Living Love Through Lent
“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!”—2 Corinthians 5:17
Transformation takes time. No matter how long we have been journeying with Jesus on this spiritual path, our “newness” in Christ is constantly unfolding. We are always growing. It’s never a one and done thing. Whether it’s spiritual growth, emotional healing, or breaking old patterns, real change requires patience and practice. Transformation requires spiritual patience and spiritual practice. It is no stretch to say that our spiritual patience and practice are being tested this year. Life events, turmoil, and uncertainty in our civic life are are all pushing our buttons and giving us angst. As we strive to speak up for the most vulnerable in our society, I suspect that we need to dig a bit deeper into our hearts and draw deeper from our spiritual center, God who lives within us.
For Lent this year, I am inviting you to embark on a journey of healing and transformation called Living Love. Using scripture and Rozella Haydée White’s book, Love Big: The Power of Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World, our Lenten worship series will explore what it means to love God, love ourselves, and love others in ways that truly transform us and the world around us. Living Love will require us to let go of unhealthy views of self and unhelpful perspectives of others. Living Love will require us to acknowledge our broken hearts, unhealed wounds, and opportunities for growth. Living Love means we will need to repair our souls and develop revolutionary relationships, so God can truly transform us to do the work of justice.
Beginning on Ash Wednesday (March 5), you are invited to to not only participate in worship, but to intentionally take part in spiritual practices and community conversations about what Living Love looks like for you. What keeps you from the wholeness God offers? What keeps you from being your best self? What keeps you from Living Love? Whether you have walked the Lenten path for decades or this is your first intentional Lenten practice, you are invited to journey with us—with all your questions, your wounds, and your hopes.
In Christ, we are made new. Living Love is what we are called to do.
—Pastor Michael