Lenten Practices, Stations of the Cross

The stations are a way of remembering and entering spiritually, the final hours of Jesus earthy life and ministry. This period is also referred to as Christ’s passion. Passion coming from the Latin word for passionem, meaning suffering. Hence the term, Passion Week. That is Holy Week. Each station remembers a point along the way Jesus took from his condemnation by Pontius Pilate to his death on the cross and burial in the tomb. By observing the stations, the individual believer, family, or congregation, accompanies Jesus in his last moments. For centuries, Christians have physically retraced Jesus’ Way of Sorrow (Via Dolorosa) in the Old City of Jerusalem on Good Friday. Usually, there are 14 stations.

The practice of the stations allows all Christians, regardless of geographic location, to enter this experience. Many Roman Catholic and some Anglican Churches display the stations of the cross in their churches all year. However, many don’t and still observe the stations on Fridays in Lent. This is often done by using temporarily displayed stations. Also, many monastic communities and retreat centers have the stations of the cross displayed on their grounds. These, while sometimes used by congregations formally, are often used more by individuals for personal reflection and devotion. Whether used as a formal service by a congregation or more informally by individuals for personal meditation the stations can be a powerful practice. 

It’s not necessary to have “official” stations to observe this practice on your own. You could look up the fourteen stations in the Bible, with a passage per station, perhaps moving from room to room. You could print out stations from various websites and create actual stations around your home or property. You could identify locations in your neighborhood or community with the traditional stations and observe them as a walking pilgrimage. Meditating, praying, and accompanying Jesus in his passion, as the Christian community has for over 2000 years can stir the heart, prompt deep reflection, and nurture faith. If a local church offers the stations you may wish to go experience them for yourself or try doing them in your own. 

Lenten Practices, Silence

Silence has long been understood as an ideal environment for fostering personal reflection and encounter with God. Silence is regular part of the life of many monastic communities. This isn’t done only to create a relaxing and peaceful environment (something parents of young children fantasize about!). Rather, exterior silence invites individual reflection, sometimes painfully, as thoughts, memories, and temptations arise. Much soul work cannot begin until we are willing to deal with our internal noise. Exterior silence is also an invitation to interior silence. The practice of quietening the heart and mind is often associated with Eastern religions, but in the Christian faith this practice is also an important means of making space to listen for God.

Stillness is associated with silence and both are associated with an awareness of the divine, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). The Prophet Elijah, fleeing persecution, encounters God not in the awesome power of earthquake or fire, but within “sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12). Silence can be healing. Silence can be energizing. There are some who go to remote locations simply for the respite from the noise of our devices and the noise that our human communities create, complain about, and sometimes celebrate (click here for example.) Prayer is often described as a conversation with God. Silence fosters listening. Recall a person you’ve met who relishes talking but not listening. You don’t get to say much.

They say a whole lot. If you had something powerful, profound, or even pressing to tell them (e.g. “A tractor trailer truck is coming this way.”), they might not be able to hear it (with consequences that will run right along). Might this be God’s experience with you and me? We talk, but we don’t listen. Our culture is not comfortable with silence. Every single moment must be filled with noise. Our phones, with their wonderful abilities to play music, movies, and to entertain with massive choices of games, mean we don’t have to experience silence unless we choose to. It’s worth choosing silence. It’s a time-honored way of coming to terms with our anxieties, gaining clarity about our callings, and entering fuller awareness of the Triune God.   

Lenten Practices, Confession

While the saying, “confession is good for the soul” remains well known, the actual practice, in its various forms, is less well known. It is important to begin any consideration of confession by acknowledging that all Christian Churches, whether Protestant or Catholic, teach of the necessity of confession. Confession at its basic level is admitting to God you have erred, you’ve messed up, you’ve sinned. Considering Christian discipleship is about striving to Love God and Neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40) by aligning one’s whole life with the teachings of Jesus, it is not surprising that we often stumble along the way. I also stumbled earlier today while riding a unicycle and juggling four Bibles, three prayer books, two rosaries, and one Grizzly bear.

What all Christian Traditions do not agree about is sacramental confession. The centuries long practice of penitents (those with something to confess) of making a formal confession to a priest. Christian Traditions that practice sacramental confession (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, some Lutherans), believe that God has blessed certain practices, as either instituted by Christ or developed by the Church in response to Christ. Practices that have proven, over long centuries, effective means by which human beings might receive and encounter the presence, forgiving power, and love of God. These practices are called sacraments. Besides confession, there is the sacrament of Holy Communion, Baptism, and Marriage, among others. 

