Loudoun Churches - Ashes to Go - Wednesday February 18

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”

In addition to Lenten services at their church, some Loudoun pastors are taking ashes to the Leesburg Airport Park and Ride, Police and Fire Stations, Shelters, outside coffee shops and teaming with the INOVA Hospital Chaplaincy Department to minister to staff and patients.

“Ashes to Go” is about bringing spirit, belief, and belonging out from behind church doors, and into the places where we go every day. It’s a simple event with deep meaning, drawing on more than 1,000 years of tradition and worship to provide a contemporary moment of grace.

It is a reminder that need, humility and healing shouldn’t be confined to a church building. People need it more when they are in the middle of their daily business. The ashes received are to remind us throughout the day of our need for God, and of God’s call to us. God meets us not just in worship, but in the midst of life and pastors offer the opportunity to remember our faith when schedules make it hard to stop and pray with others on a busy Wednesday.

The following churches will be administering “Ashes to Go” at the following locations on Wednesday, February 18 2015:

Grace Episcopal Church in Brunswick Md. is hosting Ashes and prayers at the Brunswick MARC Train Station at 4:30 pm and 6:45 pm.

Community Lutheran Church in Sterling is hosting Ashes at Cascades Marketplace by Corner Bakery, Starbucks and Giant at 7:30 am.

St. David’s Episcopal Church, Ashburn, St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church, Leesburg, St. James Episcopal Church, Leesburg and St. Francis Korean Episcopal Church, Mclean are hosting at:

Sycolin Road area Parks and Rides, Loudoun Emergency Homeless Shelter at 5:30 am
Leesburg Plaza Street Locations, Day Laborers Site (7-11 Plaza), Fire Station and Sherriff’s Office at 7:00 am
Downtown Leesburg Loudoun County Courthouse area at 8:00 am
Wegman’s Center at 8:00 am
Lansdowne Towne Center at 10:00 am
Inova Loudoun Hospital at 10:30 am, Chapel Service at 1:00 pm
Leesburg Plaza Street Locations, Day Laborers Site (7-11 Plaza), Fire Station and Sherriff’s Office at 1:00 pm
Loudoun Free Clinic, Well Woman Clinic at 2:00 pm.

The background for Ashes to Go is as follows:

On Ash Wednesday 2010, three Chicago-area Episcopal congregations independently took ashes and prayer to suburban train stations, prayer on the street corner, prayer to the coffee shops and discovered commuters hungry for a moment of prayer, renewal and grace. Those who had no time to attend services or had forgotten about the tradition were delighted to receive ashes with prayer as they began their day. Many responded with tears, smiles of gratitude or just a plain thank you for the church that would come to them.

Leaders in the three congregations who offered Ashes to Go agreed that this was too good to keep to themselves and decided to invite others to join. Churches in San Francisco, St. Louis (began there in 2007) and elsewhere had offered similar ministries for years. But in 2011, the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago chose to coordinate Ashes outreach and more than 25 Episcopal congregations and organizations around the Chicago area offered ashes on street corners and train platforms, coffee shops, outside grocery stores and hospitals. Some offered Ashes on college campus streets during student class changes.

In 2012, Ashes to Go went viral and national. Because of the coverage in Chicago the previous year, many people were looking for resources to launch their own Ash Wednesday ministries. Continued interaction among churches helped to give a sense of the size and momentum of the growing movement.

More than 80 churches in 21 states headed out to meet the world with ashes and prayer – and the gift of prayerful outreach made the national news. It’s rare to find a story about the church’s mission on the front page or the morning news, but in 2012 the USA Today told a story of good news, and it was picked up on CBS morning news. Pastors and layman who took ashes out of the church building reached people who were not routinely attending service, promoting opportunities to take a fresh look at the church and the gospel.

Curious pedestrians and drivers were checking out the priests and pastors positioned quietly on the street corners, not accosting anyone. Some folks coming down the street, stopped and then moved on, their minds registered the unusual event, most likely thinking about it later that day.

In 2013, Ashes to Go went international – in Canada, the UK and South Africa. Ashes offerings occurred in over 31 states and the District of Columbia.

Some clergy believe Ashes is a proclamation that Christ is king, savior, and present in every part of life, to every person, not just in church during service. How many people who never have stepped inside a church might begin to contemplate the meaning and role of repentance, redemption, and forgiveness? Ash Wednesday is a beautiful ritual developed in our shared Christian history that can evolve and be adapted to culture without insulting the Church.
Other clergy believe that ashes should be received within a church, during a service with Scripture, prayer, Communion and calls for repentance. When we distribute ashes on the street it could very well cheapen God’s gift of grace.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of reflection and preparation before Easter.
Lent is a season of repentance, self-examination and quiet contemplation of the mysteries of God. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. Christians prepare for the forgiveness of their sins and fleshy lives with the death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday as they follow his footsteps through Holy Week.

“So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” - Daniel 9:3.