A Creative Ash Wednesday Service

The service below is intended for us in the free-church tradition, particularly among evangelical churches. It reflects a traditional pattern for worship and a wide range of musical and textual resources.

The Basic Pattern Preparation and Reflection: Confitemeni Domino ("Let Us Confess to the Lord" [Taizé]) (As you begin this service, take a few moments to bring yourself before the Lord—your present state of mind and preoccupation, as well as a simple confession of your desire to meet God during this time.) Opening Prayer Introduction to the Lenten Season Scripture Readings: Isaiah 58, Luke 9:23–25 (For the Scripture readings, please listen to the Word rather than read along in your own Bible.) Receiving of the Ashes Music: "Healer of My Soul;" "Father Make Us Holy" Scripture Readings: Isaiah 43:1–3a; 1 Peter 2:9–10 Celebration of the Eucharist Prayer for the Bread Prayer for the Wine Music: "Our Blessing Cup;" "Holy, Holy, Holy;" "I Am the Bread of Life" Congregation: "I Am the Bread of Life" Benediction Postlude Commentary Order of the Service. If this particular liturgical service is new to a number of people in your congregation, an order of service can help alleviate fear of the unknown and prepare participants for the rhythm of the service. A preparation and reflection suggestion gently communicates to the congregation that they have gathered for a specific purpose, and leads them toward the posture of inner quiet and expectation, and away from socializing. Even the most well-thought-through content can become lost if the space in which it is to be communicated is serving to contrast rather than complement the service. If your worship space is already rich with symbolism, you can alter the lighting to highlight the area or symbols that best enrich the service at hand. If the worship space is plain, consider adding a Lenten banner, a cross, or simply use a table, adorned with the necessary elements: goblets of wine, bread, pottery bowls for the ashes, and candles. Candles always help to visually highlight the focus for worship and symbolize the light of the Christ who presents himself among us during worship. Opening Prayer. At the beginning of any worship service we must seek the grace of God's enabling. Although many congregations in the nonliturgical tradition have begun to include Advent and Lent in their Sunday worship cycle, not all will include an Ash Wednesday service as the introductory service to Lent. Because so many participants are unfamiliar with the Ash Wednesday service, leaders must be sensitive to pray that God will beckon each participant by his grace. In planning their prayer, leaders will therefore need to be aware of both their congregation's need and the direction in which the Spirit is desiring to lead. The Ash Wednesday worship should link our participation with that of our biblical and historic predecessors in faith, and then should extend that orthodoxy to include the participant's present spirituality. Participants in an unfamiliar service can be freed to worship by enriching the basic liturgy and by introducing or accompanying the symbols with a minimum of teaching. Scripture Readings. A lectionary is a helpful tool for choosing appropriate Scripture readings, but you need not be limited to the specific choices given for Ash Wednesday. A glance through various other Lenten readings might draw your attention to an appropriate theme for the congregation's entrance into Lent. Because of the contemporary interest and emphasis on worship renewal, Isaiah 58, which focuses on false and true worship, was chosen for the congregation and service at hand. While not among the readings for Ash Wednesday, Isaiah 58 does, however, appear in the lectionary as an authorized reading for Lent. As far as the present source is concerned, Isaiah 58 was chosen to give a broad picture of worship as God desires it. Luke 9:23–25, or other Scriptures that affirm the centrality of the cross for Christian discipleship, are both appropriate and necessary. Pause of Silence. The Ash Wednesday service comprises many elements. Nevertheless, the leader should desire simply that the participants experience an oasis, or a time of stillness in which they encounter God, and that they consequently leave the service with a desire to follow Christ into the ensuing holy season. Prayer of Confession. Christians past and present have considered the confession of sin to be necessary for spiritual growth, but not all church traditions have included times of confession in their public worship. Therefore, leaders need to consider their congregations and ask how these historic liturgical elements could be consistent with their church's present theology and practice (spirituality). Depending on the results of this analysis, leaders can determine an appropriate approach to confession. This creative liturgy presupposes a congregation that experiences God as a vindictive judge who communicates his expectations of his servants vaguely at best. This service therefore stressed that confession