Collects for Lent
You may remember that in previous years All Saints parishioners wrote reflections that were gathered into a devotional booklet for Lent. While we are not collecting reflections this year, we are producing a Lenten devotional guide of a different sort. This year’s guide is a collection of collects. A collect (pronounced CAH-lect) is a short liturgical prayer, typically once sentence long, that captures a certain theme or concept concerning our relationship to God. At least one collect can be found in every service in the Book of Common Prayer. A collect usually contains an invocation, a petition, and a conclusion. The invocation highlights one or more of God’s attributes. The petition asks for God’s aid in living out our faith, and the conclusion gives praise to God and is often Trinitarian in its language. If you would like to receive a daily "collect" email during Lent, fill out the form above.
The collects in this year’s Lenten devotional book are the creative work of our two Education for Ministry (EfM) groups at All Saints, which are led by mentors Bryson Waldo, Stephanie Diethelm, and Conrad Ponder!
Started in 1975 EfM is a long-running and highly regarded program of theological education for lay persons that originated at the School of Theology of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The heart of this four-year program of study are the weekly group meetings, during which participants gather for reflection, shared learning, worship, and support. EfM participants prepare for service to God through in-depth study of the Old Testament, New Testament, church history, and theology. Each week the groups take part in a method of theological reflection and then work together to write a collect that sums up the insights from that reflection in the form of a prayer. We are pleased that the All Saints groups have graciously agreed to share their work with the rest of the congregation and the community. We’re also grateful to our Parish Coordinator Tara Portney, who lovingly compiled them in this devotional booklet, which we hope will draw you more deeply into God’s transforming love over the course of this Lenten season.
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