All We Need: Lent 2025

What do you need?

What do you need to survive and thrive? We all know about the basics: air, food, water shelter.

What else do you need? Sleep, perhaps? Human contact? An abiding sense of purpose? Prayer?

What do the people in your congregation need? What are they missing and what do they long for?

How about your neighbors, the people beyond your church doors?

We need a multitude of different things. This Lenten season, we’re going to talk about it in this worship series, All We Need.

Each week, we’ll explore what the scripture for the season reveals about our needs, personally and communally. We’ll explore needs in our preaching and children’s messages, in Sunday liturgy, in a robust devotional guide, and in a midweek service focused on healing.

Not every need the series explores is obvious. Inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary, All We Need explores topics like the need for sleep, change, and beauty. Each week’s scripture will redefine and expand what we think of as needs.

Join us as we explore the intricate tapestry of human needs, and discover the transformative power of Christ and community throughout the Lenten season.

Weekly themes

Ash Wednesday: our own and others’ needs
First Sunday in Lent: the need to embrace vulnerability
Second Sunday in Lent: the need for sleep
Third Sunday in Lent: the need for an advocate
Fourth Sunday in Lent: the need for change
Fifth Sunday in Lent: the need for beauty
Palm and Passion Sunday: Jesus needs our help
The Great Three Days: the need for love, protection, and new life
Easter Sunday: the need to rejoice

What’s included in the series?

If you purchase the Basics, you receive the introduction and seasonal essay, Preachers’ Notes, Children’s Message Starters, Words for Worship, and hymn suggestions. All other items are included in the Bundle or are available to purchase à la carte.

Seasonal essay: The essay “Emptying the Mitten Closet: Meeting Our Neighbors’ Needs” is a vital read for any ministry that seeks to meet the needs of its neighbors. The suggestions in this article will go a long way in refining your worshiping community’s efforts to serve others, and make for rich conversation in small group study.

Preachers’ Notes: Preaching commentaries explore connections between each week’s lectionary texts and the All We Need theme.

Children’s Message Starters: Kid-friendly connections to the week’s theme help to jump-start your brainstorm for a children’s message.

Words for Worship: Fresh texts for Lenten worship include some texts that change weekly, and some that endure throughout the forty-day journey:

Gathering Words (all-season and weekly options)
Confession and Forgiveness (all-season)
Prayers of the Day (weekly)
Prompts for Prayers of the People (weekly)
Offering Prayer (all-season)
Eucharistic Prayer (all-season)
Prayer After Communion (all-season)
Blessing (weekly)

Hymns suggestions: Weekly hymn suggestions provide musical pairings to match theme, message, and music.

Devotional Guide for Lent: Daily entries accompany your congregation throughout the Lenten journey, providing opportunity each day to read and reflect on scripture and offer prayer.

Midweek Worship with Healing Prayer: This liturgy invites the assembly into healing prayer through words of worship that provide comfort and compassion, coupled with prayer stations that creatively and gently usher worshipers into contemplation and intercession.