Dear Brothers and Sisters
NURTURING CONFIDENT DISCIPLES – LENT 2020 Including Diocesan Baptism and Confirmation – Easter Eve Saturday 11 April 2020 at the Cathedral.
You will remember that we wrote to you in November about our hopes that together we might use this coming Lent as an opportunity to seek out adults and young people who are wanting to explore what it might be to make a decision to follow Christ. We are doing this with a view to encouraging them to use Lent 2020 as an opportunity to explore faith afresh and consider being confirmed (and baptised if they have not already) this coming Easter. You can find out more about our hopes for this in a short video.
Already a good number of parishes have requested copies of ‘The Pilgrim Way – a guide to the core beliefs of the Christian faith in question and answer format’, the book which we have commended to you and which we will also be very helpful in prompting conversations in individual households encouraging families and carers to explore faith together. We still have a limited supply left and it is not too late to request these from Di Best at ku.gr1745902689o.coi1745902689dsolg1745902689@tseb1745902689d1745902689 or you can order copies at a small cost from Church House Bookshop. The book will also form the basis on which we will be engaging in four further conversations you will be able to view during lent on the diocesan YouTube channel.
These conversations will be followed up by a Big Questions’ Evening that we will be hosting in the Cathedral on Wednesday 1 April at 7pm. This will also be live-streamed.
For those who wish this will culminate in the Diocesan Baptism and Confirmation service at the Cathedral on Easter Eve which will bring together a wide range of people and traditions to affirm our faith in Jesus Christ our Risen Lord. We hope for those who wish, that we might offer baptism by immersion – others may choose to use the more traditional font. We hope that those baptised and/or confirmed will then be welcomed in your local community on Easter Morning.
Others may wish to use this opportunity to bring candidates for confirmation more locally as part of our usual round of confirmations in parishes and deaneries
We hope that having had the opportunity to reflect on this opportunity you will make this part of your Lenten provision this year and are asking now that you register your interest. (See form below). This is not a firm commitment that you will be bringing people to the ‘big questions’ evening or indeed the confirmation at Easter but it will help us to know that you are joining with us and it will mean we keep in touch with you about what is happening.
In the meantime please continue to consider now how you might identify and invite those in your community who you would like to consider being baptised and/or confirmed and continue to plan your local preparation for Lent alongside the support we will be offering.
This comes with our appreciation for your ministry, our prayers and our thanks.
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