The Discipline of Lent

On Ash Wednesday, as Lent begins, we are invited “to struggle against everything that leads us away from love of God and neighbor” by exercising the Discipline of Lent: repentance, fasting, prayer and works of love. These become the specific occasions and opportunities for spiritual renewal during this season of renewal.

Living out a discipline takes our Lord's words about self-denial seriously (Matt.16:24). Through discipline, we find freedom and grace, just as parental discipline is loving and brings a child to freedom and righteousness (Heb.12:3-13).

In the Lenten Discipline, we focus our lives on Christ's self-sacrificing passion, death and resurrection, which has brought us acceptance, forgiveness and redemption by God. Through that same discipline, we make a loving response to God.

• The Disciplines:
  • Repentance
  • Prayer
  • Fasting
  • Works of Love
  • Beginning Your Discipline
  • Keeping Your Discipline

Source: The Rev. Thomas L. Weitzel - Evangelical Church in America

• Handbook For Lent - The Discipline of Lent