Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, which, this year, is February 18th. The United Methodist Church of Kent will offer a “Service of Ashes” at 7:30pm in the sanctuary. This very meaningful service uses the ancient symbolism of the ashes to signify our repentance and the forgiveness of Christ. The season of Lent continues for the forty days (not counting Sundays) until Easter.

The Lenten season has served for Christians as a special time for spiritual reflection. Our senior pastor, Dr. Dave Palmer, will be starting a new sermon series entitled, “Call on His Name – the Names and Titles of Jesus and What They Mean for Us.” Each “name” of Jesus reveals something about who Jesus is, and how Christ can be at work in our lives.

The church will also have a Wednesday Lenten series, which includes a potluck supper followed by a program. The first supper is on Ash Wednesday, and then the series continues through March 25. For quite a few years, our church’s theme for this series has been “Missions that Make a Difference,” but we will take a different focus this year.

The first Wednesday following Ash Wednesday – Feb. 25 – will be a stand-alone session with the theme, “Being a Christian in Iraq in the Face of ISIS”. Our speaker will be Rani Hedo, an Iraqi Christian from northern Iraq. He and his wife, Farah, who is a student at Kent State, have a son in the four year old class at our Tree City Preschool. This past summer, they were back in Iraq visiting family, when their village, near Mosul, was overrun by ISIS fighters. They were among the many Christians who fled north and who lived as refugees until, after considerable difficulty, they were able to get back to Kent in the fall. Rani Hedo will tell the story of what life is like right now for Christians in Iraq. The program will be from 7:00pm to 8:00pm in Pierson Hall, following the 6:15 supper.

The next four weeks will be a series entitled, “Ancient Ways Made New – Journeys in Prayer”. In recent years, there has been a revival of a number of ancient prayer forms for contemporary use. We will focus each week on one of those forms. For more details about each week, see the article on the calendar insert in this Mosaic; the
basic schedule is as follows:

March 04:  The Labyrinth
March 11:  Taize
March 18:  Ignatian Method
March 25:  Stations of Prayer

The schedule each evening, is as follows:

6:15pm – 7:00pm:  Supper (potluck)
7:00pm – 7:30pm:  Presentation about the prayer/worship form of the week; here is where you will learn about the background and use of this particular practice
7:30pm – 8:00pm:  Experience the prayer/worship pattern. Walk the labyrinth, share in a Taize service, do varieties of Ignatian prayer, go through stations worship.

You are welcome to come to any and all elements. You can come for just the 7:00-8:00 time, or for just the 7:30 experience, or even just for dinner!