8pm Lent 2017: Place in the Crowd

Monday 6th March 2017
Monday 13th March 2017
Monday 20th March 2017
Monday 27th March 2017
Monday 3rd April 2017

Lent is a time of reflection and anticipation. It’s a time to scrutinise ourselves and to ask what Jesus is saying to his church today: to ask what needs to die with Christ so that something new might also arise with him to new life.

This year we have decided to join in with the Rochester Diocese Lent Course: A Place in the Crowd.  We are led to consider that we are called to be responsible disciples, stewards, heralds, leaders, agents of growth whilst looking to God for the moving of his Holy Spirit and the coming of his Kingdom.

We try to enter into the mystery of Jesus’ journey to the cross and consider what points connect with our lives today. Vitally we look for the Holy Spirit to nudge, reveal, challenge and transform us.

The five/six sessions follow the journey of Jesus from his public ministry to the cross, using as a lens the crowds who accompany different stages of that journey. We use the Gospel of Matthew but we begin at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, with ‘the Great Commission’ from Matthew 28.  We end by the well-sealed and guarded tomb, waiting for the power of God to break shackles and end death’s reign.

This Lenten meditation aims to celebrate what is already happening, to put new heart into God’s people, and to acknowledge that it is God who is ultimately the one who is at work.

The Course also provides an opportunity for us to engage in the Diocese’s strategic direction in “Our Conversation; Our Future” The Diocese of Rochester, is trying to engage as many people as possible in this conversation about our purpose and future direction.  This is an opportunity for us to respond to the cultural, economic and spiritual changes that society is undergoing and especially the need to develop a coherent and shared vision for mission, through evangelism and social action that demonstrates the coming Kingdom of God in the midst of such uncertainty and flux.  This is an era when many Christian people feel more isolated and less sure of how to express their faith in a hard and unyielding culture, but this is not a task each is called to alone. The Church exists to give shape, meaning and voice to Christian identity; the Diocese of Rochester helps to give regional expression to this for Anglicans.

These conversations will help us ask:

  • What may the Holy Spirit be saying to us about our area?
  • What do we currently spend our energy and resources on ?
  • What do we need to change about who we are and what we do?

You can find out more about Our Conversation; Our Future on the website www.rochester.anglican.org/strategy/conversation.

Course books are now available in church and you might like to sign up to join us on Monday evenings at the Vicarage at 8pm.  Alternatively you might like to take a booklet and reflect on the passages yourself and to pray and attempt to answer the three questions asked by “Our Conversations; Our Future” and return your thoughts to Anne for forwarding to the Diocese.

CTCB Lent Course "Songs in Major and Minor Keys" can be found here
 

Place in the Crowd at Bromley Parish Church Vicarage

Mondays at 8:00pm (from 6th March)

Material can be found here at the Place in the Crowd website