A LENTEN STUDY GUIDE – INSTRUCTIONS INTRODUCTION This Study Guide was created with the intent that all of us during this Lenton Season might re-visit our understanding of prayer. Instead of creating a source with daily readings, we have determined that a once-a-week Lesson Plan would be helpful in guiding small group leaders and Sunday morning classes with material that would be thought provoking, interactive, and beneficial to the individual or group participating in the Lesson plans. As a result, each week there will be a lesson that gives guidelines to you as a leader of the group in running your weekly meeting, and an opportunity for each person within the group to reconsider their relationship to prayer in a community setting. At the same time there will also be suggestions as to ways that the individual can utilize the focus of each week to walk their way through this Lenton season in a more personal way. In some cases, for example, there will be instructions (Daily Exercise) for each day of that week in addition to the lesson guidelines done in a group setting (Exercises run Monday to Friday). There will also be cases where the general principle being discussed that week can be practiced by individuals on their own without any other instructions.
Daily Exercise: As the Leader you should give out the instructions for the week so that your other
members may practice the disciplines being emphasized that week.
PURPOSE OF LENTEN PROGRAM Lent is a 40-day (6 week) period of introspection and repentance by which Christians prepare themselves for the coming events of Passion Week that culminate in Easter. Churches have participated in this process by offering various programs to challenge members to take up their crosses to follow Christ. Some churches, for example, have once a week Lenton lunches with a speaker/preacher talking about some aspect of the Christian doctrine or tradition relating to the coming of Easter. Prayer and fasting throughout the Lenton Season has been a practice of the Christian church for virtually the whole of its existence. Though we don’t dress in sackcloth during this time, and only put ashes on our faces for the Ash Wednesday service, there is still an overall sense that this 40-day window prior to Good Friday and Easter is one that is extremely important to the spiritual life of the individual Christian and the overall church. In some ways the fact that the period of Lent is so important makes the whole idea of Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), also practiced by many Christians, kind of ludicrous. It creates the false impression that you can turn on and off your humility and commitment to Christ and His cause. To practice excessive indulgence, if just for one day, seems to fly in the face of 24/7-365 spirituality that is a focal point for Lent. What we are offering to you this season of Lent is a chance to grow closer to God and the community of faith through carefully integrating prayer in its many forms into this 40-day period of Lent. Our hope is that you will be better for it as an individual believer and member of this local body, and that the Kingdom of God as-a-whole will be stronger because of this time of spiritual reflection and Christian practices.