Tag Archives: Lent

Our Journey Through Lent: A Devotional Booklet and Interactive Slide for Download

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Are you looking for a simple Lent devotional resource to share with your families at home? Here’s one that’s free for download that leads participants of all ages through a complete reading of the Gospel of Mark.

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the gospels and is considered to be the first of the four to be written. There is a sense of urgency in Mark’s gospel to get it all out there as fast as possible so people can quickly hear and know “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1) With little commentary along the way, Mark leaps immediately into revealing Christ as the Messiah, through a wealth of parables, miracles, conversations and encounters with Jesus. If you have never read a gospel through from start to finish, Mark is a good one to begin with.

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Rest for the Weary

By Blog, Christian Education Archive, Congregational Development Archive, ,
Thank you to Eduardo Flores and unsplash.com for this photograph

I just canceled the Zoom check-ins on Christian education planned for this week. Unfortunately only three people signed up and they were divided between two meetings. This low level of participation where once there was an enthusiastic number for Zoom check-ins seems to be symptomatic of what I’ve been seeing across the board with people’s participation in bible studies, Sunday school and leadership development.

I have found over these last couple of months that our church leaders and our people are more than exhausted from the ongoing stress of just keeping up during this pandemic. With the first year of the pandemic and its church building closures and protocols, leaders had a surge of energy and imagination for thinking about educational ministry in new ways and even began to focus on some things we’d been overlooking in the last number of decades. During the second year we established new ways of doing educational ministry and even began tweaking what we were doing as we got better and better at Zoom Sunday schools, porch meet ups and virtual worship. Moving into this third year I’m beginning to hear from many of our leaders that they just feel flat, without imagination, and are simply doing their very best to stay above water. 

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A Devotion Booklet for Lent: Reading Through the Book of Mark

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Are you thinking of adding something new to your daily life this Lent?

Lent is a wonderful season to begin a new faith practice; the practice of reading an entire book of the bible, day-by-day, is one members of your church might like to participate in.

This year, if your congregation follows the lectionary, the Gospel of Mark will be featured most weeks of our year. Journeying through this very readable gospel as a individual or a congregation early in the season offers all ages the opportunity to hear this gospel first as a complete story before they return to its individual texts through the year in worship, study and Sunday school.

To help everyone with this faith practice, here is a free, downloadable devotional booklet for individual or churches to use this Lent.

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The Interactive Lent Gardens Are On Their Way

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Did you ask to receive the links to the six Interactive Lent Gardens?

I hope so.

I just want to let everyone know that I just emailed out the links to the six interactive Lent Gardens to everyone who asked to receive them. But, I don’t want anyone to slip through the cracks. With entering well over a hundred email addresses into the BCC, I’m just a little bit worried.

So, if you asked to receive the Interactive Lent Gardens and have not yet received an email that includes the six links, six garden screen shots, a materials shopping list and instructions for uploading all of this onto your website, facebook page or include in your weekly email – PLEASE EMAIL ME AND LET ME KNOW. I want to make sure you get them. My email is torismit@gmail.com.

If you didn’t ask to receive them, and you’d like to, email me too.

And, if you asked for them, and you got them. I’m thankful. I hope these enhance your church’s journey through Lent in wonder-filled ways.

Peace, Tori