March Message: Lenten Practices

by Paster Eliot Fay

As we head into the month of March, we find ourselves fast approaching the celebration of Easter. Rather than waiting until the week of Easter to earnestly begin our reflection on the significance of Resurrection Sunday, the season of Lent invites us to instead take the 40 days leading up to Easter to let the gravity of Christ's life, death and resurrection more fully affect our hearts and minds.

There is, of course, no prescribed way in which this spiritual preparation is meant to take place. The goal is simply to take time to intentionally reflect on our need for God's grace, the forgiveness and love that God graciously extends to us, and how the call of God to love our neighbor might find fuller expression in our lives. By way of encouraging all of us to respond to this invitation, I include here a Lenten Calendar that I have adapted from one originally posted by Nadia Bolz-Weber. I particularly appreciate these daily suggestions because they avoid the unhealthy tendency to see the spiritual preparation of Lent solely in terms of giving things up. This calendar, you will notice, also invites us to add practices to our lives as an act of preparation. I hope that you find it to be a useful resource in addition to your own Lenten practices, or a tool that encourages you to give the practice of Lent a try for the first time.

Day 1: Pray for someone who has hurt you or offended you.

Day 2: Use or buy a reusable grocery bag instead of plastic.

Day 3: Don’t turn on the car radio.

Day 4: Give $15 to a non-profit of your choosing (Sunday).

Day 5: Take 5 minutes of silence at noon.

Day 6: Look out the window until you find something of beauty you had not noticed before.

Day 7: Give 5 items of clothing to Planet Aid or Goodwill.

Day 8: Try to avoid whining or complaining today.

Day 9: Do someone else’s chore.

Day 10: Buy a few $5 fast food gift cards to keep in your car for the times you see a person holding a “hungry” sign at an intersection. (Sunday).

Day 11: Call a friend.

Day 12: Pray for people and situations in today’s news.

Day 13: Read Psalm 139.

Day 14: Pay a few sincere compliments.

Day 15: Bring your own mug.

Day 16: Take 20 minutes to educate yourself about human trafficking (Sunday).

Day 17: Forgive someone.

Day 18: Stay off the Internet.

Day 19: Change that last lightbulb that you haven’t gotten around to yet to an LED.

Day 20: Read Psalm 51.

Day 21: Ask for help.

Day 22: Find a way to tell someone something you are grateful for (Sunday).

Day 23: Find a way to introduce yourself to someone you don’t know.

Day 24: Read Psalm 121.

Day 25: Bake something to share with someone.

Day 26: No shopping day.

Day 27: Don’t throw away anything that can be recycled .

Day 28: Light a candle and say a prayer for someone who needs it (Sunday).

Day 29: Write a thank you note to someone who you appreciate.

Day 30: Use or buy another reusable grocery bag instead of plastic.

Day 31: Give something away that you don’t need to someone who would appreciate it.

Day 32: Donate some art supplies to Nelson Elementary.

Day 33: Read John 8:1-11.

Day 34: Spend 15 minutes reading about a different faith – Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, Bahaism (try Wikipedia) (Sunday).

Day 35: Confess a secret.

Day 36: No sugar day.

Day 37: Give $15 to a local non-profit.

Day 38: Educate yourself about a significant figure in Christian history (Martin Luther, John Calvin, St. Augustine, Tertullian, Evangeline Booth, C.S Lewis, Bonhoeffer, Ignasius, St. Teresa of Avilla, Mother Teresa, John or Charles Wesley, John Whitfield, George Fox, etc.).

Day 39: Pray for peace.

Day 40: Decide on one of these exercises to continue to do regularly this year.

Christmas Eve offering to help Rohingya family immigrate to USA

Each year, the offering taken at the Christmas Eve service goes directly out into the world to support an urgent humanitarian need. The church matches the offering up to $500.

This year the offering will go to Refugee Helpers of Southern New Hampshire, associated with Project Home, to help sponsor a Rohingya family of five through the US State Department’s Welcome Corps program. See page 4-5 of the December Meetinghouse to read more about the family and their cousin who immigrated in 2013 after 20 years in a refugee camp in Malaysia.

You can also make a donation online by clicking the DONATE button at the top of the page and directing your gift to the Christmas Eve offering.