Thinking About Ash Wednesday and Lent

Though the New Year has just begun, Ash Wednesday is right around the corner (February 26th!) and it’s already time to start planning for Lent. Here are a few ideas that may be helpful in planning your Lenten curriculum and programming. 

Lent and Ash Wednesday are a great time to focus on bringing young people into a more full participation in worship. Because Ash Wednesday and many Holy Week services fall outside the standard church schedule, young people and families might not be expected show up at all. However, as the Reverend Rebecca Kirkpatrick writes in a thoughtful and moving article on the topic, “I continue to believe … that when we include children in these unique ritual moments they form a stronger connection with the community, with their tradition and with their own faith. It is by hearing, touching, tasting and experiencing these signs of grace and love that they are able to identify them as their own.” 

Though there is certainly a time and place to give children, teenagers, and young adults their own spaces to talk about for faith and community formation, the period from Ash Wednesday through Lent and Holy Week are central to our faith and offer the opportunity to grieve and celebrate together as an entire community. In fact, as Cindy Spencer writes  for episocpalchurch.org, “we do Lent [together] because our children deserve to practice hard things. Not alone, always together.  But that in doing so, we are equipping them with the Gospel message of hope and resilience. We are trusting them with the story, even the hard parts. And together, through the journey of Lent, we are able to travel on to Easter joy.”  

One helpful resource for inviting young people into full participation is the blog Worshipping With Children, which does tend to be geared toward much younger children. However, many of the featured ideas offer opportunities to get middle and high school-aged young people involved, whether in decorating the sanctuary or telling the stories that are so central to this season. As usual, we also recommend Virginia Theological Seminary’s BuildFaith.org, which has plenty of creative resources for the season. 

You may also have started hearing conversations about what people are “giving up for Lent.” Lenten disciplines are fairly common practice, and fasting, sacrifice, and self-denial can be powerful spiritual tools. However, focusing a discipline around “giving something up” without space for reflection can lead to feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and anxiety.

 It is also important to be aware of the ways in which diet-focused Lenten disciplines can have subtle ties to diet culture and disordered eating, particularly for young people. This is not to say that young people should be discouraged from committing to a Lenten discipline, simply that there should be care, thought, and support for them every step of the way. Discuss alternate forms of fasting, such as reducing social media, making time to journal or meditate, or committing to a certain amount of volunteer work. For more support, check out Lisa Brown’s  list of questions to talk through with young people in preparing for Lent, and familiarize yourself with the warning signs of eating disorders. 

There is a balance to strike here, between trusting young people to handle the difficult themes of suffering and death that we find during Lent and Holy Week, and supporting them through the entire process. Finding that balance can be difficult work, but we hope that the work will bring your congregation to Easter morning as an even stronger community.