Learning at Grace
If you do not already receive our email newsletter, contact Chrissie Crosby at chrissie.crosby@gracealex.org to be added and receive the Zoom links.
Sundays at Grace
- 10:30 AM Adult Forum
Book study of Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, author
Group overview and small group discussion questions weekly and a chance to learn and practice a Personal Rule of Life
Mondays at Grace
- 5:30 PM Evening Prayer
- 6 – 7 PM This Strange and Sacred Text: Wrestling with the Old Testament
- 7 — 8 PM Dinner and fellowship about subject
2021 Speaker: Ryan Bonfiglio, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Practice of Old Testament, Director of The Candler Foundry, Candler School of Theology
The Old Testament can seem strange, even disturbing, for many Christians. How do we make sense of texts that portray God as wrathful? Why does the OT contain so much violence? How do we relate to all of the strange laws and rituals? Is there a way to resolve all the contradictions? Drawing on biblical scholarship and pastoral insights, this course offers strategies for reading and responding to the Old Testament in ways that are both faithful and constructive. Emphasis will be placed on how this sacred text, despite its oddities, can inform Christian faith and practice today.
Worship at Grace beyond Sunday
- Fridays in Lent (beginning February 19): 12:00 pm Stations of the Cross – LiveStream
- Thursdays in Lent (beginning February 18): 7:30 pm Sung Compline – LiveStream
Individual Activities
Video series from St. George’s College Jerusalem A River Through the Desert authored by the Dean of the College. The Rev. Richard Sewell
This course will be ” a taste of the beauty, wonder and inspiration of the Holy Land. For those who have been, it should be a wonderful reminder of those times which undoubtedly will have left an indelible mark. For those who have not yet been able to make their pilgrimage, here perhaps it might serve as a taster to inspire you to find a way to come to the Land of the Holy One.” Dean Sewell hopes to draw us ” to think about the ways in which your own context and its geography can draw you into a deeper relationship with God this Lent. This Lent series is called A River Through The Desert because a Lent course should aim to water faith in the way that a river will cause the desert to flower and flourish in unexpected ways.”
Link to Google Docs files: (this should open a folder entitled A River Runs Through the Desert)
If you want to join a discussion group about this series, please email chrissie.crosby@gracealex.org
Lent Madness
An offering from Forward Movement (an Episcopal publishing house) to engage the entire family! Learn about traditional and non-traditional saints while voting for your favorites to determine WHO SHALL WIN the GOLDEN HALO.
The format is straightforward: 32 saints are placed into a tournament-like single elimination bracket. Each pairing remains open for a set period of time and people vote for their favorite saint. 16 saints make it to the Round of the Saintly Sixteen; eight advance to the Round of the Elate Eight; four make it to the Faithful Four; two to the Championship; and the winner is awarded the coveted Golden Halo. The first round consists of basic biographical information about each of the 32 saints. Things get a bit more interesting in the subsequent rounds as we offer quotes and quirks, explore legends, and even move into the area of saintly kitsch. If you’re not sure about terminology, check out the glossary. It’s free!
WEBSITE: https://www.lentmadness.org/category/lent-madness-2021/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/lentmadness
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/fwd_mvt
RENEWALWORKS for Me
Another offering from Forward Movement, “RenewalWorks For Me is a personal guide for the spiritual journey, providing coaching to help individuals grow. It begins with a brief online survey (called the Spiritual Life Inventory) which assesses where you are in your spiritual life.
Once your responses have been processed, you’ll receive an email with a helpful explanation of the findings, along with some tips for improving your spiritual journey. You’ll also be given a chance to sign up for an eight-week series of emails that will offer some suggestions, coaching for how you can grow spiritually, and ways you can go deeper in love of God and neighbor.”
The Evangelist’s Breviary, by the Rev. Dr. Patricia Lyons
Began 1 Feb, but can be picked up anytime, requires purchase of book: Amazon link
Personal devotional. Here’s an author video explaining how to use it (and Tricia is so much fun to watch)
Also available for group interaction on Facebook. Click here to join the Facebook group below if you got yourself an Evangelist’s Breviary and want to use it while connected to the community of over a hundred brave souls who are reading it together!
