Pray. Act. Pray Again: A 40-Day Walk with God (If there is interest we could do a weekly Zoom Meeting) This Years Proposal: The Annual On-Line Lenten Study based on the book written by Dr. Dianne Martin and Rev. Kathleene Card:

This year Lent begins on February 18, 2026.  Our Lenten Study is designed intentionally to help readers and journal writers to go deeper in their Lenten participation each year by learning from past inspirations and the shared responses of others. 

Introduction: For the next 40 days of Lent, can we explore what it would mean if we truly decided to obey the Great Commandment to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength?

Our Foundational Scriptures are Joel 2: 13, Deuteronomy 6.5 and Matthew 22.37-40.

Joel calls us to “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” (NRSV)

This traditional Ash Wednesday Scripture reminds us that God’s character is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relents from punishing.  This is a good place for us to start a Lenten journey.

We also might want to ask, what does God expect from us?  If we consider God’s command in Deuteronomy 6.5 to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might,” we can see specifically how God wants us to respond.

Finally, Matthew describes what loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might look like:  when he says, we must “love our neighbor as we love ourselves.”

* Based on the actions encouraged (or more correctly commanded) by these Scriptures, it makes sense to embrace using the Daily Examen where we reflect prayerful on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern God’s direction for us.  Through times of quiet reflection, meditation, prayer and journaling we are invited to examine our day-to-day actions.   The question we might consider to underscore this is, “Can I bring to my community, my family, my relationships, and my affiliations a person who is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relents from punishing?

* Our book has designed prayers from the Scriptures as if they are personal conversations with God.  We encourage the reader to write his or her own prayers, too. God wants to hear from you!