Worship in Lent
During the season of Lent this year we will focus on what it mean to be Christian in the 21st century. Richard Rohr O.F.M., founder of Center for Action and Contemplation, offers “When you say you love God, you are saying you love everything”. This is quite the declaration and follows the age old mandate to Love God with your whole heart, mind, and soul and your neighbor as yourself. As Christians, our primary example of this is the life of Jesus and, as such, we are asked to dedicate ourselves to his teachings and way of being in this world. During Lent, sermons will focus on Eight Core Principles of Christianity base on Rohr’s book of the same title. They are:
- The teachings of Jesus is our central reference point.
- We need a contemplative mind in order to do compassionate action.
- The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.
- Practical truth is more likely found at the bottom and the edges than at the top or the center of most groups, institutions, and cultures.
- We will support true authority, the ability to “author” life in others, regardless of the group.
- Life is about discovering the right questions more than having the right answers.
- True religion leads us to an experience of our True self and undermines our false self.
- We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.
I hope you find this series enlightening, challenging, and reassuring as we move into our vision of Being the Church.