photo by prendio2. Flickr.
Join us as we follow the traditional Liturgical calendar with churches around the world. Our first Sunday begins with a special Ash Meditation service.
10:15am Sundays 17 Feb – March 31
Over Lent we will produce a weekly visual calendar of simple daily readings and Lenten actions taken from the traditional Sunday readings. These are available at our services.
Tuesday nights will also be set aside for special Lenten activities such as Shrove Tuesday dinner, Easter egg painting, Meditations and more. Activities will be announced in our services and in our weekly e-newsletter or contact admin@ehillschurch.com.
Sunday Readings
Feb 17th – Ash Service. Lent Wk 1. Freedom. Luke 4:1-13
Feb 24th – Lent Wk 2. Identity. Genesis 15:1-12, 17, 18; Philippians 3:17-4:1
March 3rd – Lent Wk 3. Warnings. Luke 13:1-9
March 10th – Lent Wk 5 . Communion & lunch in local homes. There will not be a service at CCC on this day. If you would like to join us and you are not on our emailing list please contact us at admin@ehillschurch.com. We would love to invite you over.
March 17th – Lent Wk 5 – Extremists in Love. John 12:1-8
March 24th – Palm Sunday. Service at McCrae Beach. There will not be a service at CCC on this day. Details will be in the eh weekly newsletter in the coming weeks. Otherwise, for details contact us at admin@ehillschurch.com. We would love to see you there!
March 29 – Good Friday Tenebrae Service. ‘Up on a Mountain.’ 8:45am sharp at CCC, doors close at 9am.
A beautiful time of reflection as we partake in communion and experience a gallery in the Tenebrae tradition. We invite you to wear black – the colour of mourning and join us after this short service for a hot-crossed bun Fair Trade breakfast.
March 31st – Easter Sunday Celebration. Celebrate the Amazing Beauty of Easter Sunday and participate in the tradition of the flowering cross. We will close our time with an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids!
Lent Series – The View From Here
Lent has a long history. It began in the early church as a time for those who were going to be baptized to prepare themselves for baptism and full acceptance into the church. It was a time for fasting and prayer as well as a time for them to study and learn about Jesus and what it means to be a part of the church. (baptism happened only once a year on the day before Easter)
Eventually everyone in the church joined in this practice as a way of showing fellowship and support for the new believers. It became an official season of the church calendar and was established as a 40 days of preparation to celebrate Easter. It is a time to reflect on Christ’s life and example, to turn from sin, to renew our commitments and our faith, to celebrate God’s redemptive and life-giving presence with us. The church has traditionally made this journey through a focus on fasting, giving and prayer.
So the time of Lent is really about growth. The word Lent means “Spring” or “springtime”. Just as spring is a time when we plant seeds and bury them in darkness it is a time when we plant ourselves in God and focus on and repent of the darkness in ourselves and in our world. It is a time when through repentance we grow and become a thing of beauty and restoration to the world around us. Lent is really about going through a process that should change us, that should bring us closer to being fully the people God has called us and created us to be.
We hope that this journey to Easter draws us together as a community and draws us deeper into the truth of our faith and the reality of what God has done and is doing. And we pray that we may grow to know the strength of God’s new-life power, his resurrection power that makes his reality possible in our reality.
Let us watch and see.
Information collated from Dennis Bratcher http://www.crivoice.org/index.html
and Beth Stedman http://bethstedman.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/lent-an-introduction-a-little-bit-of-history