Give up unhelpful & incomplete beliefs for Lent

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Hayley and Vince kick off the Lenten season sharing several ways BLC hopes to help you (and your friends/family/roommates) live with intentionality and meaning over the next 40 days, without feeling exhausted or burdened.

SPEAKER NOTES

Giving up unhelpful and incomplete beliefs - Lent wk 1

Lent Overview:

  • Today is the first Sunday of Lent
  • Lent is the period in the church calendar, beginning with Ash Wednesday, that leads up to the celebration of Easter - when we mark Jesus’ death and resurrection

Our annual theme:

  • We follow the tradition of giving something up for Lent - chocolate, social media; and taking something new up- prayer practices or time of solitude
  • This is our third year of giving up unhelpful beliefs for Lent. Goal: Not go back to them after Lent is over (you can go back to your chocolate and screen time though) Instead, the hope is to take up new beliefs and practices in their place.
  • Variety of ways you can engage with giving up unhelpful beliefs this year (we’ll talk more about in a little bit)

Good stories from last two years —

  • I remember getting several “Thank you for talking about this!” comments after we talked purity culture two years ago — with Elizabeth, a longtime BLC stakeholder.
    • “That was so freeing”
    • “I’ve never been in a church where this was allowed to be talked about.”
  • Or I remember someone emailing me about the way we talked about the Cross and the significance of Jesus’ death one year
    • They said growing up Christian they’d always felt like it was supposed to feel important to them, but it just didn’t; it felt even a little repelling, given all the ways they’d heard it talked about in popular Christian belief
    • But the alternative, minority view on the Cross we amplified made SO MUCH sense to them in a way that felt so personally significant and meaningful.
    • Why don’t more people and churches talk about this?! It’s beautiful and deep; it’s just not as well known!
    • And I couldn’t agree more.

Messages: Unhelpful, Incomplete, Alternative

  • In years past, we’ve used the language of unhelpful, incomplete, harmful, false all to reference the same type of belief— even trade off: here is something harmful, you can take up something helpful in its place
  • This year, we are reimagining what this process actually looks like
    • The reality is that when we’re looking at outright unhelpful beliefs - like purity culture - we may actually land in another belief that is better and more helpful, but still somewhat incomplete.
      • And then we find a truly helpful landing place in an alternative belief
    • It’s a journey of realizations, not necessarily an even trade off
    • Anne Lamott talks about going through life as stepping stones through a mud puddle and I like that image. These are the stepping stones before getting to solid ground
    • Unhelpful —> incomplete —> alternative
      • Ultimate goal remaining the same: we would collectively find something new and healing to take up in place of prior beliefs
  • Not simply a deconstructive process, but constructive - or I like the idea of growing new beliefs, feels more organic than building them
  • Isn’t just a intellectual or theological process, it involves embodied practices.
    • One of the reasons we even embark on this journey is because unhelpful and incomplete beliefs have embodied consequences.
    • Harmful beliefs harm lives.
    • We hope that the alternative beliefs we suggest can be healing and hopeful instead

The unhelpful beliefs will likely feel more obvious to many of us, BUT the incomplete beliefs we’re going to address are more hard to see

  • because they’re atmospheric things about our wider culture — behind everything we do
  • and because they’re NOT bad.
  • the reason we need to move beyond incomplete beliefs is NOT because they’re bad, but just because they’re automatic
  • and something in us all knows that a truly good, full life cannot be lived on autopilot

Messages: following that structure of unhelpful — incomplete — alternative beliefs and practices

  • Highlight Topics ahead ==visual== :
    • Giving up self-punishment
    • Giving up hell
    • Giving up Christian supremacy
    • Giving up retributive justice
  • Talking through the trajectory of belief for each of these topics
  • Again, stepping stones through a mud puddle to get to more solid ground
  • Lent bingo! Mainly for messages but anything in the service is free game
    • Post a bingo card in discord for each Sunday
    • You can post in discord when you get bingo
    • Squares: Hayley mentions a podcast, Vince has a nerdy moment
      • Currently crowd-sourcing ideas, so let me know if you have any!

Small group: Lent discussion group

  • Discord is always great place to start conversations while we’re talking! The comments are always super valuable to us and I love that there’s another conversation happening during the service
  • more opportunity to discuss the topics together
    • If you find yourself wanting to keep the conversation going, this would be a great group to be a part of
    • Or if you just want to extend the time of being together on Sundays!
    • We’ll be meeting for three of the weeks- 2/25, 3/10, and 3/24

Also wanted to talk thru: Building rituals in Lent

  • Lent is the perfect opportunity to focus on building rituals, communally and personally, as well
  • It can feel like a lot of pressure- whether just for yourself, or for setting the tone for your family or friends- to begin new rituals
  • Grateful for things like the church calendar because there are built in periods of time that are meant to be more reflective or set apart
  • Gathering in community regularly can give us the tools and language to be more intentional in ways that feel helpful. That’s one of the greatest gifts of faith communities

Vince, what are some ways we can build rituals this year?

