A listing of scripture texts to encourage daily Bible reading in a congregation.

This season of Lent begins Wednesday, February 12. In these 40 days before Easter, Christians the world around will be engaged in prayer and private reflection about the meaning of Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Here is a series of discussion starters for families to use during Lent. They are listed by dates on the calendar. (Sundays are not included in the 40 days.)

Ideally, this should be used on Shrove Tuesday, but we want to do it when as many children as possible can be here.

Prayer Around the Cross provided the setting for our mid-week Lenten observance this year. It offered an opportunity for the people of our parish to experience a new way of prayer (new to us that is, but well-known in other parts of the Church).

Use this as a tool for Seder Services including dinner menus/recipes and devotion text.

Looking for new soup recipes? Here are the 2002 recipes from St. Matthew Lutheran Church.

The origin of Shrove Tuesday comes from the idea of - the night before Lent begins - consuming everything in the household from which one planned to abstain during Lent. We serve pancakes to connect us to the customs of a time when flour, eggs, milk, butter and other food items were all on the Lenten abstinence list. These days we celebrate the evening before Ash Wednesday more as a foretaste of the feast to come at Easter.

Some of you may be interested in the ways in which we have shaped art and environment for Lent. The following appeared in our Ash Wednesday worship folder and again throughout mid-week Lenten worship:

The following prayers are for small town communities and rural life. They are written by members of our synods Rural Faith and Life Task Force and the Hunger and Justice Committee. Our goal is to keep the concerns and reality of rural and small town life before us.

Here's something that might be useful in making your congregation's preparation for Lent more meaningful. The Service of Diminishing Lights can be used at the beginning or end of a worship service to put an emphasis on the weeks that rapidly move from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday morning.