Lent at First Met: A Good Enough Faith

We are pleased to return to in-person worship. Please note that masks (congregational singing included) are recommended and full vaccination is required. 

Lenten reflections guide

Join us at 11 am (unless indicated otherwise) in person or online via Livestream or YouTube for our Lenten worship services.

Lent is the 40-day period (excluding Sundays) that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. Traditionally it is a season of reflection and preparation for Easter, and it commemorates Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the desert.

 Our worship series for Lent 2022, “Good Enough: Embracing the Imperfections of Life and Faith,” was inspired by the new book of the same name. You can view a podcast on the book here. The author, Kate Bowler (www.katebowler.com), is a seminary history professor, author and podcaster, and “incurable optimist.” 

 Her research focuses on the “prosperity gospel” movement which has contributed to our “self-help” craze. Her recent bestsellers, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, and No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear chronicle her life as a young person living with stage four colon cancer, discovering she had fallen into the same trap her research is about: the belief that we can all “bootstrap” ourselves into a perfect life. This idea is so baked into our consciousness that sometimes we think God requires this perfection of us and we end up falling continually short.

 This worship series invites us to take seriously, and with humility, that most often life is imperfect. We have lived this reality for the past two years as our world has coped with the COVID-19 pandemic. We are still in the midst of great disturbance from “the way we imagined” life to be. In many cases, dreams have been thwarted by pandemic through loss of life, health, and economic security. And then there’s all the other hard stuff, unrelated to pandemic, that just keeps rollin’ along. 

 The Good News certainly is that God loves us deeply and is present to us powerfully, even and especially in the midst of the imperfect and down-right crappy moments of life. This is the right time to question our popular theories about how to build a better life. We cannot “have it all” if we just learn how to conquer our limits. Kate Bowler says, “The problem with our lives is that we cannot solve them. We can only live them.” 

Click here for our Good Enough Lenten reflections guide.

March 2, 7:00 pm (Ash Wednesday via Livestream): Perfectionism is impossible. Transformation isn’t.

March 6 (Lent 1): Ordinary lives can be holy.

March 13 (Lent 2): We interrupt our Lent series in order to celebrate PIE Day and the formal recognition of First Met as an Affirming congregation.

March 20 (Lent 3): Lots of things can be medicine.

March 27 (Lent 4): We often believe we are the problem.

April 3 (Lent 5): We are fragile.

April 10 (Palm Sunday): You are a group project.

April 15 (Good Friday): Even today, God is here and somehow, that is good enough.

April 17 (Easter Sunday): A Good Enough Faith 

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