Holy week is here. Looking towards Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Published: Wed, 04/05/23

We know Holy Week is full and busy. We want to offer something for the holy days of this week.

PROTEST

Remembering the palm branches lifted on Sunday, with perspective on protests during this Holy Week. Read the guest blog by Erin Robinson Hall.

How are we enacting a story? Where do we find ourselves in the story this week?

TABLES

How can the tables you share become places of remembrance, witness, lament, and joy?

How could you harness and highlight the gift of rituals and tables to make space for grief and questions of your shared purpose?

GRIEF

Life and love, friendship and loss, joy and beauty and grief are all mixed together.

Like sand and clay and water become pottery, our losses, griefs and joys can be turned into something beautiful, crafted into the very art of life.

SELF COMPASSION

We need love and self compassion.

God and the Spirit of the Holy is waiting in each breath to fill us with a sense of belovedness. Our part is to practice self compassion for our griefs and our losses, and our suffering.

Then they may come to coexist with joy and friendship, romance and family love. The fullness of life.
And the contest between suffering and self compassion may indeed remain. Yet with practice, we can become a witness rather than a victim of our suffering. And self compassion will prepare us for the purposes to which we are called.

RESURRECTION

What new thing have you learned lately? What ideas, relationships, habits of faith have died and are now coming to life again?

How are you practicing resurrection today? This week? This season?

GIVING THANKS

Holy Week is a beautiful and sometimes exhausting experience for clergy leaders. They plan and lead the highest highs and lowest lows of the Christian story in just one week's time.

In the #PandemicPastoring Report, we learned just how grateful lay leaders felt for their pastors. We also heard how much they wished that they had expressed that thanks more often. Don't let another day go by. Thank a minister for all their love and hard work. The last three years has been so much. And even a small word or gesture of thanks can go a long way.

Enjoy and share these Minister Appreciation free printable pages!