REND YOUR HEART

Six Lenten practices for your journey with Jesus

The gift of Lent is a time…

To pause and practice.

To set aside distractions in order to be attentive to the live-giving ways of Jesus.

To develop faith muscles so we can walk the Jesus way: choosing peace, embracing others, seeking hope, and courageously loving.

We have now entered the season of Lent.

Around the world, we begin, once again, our 40-day journey (Sundays are a rest) to prepare for the unexpected gift of Jesus’ faithful earthly journey that leads through death to New Life. We celebrate the gift of new life on Easter––Resurrection Sunday.  

But, we are not there yet. We are here in our finite bodies seeking to make sense of the time and place in which we live. It is tempting to be defeated, to rely on our own resources, to become isolated. 

Lent (which means lengthening of days) is an invitation to recognize our dependency upon our Creator and to ask, “How do we find our way to be more like Jesus, who, God in human form, invites us to see ourselves as created in God’s image?”

This year we, Union Church, are offering you six different Lent Practices to embrace, try, experiment with, and be changed by. 

You might choose one practice to carry with you through the entire season, try a different one each week of Lent, begin partway through, or even create a practice of your own. However you approach it, we encourage you to commit to a Lenten practice for these 40 days.

There is much freedom in how you move forward in this season of Lent, as Paul writes, 

“Christ has set us free for freedom.”  Galatians 5:2

Taking intentional time with God provides a context for Spirit of Living God to move within you and change your perspective, to open your heart to a new awareness of God’s activity and presence in your life and world, and to reveal that the new life Jesus offers is for you.

Blessings on your practice!

Union Staff

Six Practices for the Lent Journey

  • This Lenten season, I invite you to embrace a practice of discomfort through exercise. The Bible frequently explores themes of discomfort and suffering, revealing how God can use these experiences for good. Yet, I often find discomfort challenging to recognize in my own life, let alone understand how God might be working through it.

    Exercise offers a tangible way to introduce discomfort into our lives. As a physical practice, the discomfort it brings is immediate and visceral—easy to notice. Unlike many forms of discomfort and suffering, it is entirely voluntary, allowing us to adjust the intensity to suit our capacity.

    This year, I invite you to "play" with discomfort through exercise. Each week, we will focus on a different aspect of exercise-related discomfort. My hope is that this practice enriches your fitness journey or encourages you to begin a new rhythm of movement.

    Dave Kwok
    Continuum Coaching
    continuumstrength.com

    6 Week Practice of Exercise & Discomfort (a downloadable PDF)

  • Vision Divina is praying with images. An image is used as a window of access to God, to speak into our hearts and notice the movement of the Spirit. This form of prayer can be done any time of day, using art or photography, or even nature. The idea is to allow the image to point you in the direction of the presence of God. 

    For our Lenten practice, we have provided 6 images, one for each week of Lent. As you ponder the same image throughout the week, there will be a question to consider each day as you spend time with the image (Sundays are not included). You may choose to do one session a day, or cluster your sessions with the image into a few days of your choosing. There is freedom for you to decide how this practice best suits the rhythm of your schedule. Just allow time (at least 20 minutes) and a space where you can focus.

    Six Week Practice of Visio Divina (a downloadable PDF)

  • Prayer can be very short and simple, a way of keeping connected and talking to God throughout our day. Sometimes, a simple prayer practice or a reminder can help us grow in connectedness. The bell prayer and breath prayer are useful in this way.

    The bell prayer is simply setting a reminder or trigger to call us to prayer for a moment. It can be an alarm we set on our phone at 3:00pm each afternoon (or another time of our choosing), where once it chimes we stop whatever we are doing and take a moment to pray. Or maybe our signal is a red light when we are driving, a simple pause to talk to God (just be sure to keep your eyes open!)

    In those moments, one prayer we can practice is a breath prayer. Breath prayers are created to express our deepest needs (a modern adaptation of the ancient prayer of the heart). They help us keep God at the center of our daily living and deepen our relationship with God. They are designed to follow the rhythm of our breath, so are usually six to eight syllables so they can be contained in one inhale and exhale. Here are some examples:

    “Make clear my way, O Holy God.”

    “Fill me, Spirit, with your love.”

    “Help me rest, give me peace.”

    Lenten Practice of Bell Prayer/Breath Prayer (a downloadable PDF)


  • In 2025, Jeff Fisher put together a playlist of songs that help him reflect on the ideas of repentance and transformation. As Jeff writes: “This really is what the season is about: re-orienting ourselves toward God and trusting that in following Jesus with intention we will be more and more shaped into the beautiful, loving, and dignified people that we were created to be. I believe that just as repentance and transformation can happen individually so should they happen communally, so some of these songs will also feature themes of justice and striving for a better world for all of us.”

    We invite you to listen to a song a day, one song a week, or listen to the whole playlist and reflect upon what you notice. Below you can read meditations that Jeff put together about each song.

    Lent Playlist available on Spotify

    Musical Meditations for Lent (a downloadable PDF)

  • “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” ~Ephesians 4:32

    Holy Spirit transforms us into the image of Christ as we respond to Jesus’s love. One way we do this is taking scripture in and living it out. During Lent, consider taking in and living out the verse above by incorporating some of the actions on the list below. This is not a checklist, the intent is not to do every one, but to give you a prompt and idea for your day. Obviously, you will come up with others on your own. You may want to combine this with other Lent practices or to do this for one or two weeks and intersperse with other practices.

    Consider, too, with the completion of any act, offering a simple prayer like, “Thank you, Lord, for empowering me to be a part of loving your world with You.”


    Lenten Practice of Kindness (a downloadable guide)

  • Do you remember what you had for lunch three days ago? I don’t either. Nonetheless, our bodies are being strengthened and nourished by that meal. Scripture is similar. When we ruminate or chew on it, we may not remember it soon after, but it is feeding our spirit, and is used by Holy Spirit to strengthen us by renewing our mind and transforming our hearts.

    Over the next 40 days of Lent, feed on the following bites of scripture. Breathe a few deep breaths, read the verses, read again, ponder (chew) and pray. Here are questions that may be helpful but spice it up with other questions if you wish: 

    • What is something you discover about the One Like No Other as you ponder these words? 

    • What does it tell me about me or about life in this world?

    • What might this mean for me?  

    • What is a choice or action you can make stemming from this?

    Take your discoveries, feelings and thoughts, and shape them into a prayer as though you are talking to a friend, or writing a prayer can be another approach.

    Forty Day Lenten Scriptural Guide (a downloadable PDF)