Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (March 5) and continues for 40 days (not counting Sundays) until the Saturday before Easter. It is a holy and live giving season and a time to draw close to God through prayer, repentance, fasting, reading scripture, and giving to those in need. These spiritual disciplines are important throughout the whole of our lives and especially during Lent as we prepare to remember our Lord’s journey to the cross and celebrate His joyful resurrection at Easter.

Lent ≠ RULES!

Lent = being in a relationship with the Living God and taking time to examine our attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, behavious, and motivations with God the Holy Spirit.

David, in Psalm 51, prayed, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” This is the mood of Lent. David prayed to God to create a clean heart in him and to renew him.

Repentance = a gift from God. Repentance = God’s grace. The opportunity to repent (to turn away from our wrong attitudes, behaviours, motivations, thoughts, and beliefs AND to turn to God instead) is a GIFT of God’s grace. Peter says in Acts 11:18, “…God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

So don’t see Lent as a time for rules, rather Lent is an invitation to a HOLY (set apart and dedicated to God) and LIFE GIVING season; sin=death but repentance=forgiveness and forgiveness=NEW LIFE, and a fresh start.

Below are resources for all ages to help you draw close to God in this season.

Click to read: Ash Wednesday: A guide for everyone and Lent: A guide for everyone

More on Lent:

Essau McCaulley, in his book Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal, writes, “Lent is inescapably about repenting. Repentance is a change of direction, a Spirit-empowered turning around…about turning away from our sins and toward the living God. A season dedicated to repentance and renewal should not lead us to despair; it should cause us to pray to God for his grace” (p.3).
In the life of the church throughout the past 2,000 plus years, Lent has come “to be about three things:
the preparation of new converts for baptism,
the reconciliation of those estranged from the church,
and a general call for the whole church to repent and renew its commitment to Jesus” (p.8).
It’s important to say that while there are 3 traditional practices used by our sisters and brothers in the faith to mark the season of Lent – prayer, fasting, and giving to the poor, “we should not see the season of Lent as a series of rules but as a gift of the collected wisdom of the church universal. It is one of many tools of discipleship pointing us toward a closer walk with Jesus” (p.9).

#Live Lent: God’s Story, Our Story

One resource that might be of help in us walking closer with Jesus in Lent this year is called #LiveLent: God’s Story, Our Story. It was developed by Dean Stephen Hance (St. James Cathedral) when he was the Evangelism and Discipleship Lead for the Church of England.
Starting on Ash Wednesday, it includes a reading from scripture, a short reflection and a prayer for each day during Lent. At the start of each week, there is a brief introduction to set the scene for the whole week, with a weekly action to take. Click here to download.

Family Talk Time (download here)