This year (2023) Ash Wednesday it’s noticable Wednesday February 22nd. It is the beginning of the ancient church season of Lent. I wanted to offer some thoughts that may be helpful to your Campaigners group or Young Life team.
I didn’t start practicing Lent until I was in college and our Regional Director of Young Life was teaching about the spiritual practice of Lent at a leadership meeting. With each passing year, this season of Lent becomes personally more important and is consistently a time of deeper intimacy with the Lord.
The term “Lent” comes from the English word Lenten (to lengthen), referring to the season of lengthening the days, spring. Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, is traditionally a day of repentance.
Ben Witherington writes: “Repentance for sin is symbolized by the imposition of ashes on the forehead, but in that imposition is the sign of hope, for the ashes are imposed in the sign of the cross – the means by which our sins were atoned for.“
In the past, we have practiced Lent together as a Young Life team and as a Campaigners group during the 40 days of Lent. Lent traditionally begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts for forty days. The timing of the end of Lent varies depending on your tradition. (Read more here And here And here.) This season provides an opportune opportunity to participate with your local church. Many churches have unique and meaningful traditions that can help us practice Lent.
Understanding a relationship with a God we cannot see or touch often feels elusive to a high school student. Yet it seems that the concept of Lent is something they can wrap themselves around, something they can actually Doing to help them connect with the Lord.
At Campaigners we have discussed the concept of Lent through the metaphor of athletic training, a metaphor that is very familiar to many teenagers. For an athlete to excel, he must prepare. When you see an Olympian break a record, you know he didn’t just walk out and get lucky. Their actions came about through years of repetitive behavior.
Lent also involves preparation, preparing our hearts to understand the power of the cross (Good Friday) and the hope of the empty tomb (Easter). One way we can prepare is the same way athletes prepare, with repetitive behaviors. We can push ourselves to do almost anything for 40 days.
Suggestions I gave to my campaigners group
A nighttime time of written confession
Create a “locked document” on your laptops or phones, or in a hidden diary. Each evening three sections with specific confessions: ‘Thoughts’, ‘Words’ and ‘Deeds’. (based on the general confession of the Book of Common Prayer)
Give up a bad habit
Choose something difficult, but achievable. Some guys try to fast from porn, alcohol, drugs, sexual sin, etc… (things that need to be given up anyway, but hopefully Lent will be a catalyst for developing healthier habits after these 40 days.)
Giving up a comfort
Some guys give up things that aren’t necessarily “bad” but things they consistently run to for pleasure rather than for God. For example: desserts, fast food, social media, soda, Netflix, mindless games, video games, hitting the snooze button, etc. I also saw someone wearing only one pair of shoes for the entire Lent to remember how rich they are and how a majority of the world has no ‘shoe options’.
Adopting a new habit to replace an old one
- Instead of watching Netflix or checking social media sites before bed, consider reading just a few verses from the Bible.
- Or memorize a verse of Scripture each week (this would be great to do as a Campaigners group or Young Life team).
- Or an old-fashioned habit, like calling people instead of texting.
So…is Lent just a behavior change program?
Not at all, but it is still important to modify behavior because behavior often influences belief. By choosing to purposefully give up a comfort or habit of pleasure, we take our eyes off ourselves, our needs and wants. Before we can fix our eyes on Jesus, we must stop being so preoccupied with the idol of our own flesh.
“Lent is a conscious time in which we are challenged to organize our lives in such a way that we become frustrated on a daily basis. As people addicted to comfort and convenience, we are often unaware of how we live to feel good about ourselves, to get a little validation, to exert influence, to create our own to maximize pleasure, to meet our immediate needs.
Lent invites us to deliberately frustrate ourselves, to engage in a period of deprivation, which actually makes us more aware of the depth of our dependence on a number of things – a substance, our reputation, control, achievement, being right , feeling comfortable, being safe.
Lent is not about cutting back on chocolate, caffeine or alcohol. It’s about frustrating what Thomas Merton calls our ‘false self’. Lent strips us of everything that is not ours. In that sense, Lent is not a chore. It is an opportunity for profound grace from a God who longs to love us at our core, not in our false projected selves that desire influence and accolades, but in our truest, most humble and dependent selves, once lost but now found in the wilderness. of Lent.“
Helpful resources for Lent
The Common Rule by Justin Earley
This book is great to read as a Campaigners group or Young Life team. It provides practical and actionable habits that you can immediately start implementing in your life!
Journey to the Cross by Jim Branch
Many of you have read Jim Branch’s Devotional ‘Blue Book’. Jim also has a book especially for Lent. Get it here on Amazon.
Another newer book by Jim Branch is called “Teach Us to Pray: A 40-Day Journey through the Psalms.“Get it here
“Prayer: 40 days of practice” by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson.
Justin McRoberts and visual artist Scott Erickson have put together a prayer book that is easy to use for all ages. In it they combine fresh language and beautiful images to help us practice prayer. They wrote and designed the book as a resource for people who want to reimagine and strengthen their spiritual practice. Get it here. And if you don’t follow it Scott on Instagramyou’re missing something!
Backyard Pilgrim by Matt Canlis is a 40-day experience that you can enjoy in your own backyard. Read more about Julie Clapp here!
A new series of The right way, called Reflections – A deeper journeywith an emphasis on Lent.
Ty Saltzgiver’s “40 days of fasting“
Many of you have read Ty’s book: “My first 30 silent times.” “40 days of fasting‘ is the same small size that fits many Bibles, easy to read in the everyday format and a useful tool to hand to your Campaigners group. You can get it here for just $1.99 in hard copy or as an ebook.
Henri Nouwen’s “Show Me The Way”
Henri Nouwen is one of my favorite authors. You could actually pick up all his books to prepare for Easter during Lent, but “Show me the way” was designed specifically for that purpose. If you haven’t read Nouwen yet, be prepared to encounter Jesus in a new way.
Read more about the history of Lent in this article from Christianity Today.
If you have any other ideas to share, please email us so we can add them to the post.
Reference By: younglifeleaders.org
