church service on 2/20 and 2/27.
As children come to Sunday school over the next weeks, they will be given a bag with Lenten items to take home. These items will have some instructions for parents to help their exploration of this season, and we will also review and discover different elements of the take-home bag each week in Sunday School.
Lent begins on Wednesday March 2nd. The Ash Wednesday evening service at 6pm is very interesting and would be a great experience for older children. To see the church transformed, to experience the darkness of the night around them, and to witness and participate in the imposition of ashes would be very moving for children 9 years old and up.
During Lent we will resume our Children’s Choir rehearsals in the choir room from 11-12.
There will be an adult conversation series offered at this time, in direct response to what we’ve heard many asking for: Walk in Love, the Episcopal Way (and more specifically, The St. John’s Way!) This group will be conversational and look closely at the ideas of belonging, believing, becoming, and bestowing.
