Jackson Community Church

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Lent & Easter

Thurs, Mar 3: OPEN MIND

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Lent & Easter, Weekly MeditationsTagged , ,

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern
what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
— Romans 12:2

This Lenten season is an invitation to open our minds to God’s light and presence. To be changed in our minds. On Thursdays, we focus on opening our minds.

        Let’s begin with language. Author Chris Blachut suggests to change your conversational style from either/or to both/and. Eliminate binaries. Become aware of phrases such as “but” or “however” which are conditional and negate everything that precedes them. Eliminate “but” and “however.” Instead, use “Yes, and…” or “Interesting, and…” This acknowledges whatever has been shared with you, and allows you to further explore the concept or idea.

       Ask yourself better questions. Blachut also noted, “Asking and answering the right questions is like getting signal on your phone’s GPS when you’re lost. It changes your mind and your direction.” The Ignatian movement’s discernment and decision-making practice involves asking questions and praying deeply. Learn more at https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/making-good-decisions. Simon Sinek’s work on “finding our why” is another excellent exercise in exploring deep questions about what motivates us and gives us a sense of purpose and worth. He also advises that you ask people who know you well (not family, though) to reflect about your passions, values, gifts, talents, and strengths.

         What might God reveal to us, if we allow new perceptions to visit us? — Rev Gail    

         ————————————————————————————

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
― George Bernard Shaw

… there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose! ― Oscar Wilde

Wed, Mar 2 (Ash Wednesday):  OPEN HEART

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Lent & Easter, Weekly MeditationsTagged

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your hearts,

with fasting, with weeping, and with sorrow; tear your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord your God, Who is merciful and compassionate,
very patient, full of faithful love, and ready to forgive.
— Joel 2: 12-13

Today we take up the burnt palm leaves from last year’s Palm Sunday celebration. The green leaves have dried and yellowed. They are only the memory of some portion of our lives that we’ve clung to — preserved for a year — now released by flames.

Once verdant green, those palm leaves have changed to black and gray. They are transformed to charcoal, soot and ash. Today we gather up whatever is left, whatever didn’t go up in smoke. Combine ashes with the oil of anointing, and wear them.

Today we bow our heads or fall to our knees, so we can rise again. We Rise: revealed. Rise: beloved.

Today is a confession. It’s a submission. It’s a surrender. It’s a turning and re-turning.

Oh, to be sure, we don’t become suddenly perfect as we confess. We’re as imperfect as ever. We’re as messy and broken as before, and also as beautiful and possible, as before. Yet we are also accepted and forgiven.

Afterward, sooty leftovers grace our skin as thumbprints, crosses, or circles. We wear Christ’s fingerprints. Mark ourselves. Allow ourselves to be marked.

In this moment, we drop our guard. Look into the face of God, or ask God to look upon our faces. Doing so, we invite the experience of being fully seen, fully known.

It makes a difference, when we choose to participate, and to offer ourselves to the Love that sees us. Especially when we then turn toward the world, bearing the mark of being seen and known: beloved just as we are. — Rev Gail

         ————————————————————————————

Blessing the Dust: For Ash Wednesday

—Jan Richardson

All those days / you felt like dust, / like dirt, as if all you had to do
was turn your face / toward the wind
and be scattered / to the four corners

or swept away / by the smallest breath
as insubstantial— did you not know
what the Holy One / can do with dust?

This is the day / we freely say / we are scorched.

This is the hour / we are marked
by what has made it / through the burning.

This is the moment / we ask for the blessing / that lives within
the ancient ashes, that makes its home
inside the soil of / this sacred earth.

So let us be marked / not for sorrow.
And let us be marked / not for shame.
Let us be marked / not for false humility
or for thinking / we are less / than we are
but for claiming / what God can do
within the dust, within the dirt,

within the stuff / of which the world
is made / and the stars that blaze
in our bones / and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge / we bear.

—Jan Richardson

ASH WEDNESDAY
March 2, 2022
 

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Calendar, Home, Lent & Easter, WorshipTagged , , , , , , , , ,

ASHES-to-GO

  • Receive ashes and a blessing.
    • 8-10am: J-Town Deil
    • 10:15-11:30am: Autumn Nomad
    • Noon-1:30pm: Glen Ledge Deli McSheffreys North
    • 2-3:45pm: JCC sanctuary
    • 4-6pm: Shannon Door

ASH WEDNESDAY WORSHIP 

LENTEN EVENTS & RESOURCES

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Calendar, Home, Lent & Easter, Music, Worship

SAT, Mar 5th – Ukraine vigil. WED, Mar 2nd – Ashes-to-go & Ash Wed service. Lenten devotional resources. Music: Wailin’ Jenny’s field trip & JCC music concert with Alan Labrie. Missions Lenten giving challenge: Raise the Roof for Chikanga Church in Zimbabwe. Lending library. And more!

SATURDAY, March 5th
VIGIL for UKRAINE

  • Noon @ Jackson Community Church
  • Pray & hold silence with members of the community
  • Light candles
  • If you cannot attend the gathering, a dedicated prayer space will remain available, with notebook and symbols of Ukraine in the sanctuary, available at any time (doors of church unlocked 24/7)

Reminder: March 2nd – ASH WEDNESDAYASHES-to-GO in Jackson & Glen:

  • Receive ashes and a blessing.
    • 8-10am: J-Town Deil
    • 10:15-11:30am: Autumn Nomad
    • Noon-1:30pm: Glen Ledge Deli McSheffreys North
    • 2-3:45pm: JCC sanctuary
    • 4-6pm: Shannon Door

ASH WEDNESDAY WORSHIP with JCC:

JCC Missions Lenten Giving Challenge:RAISING the ROOF

Once all contributions are collected at the end of Lent, funds will go directly to our UKAMA partner Chikanaga Church in Mutare, Zimbabwe to help purchase the final truss and build their church roof.

