Hello, friends, on this chilly day in North Carolina!
For those who do not yet know me, my name is Jessi, and I am the senior pastor of Agnus Dei. Being a small church in a global society, we have had to get a bit creative as a church in how we approach Lent. We knew that this year some of the traditional services, such as Wednesday night Lenten suppers, were not going to work for us. However, we believe in building community, and even if some of us would be scattered to other places and states throughout the week, we wanted to set out a way for us to have a shared experience and continue to build community under Christ. With that in mind, I wanted to share with you a bit about what we are doing for the 2019 Lenten season, and whether or not you attend our Sunday morning gatherings and no matter where you live, we invite you to journey through Lent with us.
Lent
First, what is Lent? Some of you may be like me and grew up in faith traditions that did not practice Lent. Some of you may have done something for Lent every year of your life. Most people know that fasting from chocolate or social media are common endeavors during Lent. But what is Lent exactly?
Lent is a time of preparation that leads up to the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. It starts on Ash Wednesday, which is today, and leads up to Resurrection Sunday (commonly known as Easter). The purpose of this preparation is to prepare our hearts and minds with prayer, confession, repentance, self-denial, and giving. The idea is that whatever time, money, or resources were to be used for whatever you were fasting from was to be redirected and used for God. The whole idea of fasting is to empty your life of earthly things and to refill it with God and spiritual things.
For example, if you know me, you know how much I love my coffee. So, let’s say I spend $10 a week on coffee. If my goal during Lent was to fast for coffee, then here is what that would look like in a practical way. Every week, that $10 would be put in the offering plate at church or donated to some sort of mission work or Christian charity. The money that I would have spent on coffee is being put to further God’s mission. The time that I would spend driving to the coffee shop, ordering the coffee, and then drinking the coffee would then be spent in prayer or reading the Bible. These are not just behavior changes that you must survive for 6 weeks, like a crash diet. Rather, it is a time of preparation and redirection. Just like when we make New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year, Lent gives us a time to slow down, do some self-evaluation, and to re-set our focus and priorities for the present and into the future. The six weeks of Lent gives us time to replace bad habits with good ones that shift our focus back towards God.
Our Goal
In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” In another place, Tozer writes: “Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech.” This is true of individuals as well. What we think, believe, or disbelieve about God drives the rest of our lives, each decision we make, everything we do or say. Lent provides us with an opportunity to go back and answer those most basic questions of theology: what do we think about God and who is God? Therefore, our goal for Lent 2019 is that we shift our focus to God.
The Plan
With all that in mind, we are offering a variety of studies that focus us on God and our relationship with Him. You can just pick one study to do. If you are ambitious, you can do them all. Or you can take our ideas and develop your own study plan. Whatever you choose to do, I challenge you to these 5 things:
Agnus Dei
Throughout Lent, here is what we will be doing at Agnus Dei.
I know that this is a lot of information. However, I will post all of it on my blog on the church website, www.agnusdeiministries.org, with some links and suggested books. I will also post the links and suggested books in the comments below. Remember, participate in what God is nudging you to participate in, and we’d appreciate you joining in the discussions. If you have time for absolutely nothing else this Lenten season, just PRAY. Spend some time each day chatting with God.
If you have any questions or would like help developing a Lenten study plan or a spiritual growth plan, feel free to contact me. Until next we meet, may God bless you as you go about your daily life.
Suggested Books
What’s Your God Language? by Dr. Perrine
Because of This I Rejoice: Reading Philippians in Lent by Max O. Vincent
The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg
Suggested Websites
Agnus Dei Lutheran Orthodox Church website: www.agnusdeiministries.org
Agnus Dei Lutheran Orthodox Church Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AgnusDeiMinistriesLOC/
Habits of the Mind: https://inkandsouls.wordpress.com/habits-of-the-mind-book-club/
Lutheran Hour Ministries: https://www.lhm.org/lent/
For those who do not yet know me, my name is Jessi, and I am the senior pastor of Agnus Dei. Being a small church in a global society, we have had to get a bit creative as a church in how we approach Lent. We knew that this year some of the traditional services, such as Wednesday night Lenten suppers, were not going to work for us. However, we believe in building community, and even if some of us would be scattered to other places and states throughout the week, we wanted to set out a way for us to have a shared experience and continue to build community under Christ. With that in mind, I wanted to share with you a bit about what we are doing for the 2019 Lenten season, and whether or not you attend our Sunday morning gatherings and no matter where you live, we invite you to journey through Lent with us.
Lent
First, what is Lent? Some of you may be like me and grew up in faith traditions that did not practice Lent. Some of you may have done something for Lent every year of your life. Most people know that fasting from chocolate or social media are common endeavors during Lent. But what is Lent exactly?
Lent is a time of preparation that leads up to the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. It starts on Ash Wednesday, which is today, and leads up to Resurrection Sunday (commonly known as Easter). The purpose of this preparation is to prepare our hearts and minds with prayer, confession, repentance, self-denial, and giving. The idea is that whatever time, money, or resources were to be used for whatever you were fasting from was to be redirected and used for God. The whole idea of fasting is to empty your life of earthly things and to refill it with God and spiritual things.
