Lent & Easter in a Weary World: How Are You Proclaiming Good News This Year?
There is the steady stream of troubling headlines.
There is polarization and uncertainty.
There is quiet exhaustion in our congregations—and, if we are honest, sometimes in ourselves.
And yet, once again, we come to the cross and the empty tomb.
We proclaim repentance and hope.
We speak of suffering and resurrection.
We tell the story of death undone by love.
This year, perhaps more than others, we find ourselves asking:
How are we proclaiming good news in a world that feels saturated with bad news?
A Few Resources We’ve Been Exploring
We’ve been reviewing several new and recent resources for Lent and Easter that may serve you and your communities this season.
Holy Moments LENT Collection: Sketchy Lent
From Practical Resources For Churches
This printable guide is made to help fit meaningful devotional time into family rhythms. This can also be used as the spine for a multigenerational faith formation class throughout the Lenten season.
Lent in Plain Sight Paperback by Jill J. Duffield
God is often at work through the ordinary: ordinary people, ordinary objects, ordinary grace. Through the ordinary, God communicates epiphanies, salvation, revelation, and reconciliation. It is through the mundane that we hear God's quiet voice.
In this devotional for the season of Lent, Jill J. Duffield draws readers' attention to ten ordinary objects that Jesus would have encountered on his way to Jerusalem: dust, bread, the cross, coins, shoes, oil, coats, towels, thorns, and stones. In each object, readers will find meaning in the biblical account of Jesus' final days. Each week, readers encounter a new object to consider through Scripture, prayer, and reflection. From Ash Wednesday to Easter, Lent in Plain Sight reminds Christians to open ourselves to the kingdom of God.
The Work of Imagination from Illustrated Ministry
The Work of Imagination offers a variety of products designed to guide your congregation through Lent, Holy Week, and Easter.
Lent begins in the ache, the questions, the tension between love and loss. It does not rush toward resolution, but invites us to slow down, to turn with honesty, and to journey with Jesus through wildness, confrontation, and cross. Along the way, we listen to voices from the margins, learn from stories of resistance and renewal, and remember that God meets us not in strength, but in surrender.
This is the work of imagination: to envision a world remade by mercy, to trust that healing is possible even in the shadow of empire, and to practice love that outlasts despair. Lent calls us into this holy labor—not as a solitary act, but as a communal path toward transformation.
The Final Days: A Lenten Journey through the Gospels by Matt Rawle
This Lent, ponder the themes of justice, poverty, freedom, and love. The four New Testament Gospels aren’t the same story, but they offer the same Resurrection hope. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John devote most of their story detailing Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, all highlighting Jesus’ triumphant entry into the city, the suffering and humiliation of the cross, and the empty tomb come Sunday morning, but the stories they tell aren’t quite the same. Each Gospel offers a different lens through which we understand Jesus’ Passion. One portrait reveals Jesus to be in control, while another emphasizes his suffering. In one story Jesus offers hope to the thief on the cross, and in another Jesus only receives derision. These different perspectives aren’t a reason to dismiss the Gospels; rather they reveal an abundant, diverse, and complementary picture of God’s work in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Other components for the study include a leader guide, and teaching video are available.
More than recommending resources, we are curious about you.
How are you speaking about the cross in a time of global instability?
How are you naming lament without losing hope?
What does resurrection sound like in your context this year?
What are you seeing?
Let’s learn from one another.