Ministry Matters - What is Lent actually for?

A Word from the Editor  February brings the Lenten season—which means most pastors are simultaneously planning the most theologically dense worship of their year while personally wondering if they have anything left to offer it. That tension between leading others into the wilderness and feeling like wilderness yourself is real, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.  This month we're asking what Lent is actually for. Not as a logistics question—there are plenty of resources for that—but as a theological and pastoral one. The practices of Lent were never designed to make individuals feel more spiritual in isolation. They were designed to reshape how the people of God live together. These articles take that seriously. And if you're heading into this time running on empty—there's something here for that, too.  —Cameron  Your Lenten Discipline might be the problem by Ministry Matters "Somewhere along the way—especially in middle-class American Christianity—we kept the prayer and the fasting and quietly let the almsgiving become optional. We turned Lent into a self-improvement project dressed in sackcloth."  Learn More Acts 4 is possible. We're living it in Minneapolis by Tyler Sit "But as a United Methodist pastor in Minneapolis, I’m witnessing Acts 4-type sharing all around me. While Minneapolis’ incredible activism—including faith-based witness—is in the headlines of the news, the ways people are supporting each other on the ground is just as miraculous."  Read Now Could the Acts 4 church really exist today? When Lent feels...empty by Cameron Merrill "Nobody tells you, in seminary or in the books about spiritual formation or in the annual call from your conference about Lenten programming, that you will spend entire liturgical seasons on the outside of your own faith." Continue Reading

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