Hi crazyheart,

Conflicting or divergent?  If I tell you what we do then that is what we do it isn't a conflict if someone does differently.

That said,

Imposition of Ashes.  Have not used  Lenten Triad.  Our new sanctuary is rather spartan, we do not have various antependia for the pulpit or frontals for the altar.  We tend to drape the colour of the season on our rough hewn cross and I wear seasonal stole.

We will have a Maunday Thursday Service with Tennebrae, a Good Friday Service, A sunrise service on Easter morning and the regular worship service will feature a small cantata and a responsive reading of John Chrysostom's excellent Paschal Sermon and a few confirmations.  We might sneak in a celebration of the Lord's Supper as well.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Yes John, divergent is the word I was looking for. 

It seems to me that some of these traditions are slowly fading away. I am sorry about that if it is happening.

Hi crazyheart,

There is a cyclical pattern to tradition and traditions in liturgy.  A time when everything old is new again and a time when the older new fades into the new old.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Crazyheart, I am not sure if this helps with letting go of traditions, can I share with you a story.

There was a conference in Ontario called OWC (Ontario women's conference), which was started by some wonderful women in the United church and was primarily United Church people.

That conference had great leaders who did wonderful things, and so, each subsequent leader would often do the things done by the previous people and add more.  The list of things which could be done each year shifted with each group's skills, and it was a wonderful conference

Yet, at some point, the history of expectations and deliverables for the conference became more important than the conference.

It became more important that there be a great party on sat night, or people to help carry luggage, then it did the actual conference.

I chaired the last conference and we intentionally shut down a dead & dying conference with the support of the "grandmothers" of the conference.

I have a sense we do the same thing in the church.

We add layers of traditions into the services or seasons based on the work of the wonderful people, but, we neglect the load that people have to carry on.

I compare it to a suitcase that never gets unpacked and keeps carrying items, eventually, it is just too heavy, so instead of emptying we get a bigger suitcase (more volunteers) and somehow carrying the suitcase becomes more important than the journey itself.

I would suggest that most of them are not deeply rooted traditions, at least in the UCCan context.  I have never been to a church that had many Lenten traditions.  And really the whole liturgical year (outside of things like Plam Sunday, Christmas-which used to be celbrated on the Sunday prior to Dec 25 and not on Dec 24-and Easter) is a fairly recent thing to many UCCan congregations.  AS in within 40 years.

Last year we tried some new things during lent and Easter - some of which we'll be doing again this year. We used a Lenten triad on our Sunday services with blue candles and we refrained from saying Hallelujah. 

I started thinking about refraining from saying hallelujah during Lent. I think that perhaps it is no longer the sacrifice that it once was, given that it is not a word that is commonly used in our language. It is a word that I never really think about, except during Lent - when I want to say it all the time! It becomes desirable - like a forbidden fruit. Perhaps there are other words we could give up instead (or as well as).

One of the things that we did last year (and will be repeating) was to get together with several other local United Churches and offer people options on the non-Sunday services. For example, on Good Friday four congregations got together to offer 3 services that people could choose from: one traditional, one contemplative and one contemporary. Each site had at least two ministers from two different churches leading - along with lay leadership from each of the congregations involved. I went to the contemporary service, and it was amazing! Similar options were given on Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday. This year, in addition to this, we are looking at holding a joint sunrise service on Easter Sunday somewhere by the ocean.

Lost a post. Could it be that Traditions are church school driven. So goes the church school = so go the traditions.

Whole People of God used these things as teaching tools.

I love Lent a a time to look inside of our hearts and to look outside our hearts and see if they match up.  Having said that I do like the movement of light to darkness and have a lenten triad.  I also do not Hallelujah during Lent-boxing them up works great.  We use the purple color in our banners and change our liturgy to focus our hearts on taking the lenten journey with Jesus.  We have on some occassions stripped our sanctuary absolutely clean so that we can focus on the task at hand.

i always have some kind of a study for us to engage in as we seek to know our relationship with God.  We start with the pancake supper on shrove tuesday, always with a pinata for the children-we have a wonderfully fun time with that.  We do not use Palms on palm sunday for environmental reasons-we still wave homemade palms or sometimes cardboard ones, we have even paraded in decorated crosses.  We have enjoyed the "murder mystery"-why would they want to kill a nice guy like Jesus(from House church in Penticton-see Gathering Magazine).  W have a pot luck meal and the mystery at someone's house and really engage the question.We also do our own rendition of the Seder meal on maundy Thursday-which has us gathering to eat the food of seder and then ending in communion.  Good Friday is the ecumenical walk of the cross where each church, that participates, hosts us for a bit of worship and then it culminates in worship in our church followed by a bit of a simple meal and visiting.  We do the Easter hunt on Holy Saturday and invite the whole community-which brings out over 100 childen.  They each have a bag with their name on it and can find other loose goodies.  Each bag has a bit of an Easter reading included.  Easter Sunday is a sunrise service and breakfast, followed by an Easter service filled with flowers and balloons and great joy.

Seeing it all on paper makes me realize why I am exhausted after this season is over.

Susie, that is the Lenten and Easter season that I remember and I also know the feeling of exhaustion but a good feeling.

We used to do... lots

This year, we intentionally did away with the lenten candle extinguishing liturgy at each service. We put up the purple cloths.   We do a Maundy Thursday event - this year a play and hopefully sins on flash paper.

I tell the congregation its a waste of time to go without or give up something inLent. Instead, add something.  Do good, pay forward.  Make someone elses life uplifted.

We do Good Friday with the Anglicans across the road.  

the Cantata happens Palm Sundah.

Easter Sunday is a celebration.