Christian Churches that don’t believe in the seven traditional sacraments (often holding to just two: baptism and the Lord’s Supper), argue that these rituals were not instituted by God or that you do not need to go a human being (as helpful as that might be on occasion) to confess your sins. You can do that directly to God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Certainly, all Christian Churches, even those that require private confession, acknowledge you can confess directly to God. But some argue that sacramental confession is also necessary.  Why? One reason is the importance of dealing with failures and sins sooner, rather than later. Another reason is power of the sacrament to bring healing and hope to persons dealing with guilt

Yet another, is that these Churches tend to view the weekly reception of Holy Communion as a serious act. Thus, it is necessary to prepare. Not all Churches that make private confession available require it. In the Anglican Tradition, the view of private confession is, “All can, some should, none must.” As someone who has been a penitent and a priest, I can say that it is often powerful, often liberating and often healing for people. It can also be a useful practice to help support intentional and faithful living. If you know you are going to have to regularly make confession to another human being, that can impact how you live in subtle and significant ways. Ow! (Please excuse me, the Grizzly bear I was juggling earlier, is currently eating my leg.) 

The key is preparation and intention. Some Christians have had bad experiences with confession, because of an inattentive confessor (the priest hearing the confession). Others experienced it as a perfunctory ritual, something “you had to do” and thus did not experience it as an opportunity for soul cleaning, encouraging accountability, or gracious support of becoming the best person you were meant to be as God intended. Confession is about these larger purposes and not just “reporting about breaking rules.” Confession at its best is medicine for the soul. Confession is a way to sweep your conscience through the compassionate and convicting strength of the Holy Spirit. So, practice confession, daily in prayer, weekly in worship, and if your church offers it, sacramentally. 

Lenten Practices, Almsgiving

What are alms? Alms are a rare species of endangered leopards in the amazon (just kidding). Alms are food or money or assistance given to those in need. Almsgiving has always been part of the faith.  A concern to give to those in need. This practice encompasses both ideas of charity “let me give you a token of kindness or let me help you with a specific need in this immediate moment” and  ideas of justice: “not only should I help you in this immediate moment, but I should ask why you need help, and seek to address those root causes” and ideas between.

You can still find churches that have boxes labeled “For the Poor.” Some of you are familiar with the practice of mite boxes. Mite being an old translation for coins in the Bible. Some of your congregations do this now. A good practice. These are handed out at the start of Lent and individuals and families are encouraged to place them on their dining room tables. Change is collected throughout the season of Lent, for a specific cause, often associated with those in need (e.g. Heifer International, a Local Rescue Mission, spot removal surgery for Almcats , etc.).

Almsgiving can also be done directly to a person in need. This is part of the traditional practice. This can involve the giving of good, meeting a specific need, or financial assistance. Whether in person, through a mite box, or special project, even the small act of giving away our change can be a step toward developing greater awareness of need and greater generosity of spirit. Wrestling with how much we should give to the poor, as part of, or beyond a tithe, or a percentage of one’s income, forces us to look at our lives and deal with some tough questions.

How much do I really need? There are a lot of people out there whose basic needs are not being met. What is reasonable for me to keep and live on considering the profound suffering in the world? To often we ignore this entirely or make token gestures. While some are called to give away much of what they earn and have, the practice of almsgiving doesn’t require all of us to move this far and this fast. What this practice does do is invite us to think about Jesus’ Great commandment to “Love our neighbor” (Matthew 22:39) and take action to help those in need.

Lenten Practices, Fasting

Wednesdays and Fridays are the traditional days of fasting in the Christian faith. Fridays have received attention, both in Lent, and year around, with the well-known and widely practiced discipline of Roman Catholic and other Christians refraining from meat. Eastern Orthodox Christians are known for more stringent fasting during the season of Lent, sometimes encompassing a total fast from meats, various dairy products, and all water (except water imported from Greece or Russia). Yes, that was a joke (apologies to Orthodox readers). 

In Christian circles, East and West, fasting as a spiritual practice has probably waned in overall observance (less people are doing it), but I would suggest there is a resurgence of interest in and the practice of this ancient spiritual discipline (more people doing it intentionally, and not just because they “have” to). Fasting is often touted as having various health benefits. While this may be true, depending on how you fast, our concern here is fasting as spiritual practice. Isn’t fasting just about beating up ourselves by not eating rattlesnake steaks on Fridays? 

