Overview

When we take a step back and look at our lives, we may find ourselves wondering, “Is this really it?” Are we just going through the motions or perhaps worse, living in chaos? This Lenten series explores the actions, habits, and systems that separate us from God and looks to the cross of Jesus to discover that we are called to so much more.

Lent Kits for Families and Kids

Noelle Allison, Director of Children and Families, has created Lent Baskets for this season. In the basket you’ll have focus activities, guides for daily and weekly mediation and prayer, and crafts and activities for kids and adults. Lent kits will be available for Families and for Adults for $5. Kits will be available on Ash Wednesday. To sign up for your kit please Email Noelle.

All Church Lenten Study

This Lent season we will join together as a church in reading Tom Berlin’s book Restored: Finding Redemption in Our Mess. We are asking you to order your own book as we journey together through the Lent season. Our Lenten study will begin on Wednesday, February 24th and will meet every Wednesday evening through Lent from 6:30-7:30. If you are interested in joining, please email Cody at [email protected] to register.

Lent Mission: Reaching Out to Students in Our Community

This year for Lent, we are partnering with Parker Task Force to help provide kits to reach out to students who have not participated in school this year. With the pandemic, there have been 4,000 students who have not shown up for in-person school or online school, and the school district is reaching out to check on them and get them back in school. With each visit, the school district would like to provide a school kit for students, and we have been asked to help. Here are the items needed for each kit that you can purchase/order and drop off at the church office to help fill the kits and connect with students and families in our community. 

•  Mechanical Pencils 
•  Highlighters 
•  Colored Pencils 
•  Individual Snacks 
•  Academic Planner 
•  $10 King Soopers Gift Card

Week One: Called to Abundant Life

Focus Statement: No one is perfect. We all live in a broken world and, like sheep, we have gone astray. Thankfully, the story doesn’t end there. We were made for something better – the abundant life made possible in Jesus, the good shepherd who shows us the path to the life we are called to live.

Scripture Passage: John 10:7-11 (The Good Shepherd) 7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Week Two: Facing the Dark to Reach the Light

Focus Statement: To find true healing, we have to face the hard truths. Part of the healing process is realizing that something is broken. This brokenness is the darkness that overshadows our lives. The good news is there’s freedom in the light.

Scripture Passage: 1 John 1:3-10 3 we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our[a] joy may be complete.5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Week 3: You Are Not Your Sin

Focus Statement: Sometimes we feel like what we have done is who we are. When we mess up, fall short, do the wrong things, it is not who we are. We are not defined by what we’ve done. We are the children of a loving and forgiving God.

Scripture Passage John 8:1-11 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.[a] 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.”[b] And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”]]

Week 4: There is More

Focus Statement: When life gets challenging, we have a choice to either fall back into the sin that is so enticing and easy for us, or to persevere and trust that when we follow Christ, we will live into even more than we have ever imagined.

Scripture Passages Mark 1:35-39 35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 38 He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Philippians 3:12-16 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal;[a] but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Beloved,[b] I do not consider that I have made it my own;[c] but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly[d] call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. 16 Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

Week 5: The Gods We Make

Focus Statement: Sometimes we allow things in our lives to become more important to us than God, distract us from God, and even come between us and God. These are the gods we make.

Scripture Passage Exodus 32:1-14 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold,[a] and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.

7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Week 6: Fan or Follower?

Focus Statement: Being part of a crowd can be a powerful experience. The crowds in Jerusalem moved from the joy of Palm Sunday’s “Hosannas” to the jeers of Good Friday’s “Crucify Him!” On this Palm and Passion Sunday, let’s explore how we too can get caught up in the crowd, and ways that we can fix our eyes on Jesus.

Scripture Passage: Matthew 21:1-11 21 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.[a]” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

5 “Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd[b] spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Matthew 27:15-23 15 Now at the festival the governor was accustomed to release a prisoner for the crowd, anyone whom they wanted. 16 At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus[a] Barabbas. 17 So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus[b] Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”[c] 18 For he realized that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over. 19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that innocent man, for today I have suffered a great deal because of a dream about him.” 20 Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed. 21 The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” 22 Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?”[d] All of them said, “Let him be crucified!” 23 Then he asked, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”