Starting Our Lenten Journey

This year, starting with Ash Wednesday, we will journey through the Lenten season discovering God’s call for us: to renewal, values, openness, attentiveness, regret, and presence, and resurrection. This series is provided by Church Anew, in collaboration with Concordia College and St. Olaf. Many of the resources have been written and development by Rev. Dr. Charlene Rachuy-Cox who introduces the series as follows:

     “Honor the space between no longer and not yet,” so writes author and life coach, Nancy Levin. We can probably all think of a host of experiences from our own lives in which we occupy the space between no longer and not yet. The space between no longer pre-pandemic life and not yet what will settle into post-pandemic life. The space between before and after a medical diagnosis, before and after living with a loss, before and after navigating a relationship change, a job change, a move. The space between childhood and adulthood, young adulthood and midlife, midlife and the autumn years. The space between yesterday and tomorrow, your comfort zone and uncharted territory. The space between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.
     
     The church by its very nature, and we as people of faith, live our whole lives in the space between no longer and not yet. Cross-marked and Spirit-sealed, we dwell in the space between the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the final fulfillment of God’s hope-filled promises. In this space between, we dwell in the unfinished as unfinished people. As John reminds us, “we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.”
     
     But we are not left alone in this space between no longer and not yet. We are not left alone to navigate this unfinished life by ourselves. God is here - present-tense, each and every day - calling to us, accompanying us, renewing and recreating us - over and over again.”
 
I hope you will join us in worship, watch your Grace Notes and Grace Facebook page, and engage with the “vocare” spiritual practices we will be sharing. I pray that these bring meaning and depth to our Lenten journey to the cross and to the empty tomb.

In Christ’s peace,
Pastor Tania