No. To be clear, the idea of Christian fasting has often meant partial fasting (full fasts being a matter of personal practice or limited to days like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday), such as abstaining from certain foods (e.g. meat) and eating two smaller meals and one regular meal on a given day. There is also the practice of fasting before receiving Holy Communion, especially on Sundays.  Ok. So, sometimes it’s a partial fast or abstaining from chocolate or coffee (Yes, really!) or whatever for the season of Lent. Why? Self-denial is about realizing what is important in life. 

Fasting reminds us how much we depend upon food, those who prepare it, those who grow it. Fasting reminds us of those who regularly go hungry and to take action. Fasting can be an opportunity to depend upon God more deeply. Fasting is a way of training our wills to choose the better instead of the merely convenient. Fasting can be painful, because it reveals our weaknesses. But such knowledge is essential if we want to grow in character. Also, in the Bible, fasting is often seen as a powerful complement to prayer. (For the record, there is no Friday of the year where I eat steaks made from rattlesnakes).

A Serving Community

This Lent, I’m exploring Five Characteristics of Christian Community in series of sermons as well as reflecting upon these themes here. You can listen to the sermon on a Christian community being a serving community here. Service. Servanthood. Often people have a general sense that this is the sort of thing churches are doing or should be doing. The Church today has a mixed reputation on the street. Some bring only negative stereotypes, but others have a sense that even if churches are filled with old odd people or they believe in strange things, they do some good things. In fact, this is true! To some extent, every local church should be a center for community service.

However, the Church serves in Jesus name. The church serves as part of its faith commitment. The church serves and individual Christians serve, because of the Great Commandment of our Lord, “Love God, Love Neighbor” (Matthew 22:34-40). Churches and Christians can fall into two ditches along the serving highway. First, if we are not careful, we can give the impression that we are only helping people or doing good things in order to get people “saved” or to up attendance numbers at our Sunday services. Serving must be done in the spirit of Jesus which is a spirit that serves first and foremost for the sake of the person or the sake of the community’s betterment. No one enjoys being anyone’s project. If you are going to help, help because it’s what we should be doing as Christians and help because it’s the right thing to do.

Second, if we are not careful, we can give the impression that we are simply nice people who like to do nice things for others. In fact, we serve others in Christ’s name. In fact, what motivates our compassion and sustains us along the weary road of fighting poverty, reducing violence, empowering women, and a thousand other good causes, is our faith. There is an art to serving others in Christ’s name in a way that avoids the first ditch and the second. We don’t need to knock people over the head with our faith, but neither do we need to apologize for it by barely acknowledging why we do what we do. It takes trial and error, wisdom and grace, to avoid the first ditch of giving the impression that serving is only a means to an end and the second ditch of giving the impression that we are generic nice people doing nice generic things.

What did you hear in the sermon, in the text, or this reflection? What would you challenge, what would you add? What are you still wondering about? 

A Welcoming Community

This Lent, I’m exploring Five Characteristics of Christian Community in series of sermons as well as reflecting upon these themes here. You can listen to the sermon on a Christian community being a welcoming community here. Welcome. Hospitality. These are words that should be synonymous with the word church. Sadly, for many people, this has not been their experience. Of course, for many others, it has. Most church people would agree that a church should be a welcoming community. What exactly do we mean by welcoming? Friendly, kind, and gracious? Yes. These traits are reflective of the fruits of the Holy Spirit that are the marks of growth in the Christian life as found in Galatians 5:22, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control.” These traits should be reflective not only of individuals in a congregation, but of the parish family overall. Of course, people are in different places spiritually and a welcoming congregation accepts this and (wait for it) welcomes it.

Herein also lies an important distinction, welcome does not mean full affirmation. That is, all Christian Churches, whether progressive or traditional, recognize that the Christian life involves repentance and growth. For example, a person struggling with an addiction should be welcomed graciously, but the congregation understands that God’s desire for that person is freedom from addiction. Therefore, they will support and encourage and once they have earned trust, challenge that person toward that end. The markers of what things are affirmed and what things are not in people’s lives differ depending on where a congregation is on a specific issue. However, every church will at times, if it is faithful, find itself calling out sin or saying no to certain elements in a person’s lifestyle or beliefs.

