Posted 587 days ago

Invitation to Lenten Sychro-blog

from Christine Sine

Dear Friends,

Lent only a few weeks away. It officially begins on Ash Wednesday—this year on February 25th. I know that many people and certainly a lot of churches, however, start thinking about how they will celebrate Lent the moment the Christmas season is over. A couple of years ago, after the tenth person told me they were giving up chocolate for Lent, I became extremely frustrated and decided to produce a Lenten guide that would encourage people to make meaningful sacrifices during this season. Each week, the topic focused on a different aspect of the brokenness of the human condition with activities from easy to challenging in which people could participate.

We have just completed an update of this resource and are working on a sequel that will expand the activities and resources into the celebration of Easter—not just the day but the whole season up to Pentecost. I am inspired by NT Wright’s comment, “If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and as a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering and training up things in your life that ought to be blossoming…” I am also concerned that when I look at images that portray both the despair and hope of our world that it was easier to find the images of despair than of hope. So often our celebration of Easter seems to focus on the walk to the Cross rather than on God’s resurrection-created kingdom.

This new Lenten guide has been updated with weekly reflections, litanies, and resources to help you on your journey. There is no charge for this resource, but we do ask that if you use it you consider a donation to Mustard Seed Associates to enable us to continue producing similar resources. The suggested donation is $5 per participant.

There are two ways in which you can participate in this journey through Lent and Easter.

1. Get involved. We invite you to join us in our journey through Lent and Easter. Get together each week with a group of friends or your small group at church, use the reflections and participate in the activities.

1. If you have a blog, join our synchroblog. This blog, during Lent and Easter will focus on the meaning of Lent and the celebration of Easter in this practical way. Obviously this will involve far more than a simple blog post, as each person involved would need to engage in at least one of the activities listed. The most popular activity last time was the Mutunga $2 Challenge that restricts one’s food budget to $2 per person per day for a week. If you would like to be a part of the synchroblog, I would ask you to commit to a minimum of one week involvement during Lent and one week during the Easter season. The weeks during Lent focus on the brokenness of the world; the weeks of Easter leading up to Pentecost will focus on what is blossoming—signs of the kingdom that give us hope and encouragement. During this season, we will profile organizations and individuals that you know who are making a difference in their communities and around the world and giving hope to all of us that our lives can make a difference for God.

Each week we plan to post the links to the reflections bloggers have written, as well as other resources that can help people for the following week. We will also post a series of meditation videos that you might like to use for meditation during the week. All these posts will culminate in two celebration presentations, one during Holy Week, when I will post a special “Stations of the Cross” presentation compiled from some of the ideas expressed in the blog posts and reflections that others send in. And during Pentecost, I will post another series focused on “Stations of the Banquet,” images and reflections that show the glory of God.

Please let others know about this resource and encourage them to send me reflections, photos, or ideas that can be incorporated in either the Stations of the Cross presentation or the Stations of the Banquet presentation.

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