A Time to Grow: Lenten Lessons from the Garden to the Table

From Eden to Gethsemane to the garden in which Jesus was buried and raised, our story of faith wanders through much fertile soil. But in our current world of fast food and to-go meals, we often do not make time to explore where our food comes from and how we break bread together. Journeying through the season of Lent with this in mind, A Time to Grow encourages readers to slow down, move through the painstaking process of growth, and end together with great feasting and celebration of the resurrection. Themes of soil, water, light, time, fasting, feasting, and more guide the way from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. Readers will explore the intricacies of how faith is required to produce food and how that faith can lead us all to feast at the table on Easter morning.

Additional elements are included to enhance communal spiritual practice for small groups or the entire congregation during Lent. These elements include sermon prompts, liturgies with communal responses, altar art ideas for decorating worship spaces, and prompts for children's time in worship.

Kara Eidson has pastored in rural, suburban, and urban settings. She holds a degree in psychology from Missouri State University and an MDiv from Duke Divinity School. After ordination in 2010, Eidson served four years as the United Methodist campus minister at the University of Kansas.She currently serves a UMC in Topeka, Kansas. Eidson and her husband love spending time tending to their garden with their ten chickens and two goats.