The critical element here is respect and kindness. So often people who have felt unwelcomed by the Church experienced petty judgment, mean spirited words, or hateful condemnation. All of this is to fail to be a welcoming community reflecting the teachings of Jesus Christ. A church can welcome people it does not agree with. A welcoming church can also graciously, respectfully, and appropriately be straight forward with people about its concerns. People may well still be offended, but at least the church did not add further offense by being mean spirited or cruel or rude. More broadly, a welcoming church goes out of its way to make it easy for people to find their building, get around the building, and to figure out what they are supposed to do once they are in the building. Many churches are intentionally very unwelcoming because they haven’t thought through how new comers and guests navigate their facility.

What did you hear in the sermon, in the text, or this reflection? What would you challenge, what would you add? What are you still wondering about?   

A Forgiving Community

This Lent, I’m exploring Five Characteristics of Christian Community in series of sermons as well as reflecting upon these themes here. You can listen to the sermon on a Christian community being a forgiving community here. A perennial topic of interest for human beings in all stages and states of life. The power of forgiveness and unforgiveness is immediately evident to everyone. There is a mystery to life and forgiveness. Some people are terribly wronged, mistreated, and abused, and yet; live, joyfully, gracefully, and fully. Others experience similar and sometimes much less tragedy and live in perpetual resentment and bitterness. Why? You can find professing Christians who have been able to forgive and those who have not. You can find those who profess no faith who have been able to forgive and those who have not. Forgiveness is a gift of God and something that Christians are supposed to be known for, but ironically, we are often known more for our unforgiveness and pettiness.

Forgiveness is central to the life and teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, forgiveness should be central to the Christian life. A good deal of the time forgiveness is tough going, but perhaps we stumble so much, not merely because we are human (that will do it every time!), because we fail to realize two major factors. First, forgiveness often requires God’s help. I may be able (depending on the day!) to shrug off, without resentment, the driver who cuts me off on the highway. But on other days, I may not be able to. This is minor, but minor bruises add up to a black and blue heart. Without even getting to major relational cuts and slashes, we find ourselves stuck in resentment over the minors. Forgiveness is very often out of our reach. We need divine assistance. Forgiveness will often fail when we ignore the God factor. Second, forgiveness is a practice. Prayer is a practice. Singing is a practice. In other words, you can develop your ability to forgive.

Most liturgical churches include a prayer of confession and a declaration of forgiveness in their services. This is an excellent time to flex your forgiveness muscles. That is, if you have given some thought to your past week and what you need to confess. That is, if the pastor or worship leader provides some silence in which you can confess to God in your heart your failings. Often, we simply go through the liturgy by rote and give very little attention to what we are saying or doing. The sacramental churches, particularly the Roman Church, are known for encouraging confession to God through the meditation of a priest. This is an ancient rite of the Church and one that God has used to bring much healing and mercy to countless individuals over the centuries. Of course, like with the prayer in the liturgy, many also experienced it as a requirement and went through the motions with little transformation. Perhaps, practical teaching, example, and testimony on forgiveness would help churches grow in this area?

What did you hear in the sermon, in the text, or this reflection? What would you challenge, what would you add? What are you still wondering about?   

A Discipling Community

This Lent, I’m exploring Five Characteristics of Christian Community in series of sermons as well as reflecting upon these themes here. You can listen to the sermon on a Christian community being a discipling community here. What is a disciple? In a general sense, a disciple is a student or apprentice. Not just a casual student, but a committed student. Someone who has devoted him or herself to a particular teacher. These sorts of student-mentor relationships have famous threads in many circles, but perhaps especially, in academic, artistic, and martial ones. The rising scholar whose mentor is a legend in their field. The renowned composer who studied with one of the greats. A martial artist who has devoted herself to her master and learning his art and passing it on to the next generation.

If you apply this understanding of disciple to Christianity, you are at once shaken and challenged. If the primary mission of the Christian Church is to make disciples, and if disciples are committed in the way that other disciples are to their teachers, then the work of the Church becomes both more challenging and exciting. We have often been pretty good at making church goers in our congregations. People who show up, sometimes regularly, and who sometimes also help out with other activities around the church. This is all fine as far as it goes. However, it doesn’t go far enough, according to the instruction of all the great spiritual teachers. Spiritual teachers aside, it falls short of THE Teacher’s example and instruction, “Go therefore, make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:16-20).

