Boot Camp for the Soul

Lent as preparation for a greater challenge still to come.

We approach the Lenten season with an emphasis on interiority, personal investigation, and contrition – the intentional work of seeking a change of heart or actions.  Reflection and change take work, hard work.  Lent can be like a boot camp for the soul, a restart in a focused area.  We walk this season together, demanding the best of ourselves, ready to support one another, and prepared to see truths that shatter our self-understanding.

The range of the readings in this season is the full breadth of lived human experience from creation to death and new life.  The preacher has the opportunity to place the foundational Christian narrative on the significant life events of the community in this season, paralleling the false choices of temptation with the conditions of suffering in the world today.

	Sermon Title	Focus Scripture	Theme
Lent I – 3/1	The Need for Change	Ps. 32; Matt. 4:1-11	We face temptation as we discern what God really wants for us.
Lent II – 3/8 Youth Sunday	Reset	Gen. 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17	Spiritual rebirth means a new start.
Lent III – 3/15	Hydrate	Exod. 17:1-7; John 4: 5-42	Living water sustains us on our journey.
Lent IV – 3/22	Redefined	I Sam. 16: 1-13; John 9: 1-41	We are more than we appear to be.
Lent V – 3/29	Dead End	Ezek. 37: 1-14; John 11: 1-45	When all hope seems lost, God revives.
Palm Sunday – 4/5	Celebrate and Wait	Ps. 118: 1-2, 19-29; Matt. 21: 1-11	Rejoice at the end of the journey, but know challenges lie ahead.

A Preachers Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series