For example, if you know me, you know how much I love my coffee. So, let’s say I spend $10 a week on coffee. If my goal during Lent was to fast for coffee, then here is what that would look like in a practical way. Every week, that $10 would be put in the offering plate at church or donated to some sort of mission work or Christian charity. The money that I would have spent on coffee is being put to further God’s mission. The time that I would spend driving to the coffee shop, ordering the coffee, and then drinking the coffee would then be spent in prayer or reading the Bible. These are not just behavior changes that you must survive for 6 weeks, like a crash diet. Rather, it is a time of preparation and redirection. Just like when we make New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of the year, Lent gives us a time to slow down, do some self-evaluation, and to re-set our focus and priorities for the present and into the future. The six weeks of Lent gives us time to replace bad habits with good ones that shift our focus back towards God.
Our Goal
In his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” In another place, Tozer writes: “Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech.” This is true of individuals as well. What we think, believe, or disbelieve about God drives the rest of our lives, each decision we make, everything we do or say. Lent provides us with an opportunity to go back and answer those most basic questions of theology: what do we think about God and who is God? Therefore, our goal for Lent 2019 is that we shift our focus to God.
The Plan
With all that in mind, we are offering a variety of studies that focus us on God and our relationship with Him. You can just pick one study to do. If you are ambitious, you can do them all. Or you can take our ideas and develop your own study plan. Whatever you choose to do, I challenge you to these 5 things:
- First, FOCUS on who God is. Let God be God and not fit Him into the box of what we think He is or should be. If it starts to become about you or simply modifying your behavior or checking things off a list, then those are signals that you need to redirect your focus back to God.
- Second, PRAY. Prayer is the absolute basic necessity of our relationship with God. This is how we talk to God. Simply just talk to Him.
- Third, BE CONSISTENT and COMMITTED. These are actually our focus words for Agnus Dei for 2019. Be consistent and committed. Develop or adopt a Lenten study plan and stick with it for the full 6 weeks. Do not just jump around, but really stick with it. You can adjust it as needed to see what works best for how you approach it. This is not a one-size fits all type of thing, but rather developing your unique relationship with God.
- Fourth, READ GOD’S WORD. Your plan for Lent needs to involve the actual reading of Scripture from a real Bible (print or digital, but the actual Bible). Focus on the words actually written on the page. This takes reading it several times and really examining the words.
- Fifth, ENGAGE with Christian community. This could be sharing what you are reading with a friend over a cup of coffee. This could be participating in the discussions on our Facebook page.
Agnus Dei
Throughout Lent, here is what we will be doing at Agnus Dei.
- Rev. Cox and I will be doing a sermon series on various attributes of God. We just spent all of February talking about Love, and, while God is the source of Love, Love is merely one attribute of God. So, we will be exploring some of God’s attributes other than Love.
- During Sunday school, we will be studying the book, What’s Your God Language? by Dr. Perrine. This book is also the book selection for March for Habits of the Mind, which is our book club. The book explores spiritual temperaments and what spiritual disciplines or faith expressions work best with our unique temperament.
- Archbishop Wagner has challenged us to encounter God through the Psalms by reading and meditating on a different psalm each day of Lent.
- On our Agnus Dei Facebook page, Rev. Cox will be doing guided, thought-provoking discussions through the Lenten devotional provided by the Lutheran Hour Ministries website. If you go to their website, you can read the devotional online, print it off, or subscribe to have it emailed to you. We will also have some printed copies at church on Sunday.
- Also, on our Facebook page, I will be doing a series of mini-lessons going through the book of Philippians using the book, Because of This I Rejoice: Reading Philippians in Lent by Max O. Vincent, as a source. I will also be posting some thought-provoking posts and questions from other readings. We would love for you to ask questions and participate in the discussions on our Facebook page. This is our way of continuing to build community under Christ, even though physical distance may divide us.
I know that this is a lot of information. However, I will post all of it on my blog on the church website, www.agnusdeiministries.org, with some links and suggested books. I will also post the links and suggested books in the comments below. Remember, participate in what God is nudging you to participate in, and we’d appreciate you joining in the discussions. If you have time for absolutely nothing else this Lenten season, just PRAY. Spend some time each day chatting with God.
If you have any questions or would like help developing a Lenten study plan or a spiritual growth plan, feel free to contact me. Until next we meet, may God bless you as you go about your daily life.
Suggested Books
What’s Your God Language? by Dr. Perrine
Because of This I Rejoice: Reading Philippians in Lent by Max O. Vincent
The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer
The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg
Suggested Websites
Agnus Dei Lutheran Orthodox Church website: www.agnusdeiministries.org
Agnus Dei Lutheran Orthodox Church Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AgnusDeiMinistriesLOC/
Habits of the Mind: https://inkandsouls.wordpress.com/habits-of-the-mind-book-club/
Lutheran Hour Ministries: https://www.lhm.org/lent/
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