Prayer & Fasting this Lent
As we near the end of the season of Epiphany, we find ourselves less than a week away from Ash Wednesday — the beginning of Lent.
Lent is an ancient practice of Christianity. Early Christians sought a ritual that would help weave the stories of Jesus into their own stories, and the simple act of mimicking Jesus’ forty days of prayer and fasting proved to be an effective means of remembering their humanity, and especially of remembering their dependence on God. Followers of Jesus have continued this tradition for nearly two thousand years, praying and fasting for forty days through some of the best and worst years of history, always seeking to weave their own stories into that ancient, ongoing story of God.
Valley Chapel is part of that story.
During the six weeks of the 2023 season of Lent, you are invited to participate in personal prayer and fasting.
The acts of prayer and fasting work in tandem as tools that remind us of our inability to do it all on our own and as symbols of our dependence on God. A beautiful gift of the church is that we do not have to participate in these acts in isolation. Instead, we can experience them in the context of our fellowship, where we can find camaraderie, encouragement, and inspiration as we weave our own stories into God’s story.
In just a few days, we will launch our Lent prayer and fasting initiative, formally inviting you to participate in an intentional, communal season of prayer and fasting. This will include an invitation to discern what a sustainable season of intentional prayer and fasting means for your own daily rhythms, as well as opportunities to share with the community each week during the fellowship or by connecting on the Valley Chapel app. During Sunday worship, we invite you to share your stories of how prayer and fasting have drawn you closer to God. We are excited about this opportunity to draw closer to God and one another in 2023, and we look forward to seeing how God moves in our community in the next six weeks.
Lent is an ancient practice of Christianity. Early Christians sought a ritual that would help weave the stories of Jesus into their own stories, and the simple act of mimicking Jesus’ forty days of prayer and fasting proved to be an effective means of remembering their humanity, and especially of remembering their dependence on God. Followers of Jesus have continued this tradition for nearly two thousand years, praying and fasting for forty days through some of the best and worst years of history, always seeking to weave their own stories into that ancient, ongoing story of God.
Valley Chapel is part of that story.
During the six weeks of the 2023 season of Lent, you are invited to participate in personal prayer and fasting.
The acts of prayer and fasting work in tandem as tools that remind us of our inability to do it all on our own and as symbols of our dependence on God. A beautiful gift of the church is that we do not have to participate in these acts in isolation. Instead, we can experience them in the context of our fellowship, where we can find camaraderie, encouragement, and inspiration as we weave our own stories into God’s story.
In just a few days, we will launch our Lent prayer and fasting initiative, formally inviting you to participate in an intentional, communal season of prayer and fasting. This will include an invitation to discern what a sustainable season of intentional prayer and fasting means for your own daily rhythms, as well as opportunities to share with the community each week during the fellowship or by connecting on the Valley Chapel app. During Sunday worship, we invite you to share your stories of how prayer and fasting have drawn you closer to God. We are excited about this opportunity to draw closer to God and one another in 2023, and we look forward to seeing how God moves in our community in the next six weeks.
- By Mark Harley
Posted in LENT 2023
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