Three Worship Practices for the Season of Lent

The season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday (Feb. 18) and continues until Easter Sunday (April 5). In addition to joining us for our services, here are some other practices of worship to guide you through this season.

Praying - repenting in order to return.

Repenting is not just about mourning over our sin, but turning towards fullness of joy in Christ. It’s recognizing the things in life that pull us towards death and anxiety and fear, and turning towards life and faith and hope. It’s a season to ask, “Why do I keep giving my time and attention to this thing that steals my joy?” Lent is a season for you to return to the fullness of joy in Christ, to give more time to prayer (use the Psalms to guide you) and the meditation of Scripture (read through the Gospel of John).  Reading and praying through the lectionary or using the Daily Prayer App (Apple or Android) could also guide your time.

Focus not so much on the amount, but rather slow down and ponder, maybe simply reflecting on what grabbed your soul during a worship service or daily reading. The focus here is pulling out the weeds that are a waste of time or steal your joy so these means of grace can grow your faith. 

Fasting - putting aside in order to make alive. 

With fasting, you’re putting aside a craving, often something good like food, not to make yourself miserable. Rather, you put those things aside to awaken another part of your soul. 

Why does abstaining from food matter in this season? You are fasting from bread in order for that vivid hunger to wake up your faith to say, “I do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” In addition to food, others may fast from caffeine, media, or alcohol.

But you’re not just putting these things aside, you're actively awakening the hunger in your soul. For example, if you fast from media, you’re turning down the noise of those things for a purpose. You’re turning down the volume of media so that the Scripture you hear on Sunday is louder. Often we don’t need to do more but to do less so the voice of God can speak louder. 

Almsgiving - giving up in order to give. 

A final area of focus is giving up certain things you are spending your money or your time on in order to increase generosity in other areas. If you are giving up Starbucks or canceling all your media subscriptions, then you use those extra funds or time to donate or to serve. So Lent becomes a season of generosity to the church or to ministries that serve the most vulnerable among us. 

Some areas to consider outside of extending a season of generosity or service to Trinity City Church:

1. Payne Avenue Free Church, which is pastored by our former resident Jason Andersen, continues to raise money and people for the work of revitalizing this local church. Since this local church is ministering to the surrounding neighborhood, then often it is a ministry of service and mercy to many of the most vulnerable in the city. Perhaps this could also be a season where you gather with Payne on Sundays and ask, “Is the Lord calling me to join His work of renewal here?”

2. Arrive Ministries is a Christian mission that welcomes refugee and immigrant neighbors. This ministry continues to look for items and funds for the ministry as well as volunteering. Similarly, Transform MN is raising money for immigrant churches through donations to the One Fund.

May the Lord draw near to you as you walk with Him through this season of repentance and renewal!

Halloween and the Communion of Saints

The above video gives us a reminder of the power of the gospel this time of year. Today is Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve, which is the evening before All Saints Day in the church calendar. What is the point of this time of year? This quote from The Worship Sourcebook explains:

Christian worship is an occasion for expressing communion of the saints as well as for calling attention to the profound gifts God gives us through others in the body of Christ. Worship on such occasions involves reflection on and thanksgiving for the gifts of all who have given witness to Christ’s love and demonstrated the fruits of the Spirit. It also calls for recognition of Christ’s continued work in the church through imperfect people who are nevertheless “called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7). This theme may be celebrated at any time during the year. Many churches have focused on this theme on All Saints’ Day (November 1), appropriating this day not as an occasion to invoke the saints but to give thanks for all who have gone before and to celebrate Christian unity with the “great cloud of witnesses” that precedes us (Heb. 12:1). The focus on All Saints’ Day should not be on extraordinary achievements of particular Christians but on the grace and work of God through ordinary people.

For Protestant Christians, October 31st also celebrates Reformation Day since Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses on a church door in Wittenberg in 1517 (to celebrate check out the Luther insult generator). This theme of reformation is a reminder this time of year to be continuously formed by the Word of God. Christians and the Church are prone to wander away from the essentials of the Christian faith so we must again and again turn to the Scriptures to reform us. We do so not just for the sake of one local church or denomination but for all Christian churches–Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox.

So get out there in your neighborhood and partake of the festivities of this All Hallows’ Eve. May your participation declare, as the video above articulates:

For this is the nature of shadow and gloom;

In the cleaning of glory there can be no room.

What force is resourced by the echoing black?

When brightness ignites can the shadow push back?

These ‘forces’ of darkness, if such can be called

Are banished by brilliance, by blazing enthralled.

So the Bible begins with this fore-resolved fight;

For a moment the darkness … then “Let there be Light!”

First grief in the gloom,then joy from the East.

First valley of shadow, then mountaintop feast.

First wait for Messiah, then long-promised dawn.

First desolate Friday and then Easter morn.

The armies of darkness while doing their worst,

Can never extinguish this Dazzling Sunburst.

So ridicule rogues if you must play a role;

But beware of getting lost in that bottomless hole.

The triumph is not with the forces of night.

It dawned with the One who said “I am the Light.”

So we join with the saints who have gone before us in asking darkness and death (1 Cor 15:55-57):

Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Screenshot from the video “Halloween: Trick or Treat?” by 10oftose.