Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

This month we offer resources for the upcoming season of Lent. In addition to resources from ECFVP, below you will find five resources from around the Church to help you observe Lent. Please share this digest with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers, blogs, and the monthly digest.

In Giving up Lent for Lent, Peter Strimer relates the different ways that two of his clergy colleagues approach Lent.

Last year, the ECFVP Editorial Team gathered together resources to use in our 2021 observance of Lent in Resources for Lent.

In the blog post 3 Ideas for Lent and Stewardship, Linda Buskirk advises that we use this Lenten pause to think about stewardship.

​​​​​​Richelle Thompson brings us Lent with Intention, where her children teach her the meaning of Lent.

Peter Strimer tells the story of his teacher Henri Nouwen’s lecture on Jesus’s 40 day temptation of Christ in the wilderness in For Lent: Downward Mobility.

Below are five resources from around the Church:

1. The Episcopal Church website lists many available resources for Lent, including: Preparing to Become the Beloved Community, a vision document that lays out The Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice; weekly video lessons in Life Transformed – The Way of Love in Lent; and Living the Way of Love, a 40 day devotional by Mary Bea Sullivan available through Church Publishing.
2. United Thank Offering has a Lenten journal to document a daily gratitude challenge as well as two separate resources for children that can be emailed or printed out and mailed to families.
3. Lent Madness is an offering of Forward Movement, created in 2010 by the Rev. Tim Schenck. Instead of basketball’s March Madness, Lent Madness pits saints against each other in a tournament-like, single elimination bracket. To join in the fun and learn more about the saints, click here. To see Forward Movement’s different Lenten and Easter products, click here.
4. Living Compass offers a variety of Lenten resources as part of their series, Living Well Through Lent 2022: Letting Go With All Your Heart, Soul, Strength and Mind. It includes a daily email, a Lent devotional available in English and Spanish, and aprivate Facebook discussion group moderated by Robbin Brent, Carolyn Karl, Jan Kwiatkowski, and Scott Stoner.
5. Episcopal Relief and Development sends daily meditations during Lent. These reflections are organized into Episcopal Relief & Development’s priorities: Women, Children and Climate, and include a focus on their Disaster Resilience & Response work. Click here to sign up to receive their Lenten Meditations 2022.