A disciple in the Christian sense is a follower of Jesus. A disciple in the Christian sense is someone seeking to allow their faith to anchor their life and their faith to flavor and saturate every aspect of their life. This doesn’t, necessarily, translate into being at the gathered church all the time. Disciples worship regularly, usually weekly, some more, but their particular sense of Christian call and responsibility may manifest through their profession, their volunteering, or in raising their family. There are many ways of following Jesus and many variations on the path of discipleship. Despite the disparate ways of being a disciple, disciples across the spectrum share many things in common, beginning with the one Lord. Disciples aren’t perfect by any means, but they understand they are on a journey. How is your discipleship going? Is discipleship something your local church talks about and more importantly, does?

What did you hear in the sermon, in the text, or this reflection? What would you challenge, what would you add? What are you still wondering about?   

A Worshipping Community

This Lent, I’m exploring Five Characteristics of Christian Community in series of sermons as well as reflecting upon these themes here. You can listen to the sermon on a Christian community being a worshipping community here. It might be obvious to state that a Christian community is a worshipping community. That worship of the Almighty is the primary purpose of its existence. However, like with common sense, the obvious isn’t so obvious a good deal of the time. For smaller churches, Sunday worship may be the only time the community gathers. In larger churches, there may be several worship services and dozens of activities, programs, and events held throughout the week. In either situation, worship should be the anchor of all that local congregation does. Why?

That’s actually a good question and a contested one. Community centers and agencies do many of the things churches do and often more efficiently and on a grander scale. But the church is more than a community agency or a social club. At least, it’s supposed to be more than (or perhaps different than) these organizations, which certainly have their place and which God uses to accomplish much good in people’s lives. A church should be a community in which individuals can encounter God. Christianity is a communal faith. Worship in the gathered sense cannot be done by yourself. The sacramental churches have always held onto to this truth with their emphasis on the Eucharist being the central act of Christian worship. You can’t celebrate the Eucharist yourself and yet in the Eucharist God can be encountered in a special way.

The evangelical churches have also held onto this truth with their emphasis that the Bible, as much as it should be read individually, should be encountered in community through preaching and shared study. The mainline churches have also held onto this truth with their emphasis on justice, which requires us to unite across all sorts of boundaries to cooperate with the Spirit for a better world. The charismatic churches have also held onto this truth with their emphasis on God’s presence, a presence that is best experienced and interpreted alongside other believers. Yet, for all the Body of Christ’s emphasis on gathered worship as the anchor of Christian life attendance by professing Christians at weekly services is on the whole, hardly overwhelming. But never mind attendance figures, but what about the spiritual figures of those attending?

What are people doing when they show up to worship? Are they just going through the motions? Are they encountering the divine? Are they opening themselves to the Spirit? Whether the service is High Mass, Rock and Roll, Quiet and Respectable, or whatever, are worshippers allowing the service to be a vehicle for God to transform their hearts and minds? Worship is an opportunity to step out of our constant fixation on ourselves and be opened to a greater reality that will point us to the mystery of life and to concrete service to life in all its forms. One of the great truths of the Christian faith that is visible by any quick survey of human behavior, is that we are by nature worshipping creatures. We are going to worship. It’s inevitable, but what or who are we worshipping?

What did you hear in the sermon, in the text, or this reflection? What would you challenge, what would you add? What are you still wondering about?   

Don't Miss Out on Lent

Missing out, Lent? Yes. Lent is the forty day season before Easter (it starts next week on March 5). Lent is a heavy-weight season of the Christian year full of richness, potential for encounter with God, and life impact. Unfortunately, Lent is usually taken – if at all – as a light-weight season for giving up chocolate, going to an extra worship service or two and collecting loose change for some good cause. These are all fine things, but taken by themselves they miss the flight on what Lent is intended to be all about.

Life is a journey; cliché, but undeniably true. Likewise, Christianity is meant to be journey. Christianity is not meant to be an event, but a life. We’re all human; we all bleed; we all laugh; we all cry; and we all dream. Christianity is a way of becoming more authentically human; tapping into all the wonders of life, from Sunday symphonies to Wednesday blues and Saturday rock and roll. The seasons of the Church Year are designed to help us become better at being human; better at savoring ordinary joys, like a good cup of tea; weathering the horrible sorrows, like the loss of a loved one. How? By helping us to live more intentionally and to give more attention not only to our ever-present to-do lists, but to the spaces in our lives we ignore, where strangely and scarily, God is often to be found.  

