Christmas is Over but Its Time to Get Ready for Lent and Easter

Advent and Christmas are over and we are now into the season of Epiphany but Lent and Easter are not far away. It is time to get ready for our annual Lenten blog series.

For Lent this year we have chosen the theme A Journey Into Wholeness which will compliment  the publication of our new Lenten/Easter devotional A Journey Into Wholeness now available for pre-order at a special discount price from the MSA website. As many of you know this book arose out of my frustration with the triviality of most peoples’ commitment to Lent – giving up chocolate or lattes for 40 days just does not seem to cut it. 

So lets help people to not only take Lent more seriously but to take the journey of God and the purposes of God more seriously. A recent emailer commented: I appreciate your very “earthy” spirituality, which, of course, translates into heavenly readings! That is a tribute to those of you who regularly write for these blog series. Your reflections help people take their faith more seriously and often establish new disciplines and ministries in their lives.

In the book, A Journey Into Wholeness, each week of Lent has a different emphasis and it is my hope that the daily reflections will help draw people more fully into those themes. In fact it begins a few days before Lent with reflections on preparing for Lent and Easter.

The five weeks of Lent and Holy week emphasis are:

A Journey into the Brokenness of Our Inner Selves

A Journey into the Brokenness of Hunger

A Journey Into the Brokenness of Homelessness

A Journey Into the Brokenness of Creation

A Journey Into the Brokenness of God’s Family

A Journey from Palm Sunday to the Cross

The daily reflections in the book are drawn from previous blog series and I appreciate those of you who have contributed these. Each contributor to this year’s series will receive a free ebook as a thank you for their contribution. It is our hope that this year’s reflections will provide the foundations for a future Lent/Easter devotional. People are looking for practical resources like these that help them get engaged in God’s hurting world. We want to continue to provide creative resources that move them closer towards God. This also provides a creative outlet for those of you who want to get published – contributing to something like this is a small step in the right direction.

So here is your assignment should you choose to accept it:

Choose one of the themes above and write a 600-800 word blog post. If possible include one practical suggestion of something that the reader could do to make this discipline more concrete. Let us know ASAP which theme you have chosen so that we make sure all themes are well covered.

Submit your post by March 5th – If you would like to contribute but do not think you can meet this deadline please let us know when your post will be available.

Provide photos of yourself, a short bio and any links that you would like in the post. Attach jpegs of any other photos that you would like included in the post.

Help us spread the word: 

For everyone even if you don’t contribute a post:

Before Lent begins let your friends know that you are participating in A Journey into Wholeness and send them a link to this post. If you would let friends know about the Lenten book A Journey Into Wholeness that would be appreciated too.

If you do provide a post, when your post goes live share the link to your post with your Facebook, twitter and other social media networks.

For those of you that blog:

Before Lent begins do a short post letting people know about the series and that you will be contributing or following. (We will do one in the next couple of weeks that you might like to repost). If you would mention the Lenten devotional that would be much appreciated too. On the day your post goes live please post a paragraph from the post on your own blog and then link to the post on godspace.

A couple of times during Lent we will do a “the series so far…” post. Please post this on your blog too.

As the popularity of what we publish and post increases I realize the increased responsibility that goes with what we do. I hope that you will continue to participate and invite others who may be interested to do the same.