Lent 2022 at St Paul’s

Lent is almost upon us. Today is Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent begins. Historically, it was a time when Christians would eat up the richer, fattier foods before the Lenten fast began the next day. More recently however, the tradition has become eating pancakes, which is how we’re going to start Lent at St Paul’s.

Pancake party

We’re having a pancake party today – Tuesday 1 April – to kick things off. It’s in the church café at 6pm. Please come and join us! There will be pancakes, various toppings and vegan options.

Ash Wednesday

Lent begins tomorrow, Wednesday 2 March. We have 2 Ash Wednesday services:

• 12.30pm: said service with ashing and communion
• 7:00pm: service with hymns, ashing and communion

Please join us for one of these services.

Lent challenge

We also have a Lent challenge for the church. It started off in our youth group, but it’s being made available to the whole church. Jessica talked about it at the service on Sunday (you can watch her talking about it at 1:13:43 on the YouTube stream) but just to summarise, for each day of Lent we have:

• A bible reading from Luke
• A challenge (like writing down things we’re grateful to God for, specifying 3 people to pray for, or even cutting down on screen time!)
• A reflection (reflecting on things like gratitude, generosity, prayer, and responsibility to people in need)

Lent is usually a time when people give something up, in the traditional discipline of fasting. But it can also be a time when we can take things up, and resolve to do something new and worthwhile, a new discipline which helps us to know God better. And hopefully the Lent challenge can help some people with that.

Download the St Paul Old Ford 2022 Lent challenge.