Wesley United Methodist Church Naperville

03/29/2026

Hosanna in the highest!

03/29/2026

Our real live donkey led our Processional of the Palms!

03/29/2026

A blessed Palm Sunday and a loud "Hosanna!"

02/18/2026

A blessed Ash Wednesday to you all

In a time when so much is crumbling, is burning, I don’t want to romanticize the ashes that come with destruction and devastation. As we approach Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, I do want to keep asking what the Holy One can do with dust, and to keep looking for how I can be part of that. So many blessings to you, beloved ones, as the new season arrives.

BLESSING THE DUST

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
janrichardson.com/books

Image: “Ash Wednesday Cross”
© Jan Richardson
janrichardsonimages.com

02/18/2026

Join us tonight with the Center Street churches for our Ash Wednesday service. Pastor Doh and Pastor Alexander will also be available at the church at 11:30am and 2pm for anyone who wishes to receive ashes but cannot make it to the service. We wish you a blessed and gentle beginning to the season of Lent.

02/16/2026

01/24/2026

Join us on February 18th at 7pm as the Center Street churches gather to observe Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten journey. Community UMC across the street will also be hosting a Shrove Tuesday supper for Mardi Gras the night before.

12/16/2025

Our Christmas pageants are always biblically accurate (this Sunday at 10!)