Long distrusted by low-church Protestants, the season of Lent is becoming ever more widely accepted. More and more corners of the church now seem able to embrace it as an opportunity rather than a threat. Milestone Church observes Lent as a season of anticipation and restoration.
The word Lent in English comes from the word for Spring. The season owes its origins to the practice of preparing candidates for baptism at Easter. Over time, this special period of preparation evolved into a spiritual discipline offered to all believers as they prepared for the great festivals of Holy Week and Easter.
The spiritual journey of Lent is not presented as an easy one. The great themes of Lent represent areas of struggle and vulnerability for all believers—mortality and death, temptation and resistance, repentance and holiness. The classic location of this struggle is the desert or wilderness, the place of wandering, waiting, hunger, and temptation.
For Milestone Church, Lent is a series of movements towards Easter Sunday. It is a shared communal journey of prayer, fasting, and self-reflection. It is a time of active hope: Easter is coming and will serve as a monumental reminder that death doesn’t win.
Lent is when we allow God to put us back together again; when we allow God to remind us that the Christ we serve specializes in broken worlds and the broken people who fill them.
If you would like to join with Milestone as we make our Lenten journey, we encourage you to come participate in our Sunday gatherings between now and Easter. To join us in our home groups on Wednesday evenings as we share how God is shaping us during this passage. To download our Lent Prayer and Fasting Guide below in order to walk alongside us as we experience the restoration that springs from the anticipation of the resurrection of our Lord.
