Ash Wednesday

• Gathering Time
• Welcome & Announcements
• Prelude
• Bringing the Light of Christ
• Call to Confession
• Opening Prayer

O God our deliverer, you led your people of old through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land. Guide now those who gather here, that following our Savior, we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God now and forever. Amen.

• Hymn
  • Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days
• Scripture
  • Psalm 51
• Prayer of Confession

Almighty and Abundantly Merciful God, in a thousand different ways, our lives demonstrate how we have been lulled by the ways of sin and death. We refuse to offer or seek forgiveness, we cling to resentment, fear, and shame, we misuse and abuse one another and your creation, we obsess over what is trivial and ignore what matters. Don’t let us waste this life. Forgive us our sin and open us to the way of salvation. In
your mercy. Amen.

• Assurance of Pardon
  • Leader: Hear the good news! Who is in a position to condemn? Only Christ, and Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old life has gone; a new life has begun. You are forgiven. Be at peace.
  • All: Thanks be to God.
• Special Music
  • What Wondrous Love is This
• Invitation to the Observance of Lenten Discipline

Dear brothers and sister in Christ: The early Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church that before the Easter celebration there should be a forty-day season of spiritual preparation.
During this season converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.
It was also a time when persons who had committed serious sins and had separated themselves from the community of faith were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to participation in the life of the Church.

In this way the whole congregation was reminded of the mercy and forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the need we all have to renew our faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to observe a holy Lent:

• by self-examination and repentance;
• by prayer, fasting and self-denial;
• and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.
• Hymn of Preparation
  • Sunday's Palms are Wednesday's Ashes
• Gospel
  • Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34
• Meditation
  • OneL My God My God Why have You Forsaken Me
• Hymn of Commitment
  • Lord I Want to be a Christian
• Invitation of the Ashes
• Pastor: We invite you to begin our journey to Easter with the sign of ashes. This ancient sign speaks of the frailty and uncertainty of human life. It calls us to heartfelt repentance, urges us to place our hope in God alone, and identifies our commitment to the journey. Let us pray:
• People: Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth. May these ashes be for us a sign of our mortality and penitence, and a reminder that only by your gracious gift are we given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
• Benediction
• Taking the Light of Christ into the World
• Hymn of Fellowship
  • Jesus, Remember Me
• Postlude