March 2013 - Pastor's Reflection

Preparing for Easter

Lent is a time to prepare for Easter. It is a necessary prelude. The death and resurrection of Christ are true whether or not we prepare for Easter. However, without our heart and lives being ready, we may not experience the depth and power of Christ's death and resurrection.

So let’s join with each other to commit ourselves to disciplines for conversion from sin and death to love and life in Jesus Christ.   With the aid of the list below, try to make the following commitments to discipline and growth for the remaining weeks of Lent:

Inward and Personal Disciplines:

___ Spend time in solitude each day

___ Read a book for inner growth. (See Rev. Pat if you need suggestions)

___ Read twice through the gospel of Luke (from the 2013 lectionary cycle).

___ Begin to keep a journal of prayer concerns, questions, reading.

___ Focus on thanksgiving, rather than on asking, in prayer.

___ Find a way to go to bed earlier or sleep in so I get enough rest.

___ Make a list of people with whom I need to be reconciled. Pray for them and let Jesus guide me in my thinking and feeling toward them.

___ Take control of my life by ______________                                                                                  

___ Go to all of the Holy Week services as an act of love and waiting with Jesus (see dates and times on calendar).

___ Take one hour to inventory my priorities and plan how I will reorder them.

___ Give up a grudge or a rehearsal of a past event.

___ Forgive someone who has hurt me.

___ Other promptings

Outward and Social Disciplines:

___ Recommit to the membership vows of the church by faithfully participating “in its ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, and your service”.

___ Decide to become a member of the church and speak to a pastor or lay leader

___ Take on some loving task:

___ Plan to visit a "shut-in" neighbor or church member weekly

___ Write a letter of affirmation once a week to a person who has touched my life.

___ Listen and respond to Christ's call to a ministry of service

___ Go to coffee, lunch or dinner with someone I want to know better

___ Begin to recycle waste from my home and workplace.

___ Give blood and remember the cross.

___ Say "NO" to something that is a waste of my money and my time

___ Pray to God to help me resist racial prejudice and to give me courage in opposing it

___ Rebuke the spirit of criticism and my own tongue out of control.

___ Find a way to live out the baptismal promise to "resist evil, injustice, and oppression" in the power and liberty God gives us by ___________________

___ Other outward and social promptings:

As a way of being accountable, I will:

___ Share my plan with at least one other person and share with that person my experience of Lent during Holy Week.

These are just a few of the many ways we can see the example of Christ’s sacrifice made for us.  May we each experience the depth and power of Christ's resurrection this Easter.                    

Shalom,   Rev. Pat