Trevin Wax gave us some good words back in 2014 on this HERE. Here is a long(ish) excerpt.

If You Do Lent… First, I would caution my friends who engage in Lenten practices to not give off the impression that their brothers and sisters who refrain are “missing out.” If a season of Lent were that important to spiritual growth, the apostles would have recommended it. It is not unreasonable to remember the track record of how Christians have sometimes allowed these seasons to get out of hand by making them into a new law – as Paul himself made clear (Colossians 2:16, where the apostle’s conversation isn’t about Lent, although the principle still applies).

Secondly, in an attempt to “reconnect with our roots,” there’s the possibility of offending a weaker brother who found their former Catholicism or Anglicanism or whatever high-church tradition they were a part of to be life-draining, rather than life-giving. My Baptist friends in Romania are not going to fast around Easter or Christmas precisely because it is associated with a cultural, lifeless Christianity they see in the state church. More power to them. No one should stumble over a fast.

If You Don’t Do Lent…For my friends who have an aversion to anything like Lent, don’t impugn the motives of those who have found spiritual benefit in setting aside a time of the year for reflection on Christ’s passion. To imply that Lent is a “Catholic thing” misses the rich Protestant history of the practice, and rejecting it for this reason ironically puts Rome front and center, with all of us just positioning ourselves in reference to the Roman Catholic Church. To forbid the practice can be just as detrimental as demanding it.

Conclusion … I hardly think the church is suffering from too much fasting. But I do think the church is suffering from too much self-righteousness (and I include myself in this indictment). Lent – being either for or against – can become a way of climbing up on to the pedestal. What is more important than the practices we take on is the heart attitude behind them. If there’s anything we should give up this time of year, it’s our sense of superiority either to those outside the church or those inside the church who do things differently than we do.

The cross levels us all. And that’s true whether or not you practice Lent.

Here are some of my own thoughts… I do believe that we spend a lot of time preparing for Christmas… preparing our homes, our gifts, our parties, our churches, our sermons, our hearts to celebrate the coming of Christ. But it is the death and resurrection of the God-Man born in Bethlehem which is our Good News Gospel… so why don’t we spend some more time preparing our hearts, our lives, our sermons, our churches, our homes, our families… for Easter. So… here are a couple of easy ideas to prepare for Easter – call it Lent or not.

CHANGE THE MUSIC IN YOUR CAR AND IN YOUR HOME. What you listen to can change the way you think, prepare, and feel. Intake impacts output. Here is a YouTube playlist I starting making a couple of years ago… and continue to update… with songs pointing toward Easter – both the cross and the resurrection.

JOIN ME IN A DEVOTIONAL FOR THE NEXT 40 DAYS – DOWNLOAD THE KINDLE VERSION HERE

If we who have hope are to pause for a season to lament sin and death, then should we not also lament for those who have no hope? There are billions around the world who do not yet share in the victory of Easter. Perhaps Lent and missions have more in common than we’ve ever considered.

For this reason, Bradley Bell and Nathan Sloan wrote this devotional as fellow missions pastors. Each day follows a simple liturgical pattern: a Scripture reading, a brief reflection, a prayer, and—on Fridays—a guide for fasting. They wanted their local church to experience this special season with even greater significance, to be formed even more deeply by God’s global purpose for Easter, and to be sent into Pentecost with the same passion of the early church.