18 Free Spiritual Discipline Ideas You Can Use for Lent

Lent starts one week from today. Traditionally for churches that observe Lent, it is a time of reflecting on Christ’s sacrifice for our sins and a time of repentance. Often this season is marked by fasting or giving up something.
 
Lent has become THE most transformative part of the year for me because starting 7 or 8 years ago, I began adopting a transformative discipline for 40 days. I have done everything from praying for an hour a day to giving up use of my car.
 
Last year, I released a packet of 18 reproducible handouts of various disciplines that churches are welcome to copy and distribute within their congregation. The disciplines are a mix of study, prayer, and action opportunities. I am making this available again this year. You can get immediate access to your set of handouts by entering your name and email address below.
 






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What’s inside:

 

Prayer Disciplines

B.L.E.S.S. Prayer–A prayer form from the book “Love to Pray: A 40 day Devotional for Deepinging Your Prayer Life.” by Dr. Alving VanderGriend. The acronym stands for Body, Labors, Emotional needs, Social Needs, and Spiritual Needs.
Pure Praise–A 3 fold formula for praising God that is based upon a pattern I recognized in David’s Psalms. This prayer method deepened my intimacy with God tremendously.
Confession–A prayer model to guide people in a discipline of daily confession.
Examen–A classic prayer model from the Ignatian tradition. I find this one really pumps up your spiritual awareness.
Five Finger Prayer–A wonderful easy prayer mnemonic that prompts you to pray for 5 different groups of people. This is one is a wonderful option for children or parents wanting to expand their children’s prayer lives.
 

Bible Reading Disciplines

Acts in 40 Days–A checklist of readings to complete the Book of Acts in 40 days.
Matthew in 40 Days–A checklist of readings with tips to get you through a the gospel of Matthew.

Mark in 40 Days–A checklist of readings with tips to get you through a the gospel of Mark.
Luke in 40 Days–A checklist of readings with tips to get you through a the gospel of Luke.
John in 40 Days–A checklist of readings with tips to get you through a the gospel of John.
Lent Top 40 Bible–40 top bible stories to give someone a quick overview of the Bible.
 

Action Disciplines

Better Body Holiness–Suggestions for increasing your physical health in order to serve God more faithfully and with greater energy.
40 Bags in 40 Days–A discipline to eliminate clutter and excess (not to sound cliche’ but this one changed my life and started my passion about Lenten disciplines)
Love Notes–A discipline of writing thank you notes daily to people who have touched your life. The people who have done this one find it a profound experience.
Media Habit–Let go of a media habit like surfing Facebook or watching Television.
Tame the Tongue–A discipline of refraining from being verbally negative or gossipy.
Faith PEGS–An acronym to spiritually guide your intentions for the day. This grew out of my own bible study and was very formative for me.
Fast and Contribute–A discipline with a mission emphasis.

 
Be sure to bookmark this page or save the link for future reference.
 

What if I don’t do Lent?

If Lent is not normative to your practice, I would encourage you to download the packet anyways because the exercises aren’t necessarily tied to Lent. Anyone could adopt the suggested disciplines at anytime and benefit from them.
 

What’s new this year?

Normal I add 3 new disciplines to the pack each year. This year I haven’t. Why? I have been pouring time and energy instead into revising and releasing a 2nd Edition my ebook, “Tips On Prayer, A Quickstart Guide to Improving Your Prayer Life.” This book is now up and available on Amazon.com.—BUT DON’T BUY IT.
 
March 1-5, “Tips On Prayer” will be absolutely free on Amazon.com. Anyone can download it. You do not have to have a kindle. Just download a free kindle reader app to your favorite device and you are good to go, not just to read my book, but any other kindle book.
 
If you would like to go ahead and check it out now, CLICK HERE. But seriously…If I were you, I would wait until the weekend and get it for free.
 
Tomorrow I will be releasing A 40 Day Prayer Challenge for anyone wanting to take their prayer life to the next level. I still need to get together a few details, in short, the 40 Day Challenge will be an opportunity to apply a tip from Tips on Prayer for 40 days with the support of people doing the same. Plus, access to me for coaching you if you are having trouble. Again, tomorrow I should have all the detail ironed out and I will be releasing more information at that time.
 
Blessings,
  
John Arnold
   

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