Planning ahead is hard when we’re asking one another to live in the moment. And even harder during a pandemic.
It doesn’t surprise us. Lent shows up every year. And yet I always struggle with preparing for Lent. It’s kinda intentional.
A mentor of mine gave me a word I’ve always taken to heart:
Don’t jump ahead.
In lectionary churches that follow the pattern of set seasons, we are familiar with the changing seasons: each of which has meaning and purpose.
- Around Thanksgiving, we begin Advent: a season of anticipation and preparation.
- Then Christmas, of course.
- And the season after Epiphany.
- Lent: with its penitence.
- Easter: hope and joy.
- And then Pentecost kicks off half a year of Ordinary Time
We let this pattern write our lives with purpose and opportunity.
And when we look ahead, we break the seasons and mingle their themes. The Transfiguration doesn’t need to be undercut by a jump to Ash Wednesday.
I don’t want to jump ahead, either!
Planning for Lent during the Epiphany season muddles my discernment and spiritual growth. I hate thinking about Ash Wednesday when the season is telling me to look for the divine in our midst. And in a few weeks, I’ll be planning for Alleluias when we’re supposed to be refraining from them.
As a leader, it feels gross to reject the concepts we encourage for others for the sake of practicality.
Of course, the best time to plan for Lent is Lent, which means I probably should plan for next year this year. And I very well might.
But things don’t always go as planned, right?
If the coronavirus pandemic taught us anything, it is that. So a bit of planning to need to plan, well, that seems just as sensible.
What about predictable plans?
This is the true value of doing the same thing every year. You don’t really have to think about it. But I don’t think we truly appreciate how complicated these systems are until they stop functioning.
Many churches rely on the weekly Lenten program. Usually on a Wednesday night. Often there’s some food, a speaker, and some discussion.
Churches that run a program every year, have “the food person” at least. Maybe someone to recruit speakers or teams which host the event.
But then the food person dies. Or leaves. Or, say, a global pandemic shutters the building. And the predictable patterns aren’t just working like they did before.
Planning for Lent somehow has gotten worse precisely because we’re needing to plan more than we ever did before.
But does it even work?
The challenge of preparing for Lent is itself a thing with strangely diminishing returns. Ever so now.
The structures I’ve relied on my whole life have faded and seemed to be ending with the generation that nurtured them.
The patterns of gathering no longer match the lifestyles of the people who need it most.
And the pandemic has put in stark relief just how messy our lives are and for many of us, how much we’d rather be with family. And that includes me.
So I’m late.
I’m still planning on Monday. I haven’t cemented the schedule, but will make decisions today. There will be an optional common reading with independent reflection. We’ll probably have a Facebook group for optional conversation midweek. Reflection questions will be online and printed. Planning a Zoom meet-up and an in-person one at the end. All aspects are still TBD.
And the subject?
What is our Tomorrow? Imagining a Post-Pandemic Church
We will be using the short book: We Shall Be Changed: Questions for the Post-Pandemic Church as our touchstone for conversation.
You’re welcome to join us!
Right now, that’s the plan.
And like everything else at the moment, building the bridge as we’re driving across it remains the present normal.