Lent & Easter at Westminster
Sundays in Lent:
Worship, 11 a.m., Sanctuary (livestream)
February 14: Ash Wednesday
Imposition of Ashes 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Church Office
Worship, 6 p.m., Sanctuary: A service of repentance and contemplation that includes Scripture, song, and the imposition of ashes
March 24-30: Holy Week
Labyrinth walking in Fellowship Hall: During Holy Week, we will have the opportunity to take part in the embodied practice of walking a labyrinth. Prayer walking a labyrinth is an ancient spiritual practice that is a metaphor for the pilgrimage of the spiritual journey inward toward God. Walking a labyrinth is an embodied way of praying where our whole selves are attentive to God. The rhythm of our footsteps and the movement of our whole body releases tension, slows our breathing, and frees us to listen for God. Praying while walking integrates our bodies with our minds and spirits. A labyrinth will be set up on the floor of the Fellowship Hall, beginning on Palm Sunday through Easter Saturday morning.
The labyrinth will be open on Sunday, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the labyrinth will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Easter Saturday, the labyrinth will be open from 10 a.m. to noon.
March 24: Palm Sunday
Worship, 11 a.m., Sanctuary (livestream): A worship service that includes a processional, and the waving of palms.
March 28: Maundy Thursday
Worship with Communion, 7 p.m., Sanctuary: A service of quiet reflection that includes Scripture, song and the Sacrament of Communion.
March 29: Good Friday
Worship, 7 p.m., Sanctuary: A reflective service of Tenebrae with Scripture readings, candlelight, hymns, and choral music
March 31: Easter
Worship, 8:30 and 11 a.m., Sanctuary (livestream): Between the services, an Easter event with a brunch in the Fellowship Hall, a story in the Library, and an egg hunt in the Courtyard. After each service, on the Patio, flowering the cross.
Common Grounds
Home to UKirk at UVA (Westminster’s undergraduate campus ministry), Common Grounds is a space for UVA students to share meals and conversation, study, and enjoy coffee, tea, and snacks. The building is also the gathering spot for 20/30/40 CreW (Westminster’s ministry with graduate students and young adults), youth classes, and other community events.
Upstairs in Common Grounds, there are small offices for nonprofit organizations supporting the Charlottesville community. Current residents include BEATDiabetes, Habitat for Humanity’s Virginia Office, and Theological Horizons.
Over the decades, Common Grounds has been a space to share ideas, question, and connect. Within its walls, people have discussed important issues of each generation, called for social justice, raised prayers, and played music. Thanks to an innovative new community partnership, by fall 2024 the ground floor of Common Grounds will become a second location for Kindness Cafe + Play, a local coffee shop with an amazing mission. The space will continue to be UKirk at UVA’s home while welcoming the broader community to enjoy coffee and kindness for a good cause during designated hours.
Hunger Offerings
We participate in our Presbytery’s Hunger Offering six times a year to support The Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), a ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The PHP works to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes, responding with compassion and justice to poor and hungry people in local communities in the United States and internationally.
Through giving, Presbyterians provide the PHP with approximately four million dollars a year to support ministries of direct food relief, development assistance, public policy advocacy, education, and lifestyle integrity. The PHP seeks to fulfill its mission through strategic grant-making, print and web educational and worship materials, partnership collaborations, and participatory programs that allow us to recognize and love especially the most vulnerable of our neighbors next door and across the planet.
Peace and Global Witness Offering
The Peace & Global Witness Offering encourages the church to cast off anxiety and fear, discord and division, and embrace our God’s mission of reconciliation to those around the corner and around the world.
Pentecost Offering
The Pentecost Offering unites us in a church-wide effort to support young people and inspire them to share their faith, ideas, and unique gifts with the church and the world.
One Great Hour of Sharing
The One Great Hour of Sharing offering is taken on Easter Sunday and enables the church to share God’s love with our neighbors-in-need around the world by providing relief to those affected by natural disasters, provide food to the hungry, and helping to empower the poor and oppressed.
Christmas Joy Offering
By giving to the Christmas Joy Offering, you honor God’s gift of Jesus Christ by providing assistance to current and retired church workers in their time of need and developing our future leaders at Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color.
We Recognize a Crisis
Christian faith is being used to persecute and marginalize transgender and nonbinary people across this country. We recognize the systemic harm that is being done in the name of Christianity, and we are actively seeking to improve our practice of faith and not contribute to the dysphoria for our transgender siblings.
As a church community, we welcome all people regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. We believe that trans women and girls are female and trans men and boys are male, and that God loves them as such. We aspire to create an affirming space where transgender and nonbinary people feel welcome and loved and where intersectional diversity is normalized and embraced.
We recognize that the mental health and well-being of our transgender and nonbinary siblings is negatively affected by the rejection and bias of other Christian faith communities. There is an urgency to take action now to establish physical and emotional safety as well as safety within the Christian faith.
Our goal is to create a space that will not burden or add to dysphoria but will be accepting and affirming — a space where transgender and nonbinary people can thrive and flourish as an integral part of the beautiful, diverse, whole body of Christ.
Our family is pretty queer! That is to say, we have three young people in our immediate and extended family that identify as LGBTQIA. Talk of global injustices had pretty much always been part of our conversations at home and we tried ‘to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God,’ at least most of the time. The continued targeting of LGBTQIA persons in our country causes me great concern. Shootings, attacks, and even political wrangling over where a person can go to the restroom fill the daily lives of queer people. Marriage equality is wonderful, but serious issues still remain for further equality. Healthcare for spouses and housing discrimination are just two. Our presence at Cville PRIDE is one of the ways Westminster shows up in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community. It celebrates an openness and support for our gay, trans, and nonbinary friends. It shows our community that as a place of faith, we can support marginalized persons. It helps us to get to know our siblings and is just plain fun! This church has provided our family with a church home for more than 15 years. Love and comfort both come from here. And acceptance. My hope is that all people can know this kind of comfort.”
— Laura Young, Westminster Peace, Justice, and Inclusion Division member