This is a video my friend, Leslie Foster, made of our evening Ash Wednesday service. It captures so well the mood of the evening: somber but lively.
Ash Wednesday at the Purple Church from Leslie Foster on Vimeo.
A meditative view of the evening Ash Wednesday service at the Hollywood Adventist Church. Testing out the latitude of Traveling Muse's new Canon.

Paganism is alive and well at Hollywood SDA! Repent Hollywood SDA!
Posted by: Don K. Molander | March 24, 2010 at 08:21 PM
Now that looks like the kind of church service that I would enjoy and Hollywood looks like the sort of church that I would like to be part of.
Posted by: Wanida | April 04, 2010 at 07:42 AM
All I have is one question and that's it... Why do you guys celebrate Ash Wednesday? Just out of curiosity that is all I would like to know is why.
Posted by: David Rosales | May 11, 2010 at 02:10 PM
Hi Ryan,
I'm a born and raised SDA from Australia (I notice that you've visited our country recently - I hope you had a great time). I found you via a review you wrote for Huffington on NT Wright's new book "How God Became King".
I think it's great that your church has included services on major dates in the church calendar. It is Ash Wednesday 2012 and I have decided to participate in Lent for the very first time this year. To me these times of fasting and festivals in the traditional church calendar make sense. Humans are material and embodied who live within time and space. So it makes sense that God would ordain these things as instruments for our faith. We need things like fasting seasons and festivals. They were also part of the Jewish heritage also, so it makes sense for there to be continuity of these type of community activities but with Christian meaning. I'd love to see Holy Week services, a church lectionary so that ministers don't set their own agenda each week and so on.
The other thing to say about the church caledar is that we do it together. We fast together, pray together, read the Bible together (the lectionary), celebrate together. Christianity is something that is done together. The individualized Christianity that the Reformation ushered in has lost all of that I think.
Posted by: Simon Marc | February 21, 2012 at 03:29 PM