Important note for leaders

First some thoughts on your group discussion, and then on Lent itself.

Each week we will be telling stories. Each will be different angles on the same idea; we are all living stories, and A Story.

It's hard to remember this when things get dark. To the degree difficulty arrives, so does our unthinking reflex to find comfort. The stories we hear during Lent are meant to remind us that to discover redemption and resurrection, we have to embrace the darkness and the pain and the difficulty. We have to face it. Only then does "light" make any sense.

A few thoughts for your LifeGroup meetings:

• Each week, simply create some space for your group members to share what part of the story they most attached themselves to. It may be an overarching theme. It may be one specific point. It may be one sentence. It may be totally unrelated, a new idea spiraling off. We don't have a lot of experience wrestling with a story in discussion groups. We typically struggle unless we're given specific talking points. So give them space. 

• Additionally, this is a great season to allow people to discuss their own story. Some of the interviews we will be doing this season will catalyze some real reflection of our own lives. Allow that to happen, while leading the group to not let any one person monopolize the time. 

• Use the daily Lent thoughts at thebrightsadness.com. Hopefully many of your members are using this daily reading to help shape their thinking a bit for the day. Many of them will have specific insights about what they learned. Know that this resource will be a great opportunity to speak deeply of what's really going on in people's hearts.

I understand some of us may be feeling like, "Why are we doing Lent?" or "What is it?" or even "I thought Lent was the other Guys' thing..."

Lent is a 12-or-so century old tradition of preparation. Similar to Advent, it's the season before the holiday that prepares not only the hearts of individual believers, but the collective body. There's a ton of information online about what Lent is and where it comes from, but for now, suffice it to say that we all have a different take on it. For some people this feels new and novel. For others it feels warmly nostalgic. And to a few others it feels reminiscent of the faith they left long ago. Either way, be encouraged that Lent gives all followers a chance to anchor ourselves in the things Christ invites us all into for one brief, intensified season: repentance, reflection, awareness, generosity, hope and the very sober acceptance that we are not the disconnected, invincible robots our culture seems bent on convincing us we are. If you're wondering, yes came from Catholicism. But that fact never automatically disqualifies it for Protestants. Additionally, yes, when misunderstood Lent becomes nothing more than another burden only the most pious seem able to carry. But then again, Christmas and Easter and even Church on Sunday can be misunderstood in the same way. This season of Lent we are embracing the gift the season can be for us, not merely the tradition of it. Ultimately, if anyone isn't comfortable with it, it should be understood that it's elective. Just encourage them to, in the weeks before Easter, try and be remain mindful of repentance, reflection, awareness, generosity, hope and sobriety about what we really are!

We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But the story doesn't stop there! The celebration of Christ's resurrection, as the cap on the season, holds that much more beauty and significance when it's preceded by awareness of our real human condition.

I hope that each week you and your group members will feel the weight of our weakness and mortality so  your celebration on Easter provides that much more lightness and freedom.

Thanks for leading yourselves and those in your group through the valley, not around it. Christ meets us there.