07/02/2023
The Lent Course for 2023 will be held on Mondays over six weeks starting on Monday 27th February 2023 at Haddenham Methodist Church, High Street, Haddenham CB6 3XA. Lent course books will be available at the meetings.
We will meet at 12:45pm for a 1pm start. If you wish, bring your lunch; refreshments will be provided. If you are able, a donation for the heating and refreshments would be appreciated, but there is no fixed charge.
Dust & Glory – A Lent journey of faith, failure and forgiveness
Introduction
BY THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY AND YORK
The Lord said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9.
This Lent we are all invited to explore how we can live well with the mess of everyday life. Dust and Glory encourages us to take a fresh look at the frustrations and failings that every day brings and, rather than pretending we can always avoid them, seek to learn from them and grow closer to God through them.
Failure is human, universal and inevitable. The question is what we do with it and, even more importantly, what God does with it in partnership with us.
The Bible does not shy away from the reality of human limitations and mistakes, from the story of Adam and Eve right through the struggles of the people of Israel in the time of Judges, through to Judas' betrayal and Peter's denials of Jesus. But the Christian story is ultimately a story of failings redeemed and of sins forgiven. Our journey through Lent will lead us to the seeming failure and humiliation of Jesus' death on the cross. It is through that seeming defeat, however, that we will ultimately come to the joy of Jesus' triumphant resurrection.
If we were to judge others - or ourselves - only by what we get wrong, there would not be much hope. But this year's Dust and Glory journey reminds us that the end of our story is written by God - and calls us to trust in God's merciful and hope-filled judgement.
Archbishop Justin Welby & Archbishop Stephen Cottrell
The weeks are divided into six reflections:
Week 1 - 27 Feb 2023 – What is failure?
Week 2 – 6 Mar 2023 – Understanding sin
Week 3 – 13 Mar 2023 – Sinning as well as we can?
Week 4 – 20 Mar 2023 -– Failure and the Church
Week 5 – 27 Mar 2023 – Living well with failure
Week 6 - 3 Apr 2023 – The greatest failure of all?
Each week there will be a different leader, taken from the three churches in Haddenham.