From Missions: “Our partner church in Zimbabwe is nearing the last stages of completing the roof on the church they are building. It will cost about $26,000 for the last truss plus the roofing materials and supplies and the machinery to erect and complete the roof. The Mission Committee already has $4,600 to send Chikanga Church to help complete the roof.

As a Lenten project, we would like to involve the congregation in helping to raise funds to Raise the Roof.  People who choose to participate may:

  • Set aside a $1/day (or the cost of a cup of coffee or another luxury) during Lent
  • Choose another daily amount to set aside each day.
  • Donate a specific amount toward the Raise the Roof project

This money would be added to the funds provided by the Mission Committee and make a big difference to our friends in Zimbabwe.

If you are interested in participating, please track your savings during Lent, or simply make your one-time donation. Give in one of these ways:

  1. Write a check to the Jackson Community Church and note it is for the Raise the Roof fund.
  2. Give cash in any amount you feel comfortable, noting on an envelope that it is for the Raise the Roof project.
  3. Make an online donation via Paypal to the church; visit the jxncc.org to make such an online donation. Again, note that the donation is allocated to Raise the Roof.

Please be sure to include your own name and contact info on any donation envelopes so that church can acknowledge your contribution and provide a charitable donation receipt. Thank you in advance.

MUSIC PROGRAMS
during LENT

Sun, Mar 27 @ 3pm

ALAN LABRIE’s FAREWELL CONCERT on JCC’s  organ and piano  

Wed, Mar 30 @ 8pm

WAILIN JENNY’s Field Trip @ Stone Mountain Arts Center/SMAC, Denmark, ME.

2022 LENTEN CALENDARS

DAILY DEVOTIONALS
for Adults & Families

  • Throughout Lent, we will post JCC’s own daily meditation, focused on the journey theme, on the church website (jxncc.org) and JCC Facebook page.
  • You may also visit the church’s lending library for books to borrow during Lent. Books are available in two locations: the front door of the church and also in the sanctuary, neat the piano.

2022’s Lenten Daily Devotionals:

  • Daily Devotiona – The Sanctuary
    • Copies available in front entrance of church.
    • Please sign out your copy as we’ll mail copies to people who are out of town or unable to travel to the church.
    • This devotional is yours to keep.
    • No downloadable version of this devotional is available.
  • Illustrated Ministry Devotional ‘God Is Still With Us’

    (coloring pages, devotionals, etc as downloadable (PDF) – contact church for link to copyrighted files

Favorites from prior years – contact church for link to copyrighted files

  • Daily Devotional: The Sanctuary by April Casperson (PDF)
  • Daily Devotional: Poetry of Lent – Mary Oliver published by SALT (PDF)
  • Daily Devotional: Poetry of Lent – Wendell Berry published by SALT (PDF)
  • Family Devotional for Lent: Illustrated Ministry (coloring pages, devotionals, etc) (PDF)

Tue, Mar 1 (Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras): OPEN EYES

By jacksonnhccPosted on Posted in Home, Lent & Easter, Weekly MeditationsTagged , ,

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,
but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,
that you may be able to endure it. — 1 Corinthians 10:13

Sometimes we celebrate this day as the final day of Carnival, the festive time between Epiphany and Lent. It is joyous culmination of a season of feasting and partying, marked by vivid music, masks, costumes, and dancing.

         Traditionally, on this day prior to Lent, households would cook to use up extra oils and fats, prior to Christian practices of fasting through Lent. Pancakes werev opften made and served. It’s meaning translates to ‘Fat Tuesday.’

In a liturgical context, this day is called Shrove Tuesday: dedicated to seeking absolution orior to entering Lent’s preparatory journey. On this day, churches burn the palms used in last year’s Passion Week in order to create the ashes which will be shared in Wednesday’s religious observances.

Symbolically, we burn away the vestiges of last year’s pomp and circumstance. Metaphorically we shed any outer layers, veils, uniforms, and armor that guard and hide us.

         As we approach Lent, this becomes an invitation to consider the masks we wear. What is our public identity? What face do we present to others? Usually our best selves.

         As of tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, the season comes when we’re invited to unmask. Offer ourselves, bare-faced, open-hearted, to God’s presence. Accepting and loving our whole selves, the messy and imperfect parts of ourselves, as well as the wonderful, strong aspects of ourselves.

As we burn the leaves, we let go of something. We also reveal something.

Today, when we put down the fork from the feast, when we slip off the mask after the music fades, may we offer ourselves to holy Love. After all, what’s the benefit of hiding from Godself? We’ve been seen and known all along. The only ones from whom we really hide are ourselves, and maybe other people. God knows us, whether we choose to be known or not.

         God’s response is to pursue us, even when we withhold or withdraw. God’s promise is to love us: shadow and light, broken and beautiful, part and whole. — Rev Gail

         ————————————————————————————

Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives
from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough’. — Brene Brown

PRAYER for MARDI GRAS
— excerpted from prayer by Andy Anderson, SJ, Loyola Press
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for it is from your goodness that we have this day to celebrate on the threshold of the Season of Lent.

Today we feast. We thank you especially for one another. As we give you thanks, we are mindful of those who have so much less than we do. As we share these wonderful gifts together, we commit ourselves to greater generosity toward those who need our support. 
Prepare us for tomorrow. Tasting the fullness of what we have today, let us experience some hunger tomorrow …As our feasting fills us with gratitude … hollow out in us a place for deeper desires and an attentiveness …
We ask you these graces with our hearts full of delight and stirring with readiness for the journey ahead. We ask them with confidence in the name of Jesus the Lord.

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