Vineyard Church | Lent 2025 Daily Spiritual Practice Guide

Lent 2025 Daily Spiritual Practice Guide

Tonight, at our Ash Wednesday service, we will officially kick off the season of Lent as we prepare for Holy Week celebrations in April. What is Lent, and why do we, a Vineyard church not exactly known for high-church traditions, celebrate it? Great question!

Lent is a 40-day period (not including Sundays) that marks the time between Ash Wednesday and Resurrection Sunday (Easter). It involves fasting, prayer, repentance, and worship that deepen our connection with God. The 40 days are symbolic of several key biblical events: the 40 years of wandering in the desert in Numbers 14, the 40 days of rain in Genesis 7, Elijah’s 40-day journey in 1 Kings 19, Moses’s 40 days on Mount Sinai in Exodus 34, and the 40 days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness that Jesus endured in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4.

The purpose, OUR purpose, is to experience a deeper intimacy with God in the present, while allowing this intimacy to transform us as we move forward. For Lent this year, we return to the 6+1 rhythm… Last fall as we weaved the Gospel of Jesus through the Ten Commandments, we took particular note of the fourth commandment, Exodus 20:8-11 (NLT):

8 “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

The Vineyard unauthorized paraphrase is this: You will know that I love you, and that I created you to work as I designed. One day, you live a holy 6+1 rhythm of life and experience the beauty of completeness in Me.

For Lent 2025, we are going to take the next 40+ days to examine the sabbatical rhythm we will refer to as 6+1, and spend some time in spiritual practices that will allow the Holy Spirit to address our obedience to the design of the Creator God. As we begin, it is important to remember that well-meaning leaders wanting to help people on the “right” side of religion, and evil manipulators who sought to weaponize the faith against the faithful alike have taken the words of the Lord out of context.

Using this passage as a mechanism to control behavior ignores the fact that God presented the Ten Commandments as a gift AFTER he liberated His people from slavery. For the Jews of the Old Testament, this was freedom from literal slavery in Egypt. For us, this freedom is from the slavery caused by sin, addiction, or the demands and distractions of secular life.

The paradigm then of the fourth commandment, as Darrell Johnson puts it, is not an imposition on the human species, but as an exposition of who we are called to be. This call to rest one day a week is not a disengagement from responsibilities; it is a matter of engagement without obstacles. The fourth commandment does not create a system or force a behavior. Instead, it defines the way the Intelligent Designer created us… We are dealing with the Manufacturer’s specifications for how we will thrive– the 6+1 rhythm.

Operating outside of this rhythm creates the conditions for chaos and a return to slavery after being freed. The demands, distractions, and ambitions of life can lead to a rhythm that we are enslaved to, and can also reveal a faulty worthiness metric when we derive worth from our work, rather than from the reality that we are the beloved of the Living God.

Over the season of Lent, we will be spending devotional time considering Sabbath. The spiritual disciplines that we engage in together will deepen our connection with Christ, as they deepen our connection with each other. For the rest of this week, consider this passage as we begin:

John 15:9-10 (NLT):
9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

Day 1/Ash Wednesday
Today we begin! As you prepare to receive the ashes tonight, consider how you feel as you read and re-read our scripture for the week. How do you feel when you see and read the word “obey”? What are the negative connotations associated with this word that need to be addressed? Pray through this and invite the Holy Spirit to meet you and direct you!

Day 2/Thursday
Today we look around and identify who and what God has strategically placed in your life to experience the reality of our passage for the week. Who will help us apply this God-inspired way ahead?

Day 3/Friday
As we enter the weekend, today is a day to stay prayerfully tuned to the people around us–observing the lives of those we live, work, shop, and interact with. Take note of how obedience and love work together in the relationships you experience.

Day 4/Saturday
Today’s prayer is reflecting on how this passage can change the way I think about other people. If this passage is true of and for me, how can I see it as true for those around me? Who am I in conflict or disagreement with that I can pray this passage for? Who am I motivated to forgive?

Day 5/Sunday
Today we ask the Holy Spirit to reflect over the week to see what changed in me. How has reflecting on this passage changed me? Today’s prayer is about what is different in me and around me after sitting with Jesus in this. What will be applied, and who will I tell? We gather today as the Billings Vineyard family–who did you notice as we gathered?