Fifth Sunday in Lent

 Here is the service of worship at Main Street UMC for the Fifth Sunday in Lent.

Worship on the First Sunday in Lent

Below, is the worship service at Main Street United Methodist Church, New Albany, Indiana, on the First Sunday in Lent, February 21, 2021:

Taking Up the Daily Office for Lent

The Constitution of the Wesleyan-Anglican Society encourages members of the Society to pray the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer, as well as to pray the Litany on Wednesdays and Fridays. 

I have made this a habit for years and find it to be an important part of my spiritual life.  Though there have been occasions when I have been able to pray the Daily Office in a group, usually this is something that I do alone.  -  And yet, I am keenly aware that I am not alone.  Rather, I am joined by sisters and brothers around the world and throughout time, from various traditions within the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. 

Over the years, I have prayed using various versions of the Book of Common Prayer including the 1662, the 1928, the 1979, the ACNA version, and Wesley's The Sunday Service.  This latter one is the version that I have most often used.  -  A link to each of these BCP versions can be found on the sidebar of this blog.

We are now in the beginning days of Lent.  If the praying of the Daily Office is not a current practice for you, I want to encourage you to take it up during this Lenten season.  -  Perhaps you will find it to be as spiritually profitable as I have, as you join in the prayers of the People of God around the world and throughout history!

A Lenten Hymn

As a Nazarene serving as pastor of two United Methodist churches, I have often been frustrated when planning the musical parts of worship.  It is so often the case that a certain hymn (or other song) will come to mind that fits the Scripture reading just perfectly, but when I go to look it up in The United Methodist Hymnal, it is nowhere to be found.  It's in the Sing to the Lord (Nazarene) hymnal, and I have sung it since I was a kid, but it is unfamiliar to these United Methodists!

However, for the hymn, below, it is just the opposite.  Here is a wonderful hymn for the Lenten season, that does not appear in the Nazarene hymnal.  It is one, that I am going to keep in mind whenever the time comes, and the Lord leads me back to a Nazarene setting.

We sang this hymn this past Sunday, the First Sunday in Lent.  It was written by Claudia F. Hernaman, in 1873, based on Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; and Luke 4:1-13).  It can be sung to the tune, Land of Rest.

 

LORD, WHO THROUGHOUT THESE FORTY DAYS

 

1.) Lord, who through-out these fort days

for us didst fast and pray,

teach us with thee to mourn our sins

and close by thee to stay.

 

2.) As thou with Satan didst contend,

and didst the victory win,

O give us strength in thee to fight,

in thee to conquer sin.

 

3.)  As thou didst hunger bear, and thirst,

so teach us, gracious Lord,

to die to self, and chiefly live

by thy most holy word.

 

4.)  And through these days of penitence,

and through thy passion-tide,

yea, evermore in life and death,

Jesus, with us abide.

 

5.) Abide with us, that so, this life

of suffering over past,

an Easter of unending joy

we may attain at last.