The Environment For Lenten Worship

Thinking about the environment for worship requires delving into the meaning of Lent. The following article explains the meaning of Lent and draws out implications for how the visual arts may be used to complement Lenten worship. Lent is a season of simplicity, a time to strip away the false and to expose the truth. Things need to be torn apart and turned inside out. How else can the wind and sun cleanse a winter's worth of rot? Throughout the year hospitality demands that a church be clean and free from clutter-including the mess that sometimes surrounds the bulletin boards, music racks, lost-and-found cabinets, and crying rooms. But Lent requires something more than tidiness. There should be a genuine austerity, a plainness that communicates a season when we get back to basics. We try to make more evident what is important about these forty days: the assembly, the penitents, the elect, the candidates. Simplifying There are many ways to simplify the worship environment: Use vest…