The Season of Lent

Join us for worship during our weekly Sunday services at 3:00pm, and also for special services during Lent:

  • Ash Wednesday: Mar. 5, 2025 at 12:00pm
  • Palm Sunday: Apr. 13, 2025 at 3:00pm
  • Maundy Thursday: Apr. 17, 2025 at 6:00pm
  • Good Friday: Apr. 18, 2025 at 6:00pm
  • Holy Saturday: Apr. 19, 2025 at 8:00pm

Following Lent, join us for worship on Easter Sunday at 3:00pm as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

See below for more info and helpful resources about this liturgical season.

Lent

 
 
Lent is a season of preparation. Since the fourth century, Christians have observed the 40 days before Easter as a time to prepare, through prayer and fasting, for the joy of Easter. The penitential (or "repentant") tone of Lent invites us to reflect on our need for Jesus’ saving work on the cross: as we consider our sin and the death it brings, we grow in appreciation for Jesus’ death on our behalf.

But Lent also helps us to grow in intimacy with our Lord, who himself embraced a season of fasting in the wilderness before beginning his ministry on earth. Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness mirrored, and in some ways completed, Israel’s 40 years of wandering the desert after leaving Egypt. Because he has entered humanity’s story, we now can enter his. For Christians, penitence and fasting are not about punishment or shame. They are about identification with Jesus who invites us to take up our crosses and follow him.

Lenten Practices & Giving

Looking for some ways to engage in this liturgical season? We have a wonderful opportunity to help a two Haywood County families refurnish their homes after Hurricane Helene. You can help by ordering an item from their wishlists.

Please label your item with the family's name and bring it to church any Sunday through March and we will deliver them to the family in April.

The Hernandez Family's Wishlist
Raya Ramirez Family's Wishlist

Other Ways to Engage During Lent

Free Email Devotional via Matthew 25 Initiative
Give to Matthew 25 Initiative’s Lenten Almsgiving Campaign

Helene Clean Up Day
April 12, 2025 from 9am-12pm

Join us for a cleanup day along one of our beloved waterways. We'll walk together and collect whatever storm debris and trash we can reach with gloves, and trash grabbers (provided).

Location: We’ll meet together on the corner of Mulberry and Broad Streets in Clyde (near the apple orchard). One group will focus here and another group will travel nearby to the cleanup site on Hyder Mountain Road by the river.

Families with children are welcome and will be helping at the orchard.

RSVP Form

More About Lent

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, a somber worship service that concludes with the imposition of ashes on our foreheads. Ashes are a sign of mortality, as well as a sign of sorrow and repentance. But in our sorrow, we also have hope, so we receive ashes in the sign of the cross. Though sin leads to death, Jesus’ passion promises that sin and death will not have the final word for any who come to him in faith.

Lent concludes with Holy Week, an extended meditation on Jesus’ last week before his death. We walk through his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), Jesus’ last supper and betrayal in the garden (Maundy Thursday), his crucifixion (Good Friday), and a day of silent waiting by the tomb (Holy Saturday). After sunset on Holy Saturday, we begin to celebrate the resurrection by “keeping vigil” for the first signs of dawn– and the death of death in Jesus Christ. On Sunday morning, we enter the 50 day feast of Easter: an important number, for it proves that in the story of redemption, the feast outlives the fast.

Additional Resources

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