Mealtime prayers for families, friends, roommates to share together ==visual==

  • Prayer with family or friends seems like a good idea in theory to most of us,
    • but it can feel awkward,
    • or the modeling or resources provided for us in the past doesn’t work for us (they feel offensive, or they feel cheesy)
    • and coming up with a more authentic way to pray for ourselves by ourselves takes more time or education than most of us have
  • So many of us just don’t pray with others much outside of Sundays, if at all
    • we’re totally happy to have someone who is confident praying aloud pray for us here at church! — like Vince or Hayley
    • but it’s just not a functioning habit throughout the week
    • sound familiar to anyone?
  • The reason we put together these mealtime prayers is to help with that reality
    • None of us are bad people. We’re not avoiding prayer because “ugh, prayer… I’m so above that”
    • We’re avoiding it because we feel like there are no good or realistic options.
    • We just need modeling and resources that work for us.
    • That’s what these are meant to be: an accessible, intentional ritual for the weeks of Lent specifically designed with the busy, religiously-diverse group of people who come to BLC in mind
    • We hope they can help you experience that it is NOT up to you alone to accomplish a meaningful prayer life for yourself and your family
  • Just takes one person to lead these
    • They only take 5 minutes, and the leader just needs to read through ahead of time
    • Each one has a “for parents” section at the end for leading kids through these
  • So set aside 5 minutes with friends, family, or roommates each of these Sundays of Lent
    • And log some positive, not off-beat experience with prayer

Kids & teens

  • In addition, for families with kids, we have the physical ritual of these felt Lent Calendars
  • Each time we release a Lent Mealtime Prayer (every Sunday of Lent, and then also Good Friday), part of the prayer experience for kids is moving the arrow on their calendar to the next square, as we get closer and closer to Easter
  • And then, since the grown-ups are engaging big, hard questions as we talk about giving up beliefs, our kids church theme this Lent is along the same lines:
    • that God loves our questions — even big, hard ones
    • So encourage your kids every week to: Ask a question about God or life ==visual==
    • And then you can send those to Hayley and Vince, and we’re going to make videos to respond and show the kids this spring
    • (QR code on back of felt boards)
  • Teens also we would love to get your big, hard questions about God or life
    • Everything from “why is lent 40 days?”
    • To “why is there so much suffering?”

Rooted and open

  • For us, the grounding concept for giving up unhelpful and incomplete beliefs, AND for building up rituals, is being rooted and open
  • Rooted: talking about connected to tradition
    • It’s beautiful that the things we believe can be traced across time and rooted in the life of Jesus
    • We don’t have to be untethered navigating life
    • Yes, some Christian beliefs need to be unlearned— whole point of this project!— but there are also longstanding traditions that we can connect with
      • Ex we tend to reference: liberation theologies, the mystics
    • There are practices that come out of longstanding traditions that we can utilize too
    • Sometimes practices carry us, we live into them, we sing/pray what we long to believe
    • Ex: communion each week, prayer team, reading collective prayers, gathering in general
  • Open: talking about curiosity and embrace
    • Excited by things that are new!
    • Willingness to change our minds or change practices
    • We lean into rituals that feel life-giving rather than like an obligation
    • Natural progression of change in life (we are different people than we used to be, individually and as a collective)
      • Encouragement here is to look at the progression as a positive and hopeful thing
      • Not a tearing down of past self, but a grace-filled process
      • Looking lovingly at our past selves is language we’ve used before
      • Sue Monk Kidd: Always we are waking up and waking up some more

Personal:

  • One of the unhelpful beliefs we talked about giving up both of the last two years was “split personality” pictures of the Christian God often painted in churches (loving, gentle Jesus, but then angry, wrathful Father God who needs to be appeased) —

    • and some of the intentional rituals and practices we encouraged in our messages to live into a non-split personality picture of the Christian God (a God who is all-parts loving, and no parts blood-thirsty) remain so personally life giving to me

    • contemplative prayer,

      • in which you’re encouraged to imagine God as the most loving, non-judgmental force in all of life — NOT as an authoritarian demanding tribute or sacrifice for sin

    • reading the Bible critically —

      • in which we honor the Christian tradition not by leaving the Bible’s less-than-loving representations of God un-examined, as though the Bible is a fragile piece of glass, but by asking hard questions of it, reinterpreting it, trusting it to be resilient —

      • because, within the story of the Bible itself, that’s what Jesus did with his tradition and his Hebrew Scriptures.

  • Yeah it’s interesting to me that you can maintain regular practices - like prayer and reading the Bible- but your view of God and the motivation behind those practices can shift and grow

    • You can pray or read the Bible with a wrathful God in mind OR you can do so with an all-loving God in mind

  • This yearly practice around Lent has been so helpful for me because it’s encouraged me to check in regularly about what I believe to be true and what I don’t.
    • What needs to be completely let go of, what I’m confident in and what can be reimagined to be more hopeful
  • In premarital counseling, Pastor Judy Peterson had my husband Andy and I do a really helpful exercise:
    • As we looked to the future, she had us talk through what we wanted to bring with us from our families of origin and what we knew we would need to leave behind
    • It’s really healthy to be checking in around what we want to carry forward and what we need to let go of
    • This checking in — what still feels hopeful to me? What is no longer serving me? What new things am I longing for? What brings me hope? — can fuel our rituals and the practices we lean into

Ending / Prayer

As we pray this morning I’d love to guide us in this exercise of letting go and carrying forward. To help us prepare for the projects of giving up what is unhelpful and incomplete. And to help us consider what rituals may be serving us best now.

Get comfy, close your eyes if that’s helpful

God of renewal and grace,

You partner with us as we move forward on the stepping stones of life. As we take a moment now just to breathe, would you help bring to mind a belief or practice or habit we need to let go of. Maybe it’s a belief about ourselves. Maybe it is a belief about God. Maybe it is a belief about the people around us. Would you help us identify something that is no longer helpful. Loosen our grip around what we can’t carry forward.

Would you now help us identify a belief we know to be true. Something that is anchoring and helpful and good. Would we hold that belief tenderly, imagining it as a companion as we navigate the season ahead.

Amen

PRAYER

Vincent BrackettGive up unhelpful & incomplete beliefs for Lent 2024Comment