Fancy joining in for a noisy, smelly Lent?
…good noises and good smells, we hasten to add! Stuff like windchimes and spices, not, you know, glass breaking and rotten cabbage.
Ok, now that everyone is thoroughly confused, let’s dig a bit deeper into the idea of a slightly-crazy Cheerfully Given Lent...
First off: What is Lent for?
Many of us hear Lent and our first thought is giving up chocolate or sweet stuff. It’s not even limited to Christians, many people embrace the challenge of doing without something for 40 days.
Now let’s just nerd out for a moment and dig back in history nearly 2 millennia to see why and how Lent came into being. The concept of a time of preparation leading up to Easter has been around since probably the beginning of the early church. Certainly by the time the Council of Nicaea met in 325 A.D. (the ones that decided on the Nicene Creed, amongst other things, and where, according to the legends, St Nicholas punched another dude) it was happening enough that they formalised the whole idea of Lent.
Historically it was a time to prepare people for baptism and a time for acts of penance. We also have Jesus’ example of fasting for 40 days in the wilderness before He began His ministry.
How should I celebrate (is that even the right word?) Lent?
As people who want to be deeply in love with Jesus and sharing His love with those around us, this can be an excellent time to sharpen our gaze onto our Creator. We’re into February and the zeal of new year might feel a bit of a way away.
Giving something up is definitely a useful option that many believers utilise but we also wondered if there was a creative approach where we can focus on Jesus in some very specific ways over the course of Lent.
You still haven’t explained what my nose and ears have to do with Lent!
Each week we’re going to use one of our senses to help us focus our mind and hearts on Jesus. (Yes, there are only 5 senses so the final 6th week of Lent will be a revisit of all the senses as we lead up to Resurrection Sunday itself.)
We’ll include:
🌷 a short thought,
🌷 a hymn or worship song to pop on,
🌷 an activity,
🌷 a Bible verse,
...all designed to use a specific sense to draw us into a closer walk with Jesus this Lent. So who's in!? See you Wednesday for our first sense! Keep an eye on our socials to find out when the blog post has gone live.
(In case the concept of the 5 senses is ringing a bell - yes, it was the theme for the 2022 Creative Christianity Summit! Everything you need through Lent is going to be here on the blog, don’t panic.
However if you paid for the 2022 Creative Christianity Summit, can we encourage you to dip back into it? Even if you don’t have time to listen to all the sessions, it’s worth popping on the worship sessions with Lou & Nathan Fellingham.)