The Health Ministry in conjunction with the Worship, Prayer, and Spirituality Ministry is offering two ways for you to engage in one of the practices we name as important to keeping a holy Lent. If you were present for the Ash Wednesday service this year or in years past you may recall the language of the Invitation to the Observance of the Lenten Discipline. The final statement of the invitation is “I invite, you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe a holy Lent by self-examination, and penitence, by prayer and fasting, by works of love, and by reading and meditating on the Word of God.” It is not as if prayer is only important during Lent. However, this season which invites us into reflection and examination is a wonderful time to deepen our practices of prayer. The offerings being highlighted here are connecting to a particular kind of prayer: Healing Prayer.
There are many reasons to pray. We pray to remind ourselves that we are not the center of the universe, God is. We pray as a way to consider our day and how God has been present to us throughout that day. We pray to offer our praise and thanks to a God who delights us through never-ending generosity and blessing. Healing prayer is a way to name the deep needs of ourselves, those we love, and the world and then bring those places before God’s healing grace. These two opportunities can give you space to do just that during Lent this year.
The Cross Shop: Finding Healing at the Intersection
The Health Ministry offers this space during Lent for people to take a cross and write a word or name that represents a place in your life or someone you know who needs healing, hope, forgiveness, guidance, or grace. You may leave that cross in the cross shop on the Sundays of Lent. The community will lift those needs up in prayer during the March 22 healing prayer service.
Sunday, March 22
Healing Prayer Service
10 a.m. in the Sanctuary
People are invited to share in this liturgy of healing prayer, and are offered the opportunity to come forward to share in prayer with one of the elders or pastors if desired. People are also invited to write down prayer concerns in the week leading up to the Service, and those concerns will be included in the litany for healing as well as the concerns left in the cross shop.
~Jill Russell, Health Ministry member