Lent is a strange word to our modern ears. But still people, including many who don’t regularly attend church, feel a need to mark these 40 days. Not just with pancakes to start, but by giving up something they normally enjoy, sensing this discipline and denial is good for them.
Rather than give something up this Lent, I invite you to begin something instead.
During his time on earth Jesus invited all sorts of people to follow him, to become disciples. We know the names of twelve, those who gave up everything to move around with him. But there were countless others who said yes, but stayed put in their daily lives: ordinary women and men, boys and girls. They learned to practice the Way of Jesus in their daily, 24/7 lives, seeking to be attractively different in the toughest of contexts: among those who knew them well!
This Lent I invite you to start an experiment: consciously seeking to see what Jesus is doing in your daily life and joining in.
Over the years those ordinary disciples and all who followed them down the centuries found ways that helped them do this, what we now call practices.
We can still learn from them and from each other. Which is why the other thing to start up is meeting with others to help and encourage one another in this.
Each week of Lent I invite you to join a small group to eat and talk and learn together about following in the Way of Jesus. Click here to find out more.
If you would like to use daily resources during Lent from a special free App from the Church of England you can download it to your phone or tablet by clicking here.
Geoff Read, Chaplain
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