Bill Teague’s lpc e-pistle

The Beginning of the Journey
 
This week's Ash Wednesday Communion Service is the beginning of the forty-day season of repentance and preparation for Easter known as Lent.  Much about Lent is old and complicated and lost in the fog medieval Europe. Its beginning date is tied to the date of Easter, always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  And the forty days do not include Sundays.  The word Lent is thought to be a corruption of an old Germanic word for spring.  The season commemorates Jesus' forty days in the wilderness and in the older traditions was a season of fasting.  The meatless Fridays some of us may remember from our Roman Catholic friends was a ritualized form of fasting. The fasting was to be used to help the believer focus on his or her need for the forgiveness and grace offered by Christ through his death on the cross. The ashes imposed upon the forehead on Ash Wednesday were a visible sign of one of the most ancient symbols of sorrow, grief and remorse. Until 30 years or so years ago, most Protestants, especially those in the Reformed Tradition had little to do with Lent. Continue Reading »

Some of you know that I spent last week in Guatemala as part of a mission team from our church.

It was a great week.  For several years members of Langhorne Church have traveled to Guatemala to help with the work of Promised Land Ministries, a Guatemala-based ministry of medical, educational, nutritional and spiritual aid to the people along the shore of Lake Atitlan in the mountains north and west of Guatemala City.  This was the second LPC-sponsored trip and it centered around the work of three of our doctors who join the staff doctor from PLM in providing clinics and medicine to the people of Atitlan. Continue Reading »