Lent – Use the Season Leading Up to Easter

The time leading up to Easter can be a useful time for reflecting on mortality, for identifying ways in which we are turning away from the Lord and repenting of those, for re-calibrating our priorities.

The roughly 6 weeks leading up to Easter is known as Lent and is used by many Christians as a time for reflection and repentance.

In our denomination, not many people have observed Lent. And there are certain practices that we would not recommend, but we do see value in using the time leading up to Easter in an intentional way.

Here are some resources to help you in that work: a worksheet, a sermon, and a whole program on repentance.

Resources

Worksheet: Some Ways to Get Ready for Easter

You can fill out this form on your device or print it and fill it out.

Download Some Ways to Get Ready for Easter (PDF).

Sermon: "Anticipating Easter" AKA "Lent for Suspicious General Church People"

Certain traditions are already part of the cycle of our year — we remember to be grateful around Thanksgiving in November, we have a variety of different things we do leading up to Christmas, we have a pageant and picnic for New Church Day in June. But what about February and March? Easter arrives sometime in March or April (depending on the year) but we don’t tend to anticipate and prepare for it in nearly the same way. Let’s talk about how the time leading up to Easter could become an equally powerful and significant part of the cycle of our year.

Read the Written Version of the Sermon (PDF)

Begin a New Life Program

Begin a New Life is a free universal spiritual program that helps you explore, address, and overcome any personal, relational, or habit-related challenge and sustain positive change—one change at a time. No matter how big or small the issue, this program offers a clear, practical path forward. As you move through the BNL process with different life challenges, your life is gradually, noticeably, even remarkably transformed. You grow in personal clarity and the power to choose, and you rise to new levels of hope and promise that are meaningful and lasting.

Get started on this program now and experience blessings of life change and spiritual transformation that are true, deep, and lasting—one step at a time.

STEP 1: Take an honest look at yourself.
Explore deepening levels of self-awareness.

STEP 2: Recognize and acknowledge a need for change.
Identify and own up to an action, habit, or life pattern that is preventing you from going forward.

STEP 3: Pray to God.
Reach out for things you need most for positive change.

STEP 4: Begin a new life.
Abstain from the old life and discover the new. Choose it, live it in God, and keep going forward.