During Lent, we strive to free ourselves from all kinds of clutter—material and spiritual—in order to focus on God and turn back to him with our whole hearts. If this “turning back” is genuine, it will be a reorientation, a transformation. To help us enter into this season, Amy Ekeh guides readers in exploring three key moments in the life and ministry of Jesus. The result will be a better understanding of the authentic transformation that God calls each of us to embrace as individuals and as a community and a renewed desire to live God’s own outward-looking, self-emptying, laying-down-one’s-life kind of love.

"Titlepage"--"Copyright"--"Contents" -- "Introduction" -- "Prologue" -- "Transformed by Repentance" -- "Transformed by Surrender

Update of Bishop Sharma Lewis' best-selling Lenten study. Dates have been updated to correspond to each day during Lent, with a devotional for individual or group study.Thousands of individuals and hundreds of churches used Journey to Transformation as their guide during Lent 2020. Sharing her individual journey, Bishop Sharma Lewis (Virginia Conference, United Methodist Church) invites readers to observe Lent by introspection, repentance, forgiveness, renewal, prayer, fasting, and Biblical Study. A Journey to Transformation is divided into four sections: Lenten Devotional, Prayer, Reflection, and My Action. Since Lent is a time for self-examination and renewal, Bishop Lewis offers a "My Action" section each day to allow readers to continue to put into practice what they have read and reflected upon, and as an opportunity to transform someone's life.Since Sundays are not counted during the Lenten Season, this study will allow individuals and groups to further engage in introspection. On Sundays, "My Personal Reflections Notes" will ask you to reflect and journal on the past week's study with the following questions: (a) What day stood out during this Lenten journey? (b) What did you learn about yourself and your relationship with Jesus Christ? and (c) under the heading of My Action - What day brought you great joy or difficulty? Why? Finally, readers are invited to journal their own thoughts in spaces provided.

We've all been let down by so-called community. Why is it so hard for us to connect and grow together for the long haul? Veteran spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton helps us get personal and practical about experiencing transformation together. This interactive guide allows us to grow through and by the experience of transforming community.

Focuses on the journey from darkness to light inherent in Lent. By using an easily accessible liturgical format, the book provides a pathway for those who walk from Ash Wednesday to the empty tomb of Easter. Chapters begin with a prayer or poetic excerpt, followed by scripture for the day or week. A narrative then expands on the themes introduced by the prayer and scripture. Exercises following the narratives are simple—mostly collage exercises using differing techniques—and are accessible to a wide audience. Soul Questions guide the spiritual exercise following the narrative, and Thoughts for the Journey, complete each chapter with suggestions for further reflection.

Spiritually hungry readers who want to breakthrough to a deeper experience of prayer and want practical help for Lent need look no further than to Martin Smith's A Season for the Spirit. Originally commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1991, A Season for the Spirit provides forty daily meditations for Lent, leading us on a journey of discovery in which we find that Christ, through the Spirit, embraces every aspect of our humanity. Each meditation concludes with a prayer and passage of scripture or quotation for further reflection and study. While it aims to assist a daily practice of personal prayer, it is also widely used by groups who pledge to meet regularly so that members can share their thoughts, reactions, and spiritual experiences.

Biblical and poetic reflections on Lenten themes of salvation, forgiveness, sin. A Practical Christianity: Meditations for the Season of Lent is a devotional book that challenges readers to take up “practical Christianity”—proposing Christian faith as something we do, not something we merely believe in. The starting point for Christianity lies within its practice, says the author, and not in the blind acceptance of a chunk of undigested doctrine. The book samples fiction, poetry, art and music, combined with the wisdom of scripture and theology, to help pilgrims make sense of faith in the context of everyday life. Shaw reconsiders the central doctrines of Christian faith through the lens of how we practice them. She explores five themes: dust, forgiveness, time, doubt and love—devoting a chapter to each. This thematic approach is a way of presenting (covertly, since it’s not revealed until the end of the book) the doctrines of Creation and Sin, Forgiveness, the Trinity, Salvation, and finally Love.