As we enter into Lent 2025, I want to encourage us to keep our rhythms of daily prayer using the Book of Common Prayer. And, I want to encourage us this Lent to return often to the beautiful and challenging Confession and Litany of Penitence that we pray during Ash Wednesday.

Esther Goeller, 16, a member of the All Saints’ Church (Woodbridge, VA) youth group, created a series of four paintings to decorate the youth Sunday school classroom with art.

We know that many of us are entering this season grieving for our loved ones who have died or are suffering, for our city, nation, and world, and for our own personal suffering. If this is you, we invite you to grieve as your Lenten practice.

Theologian Brian Brock writes that in lament we “remain open to God by expressing our suffering and pain. In keeping the lines of communication open with God, we are prepared to also expose our hurts to the community of God’s people.” Access Leadership Network invites you to come with us before God. 

Each morning throughout Lent we will start our day with a new focus in prayer. In addition to drawing from the 2019 BCP, these prayers are offered by many voices, including US Trustees, ARDF Staff, and various supporters and friends of ARDF.

That’s the invitation for this Lenten season: to turn from sin, and prepare with joy for the resurrection season. It’s an invitation to forty days of intentional reorientation together in response to the grace of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord and empowered by his Holy Spirit.

Our fasting should be in service to God. A fast that is self-serving and self-gratifying is not a fast at all.  God desires a fast that is beneficial to his kingdom work in the world. 

This week, we enter the season of Lent, a time in the church calendar in which we intentionally lament all that is wrong in the world, all the hard soil that has yet to bear fruit. I am grateful for this tithe of our year in which our worship gives voice to all our grief and frustration.

We are in still in Epiphany, but Lent is coming soon (March 5th), and it is such an important season that it warrants some forethought and preparation. For those of you unfamiliar with Lent or in need of a refresher, keep reading!

M25I Lenten Offerings

Easter is coming!

Yes I know, we’ve just begun the Season of Lent. But Easter is only a month away. Easter is the most important event of our church year. It’s the day we celebrate the best news in the world — that forgiveness is real, death is defeated, the restoration of all things has begun, and eternal life is available through faith in Jesus Christ!

All Souls Church Plant in Richmond, VA has new art installed for the season of Lent.

Another first for FAF was an Ash Wednesday evening service. Since we do not yet have a priest, Bishop Chris gave permission for Dave Breisch, who serves on our core team, to lead the service and administer the imposition of ashes. This deeply meaningful service was shared among young and old in our congregation.

Church of the Good Shepherd invites you to enjoy a Lent Devotional resource filled with entirely original material written by members of the church.

Will you make space for eternity during this Lenten season?

That’s really the point of Lent; to make space for eternity so that you grow in relationship with Jesus and so that you’re deeply prepared to celebrate the wonder of Easter.

Enjoy photos from churches around the Diocese from Shrove Tuesday Pancake Suppers!

During Lent, Christ the King, Alexandria, VA, invites you to will have brief spoken services of Morning Prayer on Tuesdays (7:00-7:30 a.m.), and Evening Prayer on Wednesdays (6:30-7 p.m.). Apostles invites you to participate these services as a regular Lenten discipline.

There is a deep conundrum at the heart of our faith. And it’s this: no one wants a cross.

Lent brings us on the well-worn path of our church calendar journey to the edge of the wilderness, the dry desolate place where we are invited to set down our excesses and instead take the hand of our humble, wounded and faithful Friend. Like the traveler walking out of a forest, we emerge from the abundant seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, of feasting and light and holy alleluias, where we have been nourished and blessed. 

I’m currently reading Beth Moore’s newly released memoir. I picked it up after reading an article in Christianity Today entitled, “When I was a Stranger in the SBC, Anglicans took me in.” Moore’s book is full of humor and brokenness and heartache and wisdom. The quote above is just one of many wonderful turns of phrase she employs throughout this engaging read.