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To help you further explore and experience the Abundance & Fullness of our Lenten theme “Full to the Brim” we will be offering both a Lent Bible Study and Daily Lent Devotional/Prayer Emails.

A Full to the Brim Bible Study guide will be available at church beginning on Ash Wednesday. The guide contains a weekly Bible Study to help you further explore the Sunday morning sermon text through reflection, questions and life application. You may choose to take and use the guide at home for individual study throughout Lent or better yet, increase your connections within our church community by participating in any of the three Group Bible Study opportunities listed below as you reflect, share and discuss each study with others in a small group setting.

Sunday Study at 11 a.m. in the Fireside Room - First, literally fill your cup at Coffee Fellowship then join others in the Fireside Room to figuratively fill your heart & soul Full to the Brim through study and fellowship.

Wednesday Night Simple Soup Supper & Study 6 p.m. in Fellowship Hall - First, literally fill your bowl and stomach with bread & soup while enjoying fellowship around the table. Then figuratively fill your heart & soul Full to the Brim through study and deeper fellowship at the table.

Zoom (Day & Time TBD) - Fill your favorite cup at home then virtually fill your heart & soul Full to the Brim through study and fellowship via Zoom.

All three Bible Study group opportunities will use the same Bible Study guide so you are welcome to participate in whichever group best fits your schedule each week. Please sign up ahead of time, especially if you plan to participate in the Wednesday Night Simple Soup Supper Study or the Zoom Group so that we can be sure to set a seat at the table for you or send you the Zoom link.

Beginning with Ash Wednesday Service on February 14^th

The traditional iterations of the liturgical season Lent often emphasize restraint, confession, and piety. Often people will talk about what they are “giving up” for Lent – sometimes alcohol, or sweets, or some bad habit. The origins of Lent in the early church were that one was to leave their old life behind to fast and prepare to be baptized into a new way of living. In essence, this was a practice of stepping away from the rat race, corrupt power, scarcity mentality, and empty rituals in order to live a more expansive and full life of faith.

We, the people who have largely already experienced baptism and new life in Jesus come to Lent with a bit of tension – we have experienced some of that new life already – but perhaps not in full. We are people of the promise who are still finding our way – sometimes messing up and having to course correct our lives, sometimes we are figuring out the next steps in the call of God on our lives. Lent provides us with some space for reflection on where we have come from, and what God invites us into.

And so, with our theme this year “Full to the Brim” we are trusting in the promise of our baptisms—God has already claimed us as God’s own and nothing we can do will ever change or erase that. Full to the Brim doesn’t ignore or deny sin and suffering. It doesn’t absolve accountability for wrongdoing. Instead, it contextualizes our faith. If love is our beginning, how can we live our lives led by love’s promises? It reminds us to live fully—as we pursue justice and hope, or express grief and gratitude. 

And so, this Lent, let us trust—fully—that we belong to God.

Let us increase our capacity to receive and give grace.

Let us discover once more the expansive life God dreams for us.

Blessings and light, Pastor Renée

The use of star words, also called “star gifts,” is a prayer practice connected to Epiphany and the new year that has been growing in popularity in Protestant churches for nearly a decade now. The idea is that a list of intention words, or guiding words, are written or printed on paper stars. These paper stars are then arranged or in a large basket. On January 7th, you’ll be invited to draw a word from the basket, and to use that word as a guiding word throughout the year. We encourage you to trust the word you draw, but if you need to trade, that’s ok too.

Beginning Sunday, January 7th, we will begin a new worship series called Seeking God. We will begin with the story of the three wise men on that Sunday. Then we will look at other stories about what it means to be a seeker of God:
January 14 Follow - the disciples are called to follow Jesus | Mark 1:16-20
January 21 Flee - Jonah is called to do a difficult task by God and flees | Book of Jonah
January 28 Freed - Jesus heals a possessed human | Mark 1:21-28
February 4 Fallow - Jesus retreats to rest and finds God in resting | Mark 1:35-39
February 11 Fear - the disciples go up to a mountaintop with Jesus | Mark 9:2-7