entering into Lent

            This past Sunday, our middle school students served dinner at SHIP to those in need in our community and orur senior high students gathered to make Valentine's Day cards as well as have a silly gift exchange.  These two ministry programs partnered with our morning worship services and Sunday School allowed our youth to live as disciples of our Lord.
            Now as we enter into the Lenten season today our congregation will gather in the chapel at 8 pm for our Ash Wednedsay worship serivce.

Ash Wednesday is a day of mourning for our sin and the sins of all humanity before God, a recognition of our mortality save for the grace of God, and a request that the Lord remember our creation and breathe new life into our burned-out, dusty lives once more.  It is Christ, not us by our own actions, who saves us from the ravages of sin, and it is upon Him that our hope is placed.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a time where we undergo a discipline that helps us become better disciples.  Traditional Ash Wednesday services include an imposition of ashes, which is the marking of an ashen cross on our foreheads with the pastor’s thumb dipped in a little olive oil mixed with the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday branches.  The mark of the cross upon the forehead, like the mark of Cain (Genesis 4), is God’s mark of grace upon us that we might not die even though we are obvious sinners.

This evening we will also be celebrating the Lord's Supper together as we begin our Lenten journey.