Planning Calendar

Ever seen a little smudge mark on someone's forehead as they walk out of church? That's a sign of the cross, and it means it's Ash Wednesday during Lent. Chuck, GBOD's humorous philosopher and knower of church things, tells you about this important worship service in this episode from the series Chuck Knows Church.

The worship song "Dust and Ashes," in appropriately emotional and expressive musical style and textual content, recalls these Lenten and Ash Wednesday themes and sets the right tone for the day and the season. It is an ideal song to use on Ash Wednesday during the imposition of ashes or as a congregational song during the service.

Cover me with ashes,the thick-smoke soot of the earth.Make my breathing like the journeyfrom death into life -- second by second,prayer by prayer. 

We who are weary come home.  Come home from sin and home from shame. Come home from dishonor and home from disdain. Come home to be made whole, come home for nourishment of the soul.  

Simplicity and spareness, quiet and focus: These are the atmospheric touchstones for the Ash Wednesday service.  The ritual in the current Book of Worship offers the shape for this service that has been kept worldwide for centuries. No sermon is needed here. Perhaps the briefest of homilies, perhaps even just a series of words, as in this simple video by Greg Feightner. 

Oh Dios, cuando pausamos en este Miércoles de Cenizas, y miramos hacia atrás a nuestras vidas, nos percatamos que se nos ha pesado en la balanza y mucho ha quedado por decir.  

O, God, when we pause to look back at our lives on this Ash Wednesday, we realize that we have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. 

People of the Bible grappled with the concept of individual sin as well as that of corporate sin. Sometimes their prayers were for individual sin(s); and at other times, they all stood and confessed that their country had sinned. 

This year I received a request for a "contemporary" Ash Wednesday service. This was a first for this office, to my knowledge. Typically, we've commended using the ritual in the Book of Worship because it does what this service needs to do and because it does so using highly ecumenically recognizable language and symbols and standard United Methodist resources. 

Purifying Mystery, your light exposes in us all that we hide.Awaken us and all your Holy Church to spiritual combat.