is a grace, a gift from God to us. Service of Ashes. One's teaching will again depend upon the needs of the congregation, although regardless of the congregation's experience and ease with the service, some level of communication can eliminate superstition and enrich worship. The ashes used in the traditional Ash Wednesday liturgy come from the palm crosses of Palm Sunday. Hence the primary purpose of Ash Wednesday: to remind us of our mortality. Whatever their origin in the context of your congregation, the ashes offer a point of departure for reflection on mortality in all its aspects. If "worm theology" is part of the popular spirituality of your tradition, you will want to introduce this emphasis on human mortality with care so as not to unwittingly lead the congregation into an experience of guilt or despair. The point of the exercise is rather to lead them to Jesus, and to an experience of bonding with the host of other disciples that have attempted to follow him throughout the church's history. If it is appropriate in your tradition for a lay person to lead the service of the ashes, the experience can provide the leader with a heretofore unparalleled experience of compassion for and identification with the human limitation of the church. You can make the service more meaningful for the participants by addressing them by name, "Joan, remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Even if you do not know a person's name, you can quietly ask for it and then include the name in the liturgy. Music. This service used taped, contemplative vocal music for the preparation time as well as for the service of the ashes and the Eucharist. This music served in effect as prayer on behalf of the congregation. Whether the music is chosen to be listened to or to be sung, it should emphasize that in our mortality and human frailty we need God's grace. This present service focused on the grace of healing, but as you pray about your congregation's needs you might choose to emphasize a different grace. In addition, you will want to select music that affirms our hope in Christ and emphasizes God's victory over evil. Scripture Readings/Eucharist. Following the service of the ashes, the service moves toward the most powerful aspect of Ash Wednesday: the juxtaposition of the ashes with the Eucharist. This juxtaposition symbolically emphasizes the fact that human mortality is inextricably linked with God's promise of life. The Eucharist comes as a welcome, hope-filled surprise to the soberness of the earlier portion of the service, thereby serving as a microcosm of the whole Lenten season. As far as the Scripture readings are concerned, feel free to select any of the numerous passages that focus upon the faithfulness of God, who has called us and who is committed to leading us to the completion of what he has called us to be in Christ. After the humility and confession of the service of ashes, it is time to look up to the God who has called us and who promises to accompany us. Though the liturgy takes us back to the time when Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, we participate as those who know the outcome, i.e., the process of Lent brings us out of the darkness of sin and into the light of grace. Prayers for Bread and Wine. Those whom you have selected to read Scripture or pray can come forward or remain within the congregation depending on what you intend the service to communicate to the congregation. For example, when readings and prayers come from the front of the worship center, at a pulpit or lectern, God's transcendence can be pictured, stressing God's holiness and separateness from us. Conversely, when readings and prayers come from within the congregation, God's imminence is symbolized, stressing God's identification with his people, that God has come among us. Participation in Eucharist. In some liturgical traditions, communicants come forward to receive the elements, while in others, they remain in their seats and the bread and wine is passed to them. However the congregation may have received the elements, you, as leader, should be sensitive to their contrite hearts (they have just humbly received the ashes), and be careful to express that at this time Christ now comes to us in the bread and wine (also to those who did not feel free to come forward to receive the ashes). If participants are coming forward to receive the elements, whoever is serving might want to take a more personal approach than usual. For example, rather than simply saying, "the body of Christ," he or she might say, "Ken, the body of Christ, broken that you might have life." If the elements are passed down the rows from person to person, the people can be encouraged to serve each other by name, saying something similar to the preceding example. Benediction and Postlude. The service is a rich mixture of many elements, so the benediction should be a simple word to go in the confidence and presence of the Lord, and the postlude should affirm the omnipresence of the Creator God who continues to create and redeem life.