Lent is designed to do this by challenging us to take our spiritual lives more seriously. To set aside forty days to ponder our relationship with God and God’s universe, God and God’s people, and God and our innermost selves. The classic Biblical image for Lent is Jesus’ forty days and nights of temptation in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11); while in the desert, Jesus had plenty of time to ponder life’s mysteries; to pray, to fast, and to be tested. During Lent, the Church invites us to take on the spiritual practices of silence, Scripture reading, and fasting in order to grow into more authentic human beings.

If we miss out on Lent, we might miss out on being our very selves as God intended us to be. If we miss out on Lent, we may become less human, not more. I encourage you to take advantage of Lent this year. Make it a heavy-weight season, not a light-weight season. Don’t miss the flight that is Lent; if you do, you’ll miss out on going to some transforming places.  

Archbishop Rowan Williams On Lent
Two Minute Crash Course on Lent
Observing Lent as a Family

Self-Denial? Really?

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Within the Episcopal Ash Wednesday liturgy the congregation is addressed with the following words, “I invite you…to the observance of a Holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word” (emphasis added, Book of Common Prayer, 265). Self-denial’s importance is found not only in the historic observance of Lent, but throughout the history of Christianity itself. If this wasn’t enough to convince the self-denial skeptic we only need to quote the words of Jesus, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

It has become fashionable in recent years for people to say, “Oh, I don’t take something away during Lent. I add something.” As if self-denial was a repressive practice with no meaning or purpose; a hold-over from a darker time, when kill-joys ruled the Church delighting in removing all pleasure from human existence. Self-denial – as is made clear by Jesus’ words – is an integral part of the Christian life. Lent is a season where we are invited to work our spiritual muscles more intensely.

A foundational part of this spiritual work-out is self-denial. The purpose of self-denial is to train the human will to cooperate with the will of God. If I can learn, with God’s grace, to deny myself chocolate during Lent, for example, then hopefully I will also be able with God’s grace to deny myself those things which are harmful to my life. If I can say no to meat on Fridays during Lent, then  hopefully I've strengthened my ability to say no to the temptation, whether to gossip about a co-worker or to say no to the desire for revenge and so on.

Self-denial trains us to say yes to God; yes to all that is good, and no to those forces which oppose God. Self-denial helps say no to our sinful tendency to make life all about us and our wants. So this Lent make sure to practice self-denial. It’s perfectly ok to also add a spiritual practice. I recommend you do that, but don’t forget self-denial. You might deny yourself meat, or Face Book, or texting, or any number of things which have taken control of your life. Lent starts next Wednesday, how are you going to practice self-denial?

Preparing for Lent

Lent is a forty day period leading up to Holy Week and the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection on Easter Sunday and the fifty-day period called Eastertide. This year it begins on Wednesday, February 13, with the celebration of Ash Wednesday, and concludes during Holy Week prior to Easter Sunday, on March 31. Lent is a season of repentance, spiritual exercise, and self-denial. Lent is a preparation for Easter. That’s true. However, Lent is more than just a warm-up to the big day. Historically, Lent has been a period of spiritual growth and development for Christians.

 

There are many customs and traditions associated with Lent that can be observed by individuals, couples, and families. There is a tendency by many Christians to limit Lent to “giving something up” or “taking something on.” Self-denial is an important part of Lent so you should give something up. Taking on new spiritual practices is also an important part of Lent and something you do too. However, Lent is about more than just cutting back on bad things and adding more good things to your life.

 

Lent is a period of time where we more intentionally focus on God. It’s a time to push away other concerns and focus more intentionally on our spirituality and our relationship to Jesus Christ. Think of Lent as a spiritual marathon. During Lent we raise the intensity of our spiritual practice. The hope is that by God’s grace (because you will never do all you want to do for Lent without grace) you will become a more dedicated disciple of Jesus Christ or to say it different, you will become more fully human as God intended.  

 

Today, and certainly no later than this week, take time out by yourself, with a friend, or with your family to plan for Lent. Think of planning now as a deposit on an investment, an investment that will profit in transformed lives as you and yours observe this ancient and powerful season of the Christian year. In order for this to happen we have to prepare ourselves for Lent.

Here are some resources to help you get started.

 

Feel free in the comments section to share your own resources, ideas, and plans for Lent this year.

 

Why Bother with Lent?
Archbishop’s Video Lenten Reflections

What is Lent? A Brief Introduction

Lenten Customs

More Customs and History about Lent

Lots more Lenten resourcesfrom the Anglican Tradition