Why This Lent Has To Be Different
A couple weeks ago, my pastor shared a goal of 100 baptisms on Holy Saturday to a sanctuary at 20% capacity (the later service was closer to 90%). I want that number to be too small.
Not because I’m into man-made metrics. I don’t know how he came to that number. But when you really think about the meaning of baptism, it is not just 100 more people seated in a sanctuary on a Saturday. If those baptisms are truly Spirit-led, we’re witnessing the launch of 100 God-fueled, God-directed trajectories. 100 lives in households. Lives in workplaces. Lives in relationships.
That’s a move of God.
So I’m praying for a move of God. Because a move of God could look like 100 people getting baptized at my church while 200 are getting baptized at the church down the street.
It Starts With(in) Us
So the vision I present to God in prayer is not numbers, but revival in my community. We desperately need it. And as I read and hear stories about revivals and “movements of God,” they’re preceded and perpetuated by movements of God within a person first and a people first.
Typically, before I’m having a faith-related conversation with someone outwardly, I’m first having a conversation with the Holy Spirit inwardly. And it’s my belief: that before a move of God happens outside of his church, it needs to happen inside his church first.
It Continues Among Us
As Christians are considered the priesthood of God (1Peter2v9), that means we are intercessors between God and the unsaved. We are commissioned to care for the souls of our community. Therefore, what are we doing individually and communally to welcome a movement of God in the hearts of our community?
“The time to install the smoke detector isn’t when the house is on fire.”
How are we preparing and orienting ourselves to receive the influx of hearts that God just set on fire? To connect people to God? To disciple them? Personally, I ask myself whether I’ve built the infrastructure and rhythms in my life to receive and sustain a significantly larger life group. When I was deciding where I would call home, I kept hospitality a priority. I wanted to live somewhere safe, accessible (especially parking), and inviting. But having this place is calling me to new levels of self-sacrifice that I didn’t anticipate, and I’m learning so many lessons by God’s grace and… kindness.
“Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.”
Isaiah 54:2 ESV
While a church might need to knock down some walls (physically and operationally), what does that renovation practically look like for Christians personally? Especially for some of us who are already burdened, weary, or feeling completely out the loop about this kind of thing, or feel like “this is a great word for somebody else, but not for me.”
We All Stand In The Gap
Many Christians use the phrase “standing in the gap.” It comes from Ezekiel 22, where God is telling the prophet Ezekiel that there’s a fracture in the relationship between Israel and God. There’s been a breach, and God is looking for people to stand in the breach (the gap), to help restore that relationship again.
For us to draw encouraging verses from the stories of prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel, to help us get through each day and its trials, yet exempt ourselves from the responsibilities that bore those verses of encouragement, is not just user error but potentially (if not definitely) disobedient.
So as we enter Lent, I want to present an opportunity for you to use this time for restoration. If you feel distant from God, this can be a time for you to create spaces in your day to draw near to him, to soak in his presence. And also to intercede, to pray, to make movements, start conversations for the same to happen for others too.
Just be aware of the ways in which the enemy will raise hell to prevent you from making the most of what God wants to do in this season and the next.
The Harvest Is Plenty
Let’s not reduce Lent to a time to invite people to Easter Sunday. For many evangelical churches, we spend these 40 days saying, “Come with me to church on Easter.” Meanwhile there are 5 other Sundays during Lent. There are worship nights and prayer gatherings. Now is the time to seek the Lord.
Make this Lent an opportunity to care for the soul. Your soul. Others’ souls. Maybe it’s not by giving something up for 40 days, but by sacrificing differently for 40 days, in service, in deeper fellowship with God and others. This can be a time to pray about what to pray about.
In times of prayer and self-examination, pray for God to confront things in your life:
Jealousy
Bitterness
Anger
Pride
Greed
Lust
Sloth
Inertia
Unforgiveness
Fear
Ask: God where am I standing in your way instead of standing in the gap?
Pray for an increase in the Holy Spirit. More presence. More revelation. More transformation. Prayerfully cast vision from those moments in God’s presence.
Pray Through Scripture
Pray a chapter of the Psalms everyday. At someone’s suggestion, I’m praying Psalms 1, then adding 30 for subsequent days
Day 1: Psalms 1
Day 2: Psalms 31
Day 3: Psalms 61
Day 4: Psalms 91
Day 5: Psalms 121
Day 6: Psalms 2
Day 7: Psalms 32
Getting to 100 baptisms on Holy Saturday isn’t a ministry growth strategy, it’s a move of God.
How are we praying and preparing for it?