For those evangelicals not familiar with the Church calendar this is week Wednesday begins the holy season of Lent, that penitential period of self-denial that prepares the believer for Holy Week leading to Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. Accompanying this 40-days of purposeful penitence is repentance, fasting, almsgiving, penance, and prayer.
Before we go further, what are you giving up for Lent?
Like last year, I am giving up wine. This is a big one for me because I am particularly fond of this drink in all of its variety, especially on Fridays when Melinda makes the best homemade pizza in the world and we curl up with a good movie.
So what about you? What are you giving up this Wednesday for the 40-days leading up to Holy Week?
If you aren’t participating, might I suggest something? If you’ve never experienced the power of Lent, would you join the Church world-wide in engaging this ancient, anchoring practice? I know as an evangelical when I first participated in the Lenten Season, I felt like a fish out of water. That’s OK. Here are the basics to get you started: Beginning this today, March 5, begin fasting from something in your normal life-rhythm. Monday through Friday engage in self-denial by giving up something like chocolate, alcohol, Facebook, TV or any number of things that you think would be good for your soul to do without leading up to Holy Week.
Want to take your Lent experience one step further? Beyond simply giving something up?
Here’s a challenge to take your Lent experience one step further—and this is particularly for the person who is a “seasoned” Lenten veteran: along with giving up something, consider adding something, particularly adding fixed-hour prayer.
I discovered fixed-hour prayer during Lent seven years ago on, of all places, Capitol Hill (See my story below). Since then I’ve been using fixed-hour prayer to guide my prayer life and center my life-rhythm around the Church’s rhythm. Here’s the way I tell it in my prayer book:
I first encountered the power of fixed-hour prayer while working in our nation’s government. I was a pastor of sorts on Capitol Hill for several years who met with Members of Congress for prayer, delivered Bibles to new Members, and led Bible studies and prayer meetings in both the House and Senate with congressional staffers. It was quite the unique opportunity and experience!
During the season of Lent, some congressional staffers and I discovered the ancient spiritual practice known as The Daily Office, which is also known as fixed-hour prayer. After discovering this historic Church discipline, a few of us chose to meet for a half hour every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning during the 40 days of Lent in order to center ourselves around the person and work of Jesus during this Holy Season. This was no small feat during the height of the Congressional year, which is defined by long work days, short deadlines, and even shorter tempers!
Our own practice was drastically pared down to accommodate the break-neck speed of the hustle-and-bustle of Capitol Hill, compared with the normal rigors of The Daily Office. But even with this condensed experience something—I dare say, magical—happened: we all experienced a deeper spiritual grounding and relationship with God in our life rhythm by participating in the rhythm of the historic Church.
I don’t mean to suggest fixed-hour prayer was a magical pill that instantly changed us and our perspectives on life. What it did, however, was help anchor us in Christ Himself as we participated in His Body, which in turn provided an oasis amidst the chaos of the week and reoriented our lives around the Eternal.
That’s what fixed-hour prayer does, because that’s what the historic Church does: it reorients us because it anchors us. As our lives become more cluttered and multi-tasked thanks to modern culture, and as our spiritual lives become more slick and “progressive” thanks to the modern Church, we need an anchor. That anchor is the historic Church and one of its tethers is fixed-hour prayer.
Fixed-hour prayer acts as an anchor because it causes us to adjust our own personal prayer lives to the sacred rhythms of the Church and Her praying tradition. It’s what one teacher calls “praying with the Church.” As he says, “When Christians pray at fixed times with set prayers, they join millions of Christians scattered across the globe who routinely pause two or three times or more a day to pray what other Christians are praying. We are joining hands and hearts with millions of other Christians to say the same thing at the same time. By doing this we are creating in our lives a sacred rhythm of prayer.” We are praying with the Church, instead of simply praying in the Church as individuals.
Rather than simply giving up something as an act of self-denial, Lent observers are encouraged to add daily penance, repentance, and prayer. What better way to pray during this holy season than for your city by praying with the Church using this ancient spiritual practice?
While I am excited about this book and what it could do for Christians around America, any prayer book will do. Consider this one by Phyllis Tickle (The Divine Hours—Eastertide) or Shane Claiborne (The Common Prayer). The point of this challenge is to encourage you to deliberately add the regular rhythm of fixed-hour prayer to your deliberate act of self-denial through fasting.
Are you up for the challenge? If you are, and you want to use PRAYERS FOR MY CITY to help guide your Lenten prayer life in praying for Grand Rapids, you can order it directly from me for the next 2 weeks for a special Lent price of $8.95, shipping included. Currently, Barnes and Noble online is selling it for $7.34 ($3.99 shipping) and it will be available at local bookstores soon, too. It’s also available for NOOK and Kindle for the Lent promotional price of $4.99.
Again, regardless if you use my new prayer guide or another prayer book, will you accept my challenge to add fixed-hour prayer to your Lent rhythm even as you give up by fasting? While I generally use a prayer guide most days—particularly my own as of late!—my wife and I are committing to prayer in the morning, afternoon, and evening using this ancient practice. We’re excited to see how adding fixed-hour prayer to our Lent experience prepares us even more for experiencing the power of Christ’s passion, while changing us along the way.
PS—If you’re interested, you can hear my own Lent experience and my discover of the power of fixed-hour prayer below.