Lenten Meditations by Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD)
The theme of the 2021 Lenten Meditations is lament. A deep sense of loss has been with us for too many months now. We have lost loved ones, friends and neighbors; many have lost jobs and livelihoods; and we have all lost our way of life, even our ability to worship together in community. It was in this environment that we decided to focus the 2021 Lenten Meditations on lament.
ERD will once again share English and Spanish versions of the Lenten Meditations to subscribers in daily emails. If you would like to receive the 2021 Lenten Meditations in your email inbox, please subscribe here. You must opt-in to receive the 2021 Lenten Meditation emails. You may also download a PDF of all 2021 meditations at episcopalrelief.org/lent.
Kate Bowler’s Daily Lenten Reflections on email and Instagram
A History professor at Duke Divinity School, Kate Bowler is living with incurable cancer and uncertainty. She is a very real presence who offers hard truth with lightness and love. She’s a mom of a young boy. She says:
“We live in a world that loves it when we are shiny. But, when you are like the rest of us—which is to say—fragile and dependent, then Lent is made for you. Lent is that moment in the Christian story where we get to tell the truth: the world is capable of incredible beauty, but it can also be filled with so much suffering.
Lent is a 40-day stretch of both hope and the reality of the brokenness in the world. Sometime things are incredibly awful, and we need each other as we hunt for hope and make our way through. As a Lenten practice for the Everything Happens community, I will be posting a video every morning on Instagram, as well as sending out daily email reflections to help orient our day. Because we are in this together, this whole human thing. I hope you’ll join me.”
Family Reflections
Cooking with Elsa: a Hopeful Lent
A Lenten program based on Amelia Richardson Dress’ newest book, The Hopeful Family: Raising Resilient Children in Uncertain Times. Her book invites us to imagine that by doing simple things hope could come live inside us.
Elsa Anders Cook, a mom of young children, pastor and writer, put this simple Lenten practice together for this pandemic time. She says, “Each week, there is a blessing written by Amelia, the practice that will frame your week, and some hints at beautiful books to read with your children in the Bible and from children’s literature. I also included some questions for grown-up conversation so that you can practice talking to grown-ups again about big ideas and stuff that matters.”
$10 for individual family use
Children’s Time Series for Lent
By Christine V. Hides, author, pastor, and children’s ministry expert. This offering is conceived as a time to be included during worship, and works as well for family practice.
Through the stories of Holy Week, we are invited to wonder, “Who is Jesus?” The guiding questions, “Who is this man? Who is Jesus” are found in Sonja M. Stewart’s books Young Children and Worship and Following Jesus.
Each week of Lent, a new passage is shared, and the facets of Jesus’ identity continue to unfold through interactions with those who were in Jerusalem during the last week of Jesus’ life.
By the end of the six weeks of stories, “children’s time” gets rather long. We’ve chosen to allow for this time because it is not often that people hear the events of Holy Week told continuously. For people who may not come to Holy Week services, hearing the stories told in this way provides important context for the mystery of Resurrection, the joy of Easter.
All Ages Lent Explanations and Activities
Jesus in the Wilderness
No words, just pictures. A terrific meditative experience for everyone.
Adam Young took illustrations by a British artist named Simon Smith and put them to an Explosions In The Sky song, To West Texas. (2004)
Making the Lenten Journey–Calendar Templates by Sybil MacBeth (Praying in Color)
Using a calendar template is a simple, daily, and playful but serious practice for praying our way through the forty days of Lent.
Each day, choose a word to ponder or a person to pray for. Write the word or name in the allotted space with a pen and draw or doodle around it. Add color with colored pencils or markers
1000 days of Love Episcopal Relief and Development
Let’s Talk: Family Conversation Starters on Gifts and Psalms are based on the Gifts That Nurture Children from the ONE THOUSAND DAYS OF LOVE Campaign. These cards can be used at any time of the year to help generate meaningful interactions. We’ve created simple instructions for how you can utilize these cards with your family over the six weeks of Eastertide as well. Let’s Talk cards are composed to be open-ended, to create a time of storytelling and sharing. The possibilities for engaging conversations are endless!