Friends of 'Better Living': Please Pray for This Upcoming Emphasis at Friendship Church

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday on March 1. For millions of Christians throughout the world, the forty-day Lenten season is a time devoted to renewing our faith in Jesus Christ.

It's a time when Christians, focused on Jesus' gift of Himself on the cross, prayerfully consider how, at deeper levels in their lives, they can express their gratitude to the God we meet in Jesus.

It's also a time to prepare for a true celebration of Jesus' resurrection on the first Easter. The significance and power of Easter--the sheer joy and liberation of it--can only be experienced by those who heed Jesus' call to die to their selfish desires and impulses and bet their whole lives on Christ!

During this Lenten season, the people of Friendship, the congregation I serve as pastor, are going to focus on one particular aspect of Christian "followership," what the Bible calls discipleship. That one thing on which we'll focus is Servanthood.

Right now, a committee of special people is working on this Lenten emphasis which, in fact, will lead to wonderful things well beyond these forty days. Here's what will be happening:

(1) There will be daily devotions on why and how to be servants of Christ. Each devotion will be about 400-words or less in length. I'm writing these pieces and I'm finding it truly enjoyable. We're asking the members of our congregation to read these short pieces twice each day, once in the mornings of Lent and again in the evenings before going to bed. (They'll also appear on this blog.)

(2) On Wednesdays throughout the Lenten season, drawing on our Lutheran tradition, we'll have special worship and discussion gatherings over a light dinner. These weekly Soup, Salad, and Servanthood times will allow us to consider the call to servanthood together. We'll also provide some special training in conjunction with our newly adopted ministry emphasis, the youth of our community.

(3) On Easter Sunday, at the end of Lent, we will commission the people of our congregation to pursue our special ministry emphasis. We're working with the Boys and Girls Club of Clermont County to identify many different ways we can serve Christ by helping the youth of our community through this organization.

I ask my blog readers to please begin to pray now for our Forty Days to Servanthood program. Pray, please, that it will be a spark for our congregation to share the love of Christ in very practical ways with area youth and their families!

I look forward to sharing Forty Days to Servanthood with the nearly 300-people who regularly visit Better Living. Thanks!