Lenten Resources 2022

CPH obviously offers Lenten resources for worship and a daily devotion. This year the book, Witnesses to Christ, is by Reed Lessing and includes 47 days of devotions leading through St. John’s Gospel. Which, since your congregation may also follow the series’ preaching and worship resources, may be very much tied into your Wednesday services. (Yes, there’s a Kindle edition so you don’t need to wait for shipping.)

Previous years include devotion books, Return to the Lord by Eric Rottmann, Eyes on Jesus by Julie Riddle, The Salutary Gift by Paul Beisel, and Singing with the Exiles by Reed Lessing.

Steadfast Lutherans always puts together worship resources and a daily devotion, too. This year they are offering the daily devotional, As If Christ Our Dear Lord Dealt With Us Himself. What is especially kind is that these are typically available for download or purchase. Previous Lenten devotionals include Created to be Redeemed and Sanctified: The Apostles’ Creed for Lent, Lent with the Lord’s Commands: The Ten Commandments for Lent, The Lord’s Prayer in the Lord’s Passion, A Christian Holy People, From His Fullness We Have Received, and Lutherans for Lent. (All found through this paragraph’s initial link.)

LHM’s daily devotions for this year is Suffering Servant. 

Stephenie Hovland has daily devotions for children and their families, including These Stones will Shout, Were You There? Let’s Grow into Lent, For God So Loved, and Looking up to Lent.

Additional Devotional Reading

There are also two great options from ELS.org: Bugenhagen’s Passion History (compiled by mark DeGarmeaux) and “Hymns on the Passion by Thomas Kingo” (translated by mark DeGarmeaux)!

Passion Books are a thing and rightly so! Bugenhagen’s Passion consists of a harmonization of the Gospel passion readings over seven readings, so absolutely ideal for Holy Week! Rev. Andrew Richard has also put together a Passion book including additional historic readings for Holy Week and he’s paired it with various woodcuts and paintings. (And woodcuts remind me of Deac. Carolyn Brinkley’s devotional book, Bearing the Cross: Devotions on Albrecht Durer’s Small Passion, which consists of 34 devotions by my admittedly fallible count.)

Kingo’s hymns, on the other hand, offers 20 hymns organized for each week plus Good Friday. Many of the hymns are long and structured as the first half tells the story with the second half offering pastoral application. You already know part of the Good Friday hymn as “On My Heart Imprint Thine Image” and all the hymns can be sung to the melody of LSB 692/347 or 421/422. (If you have the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, be sure to look up hymn #295!)

There are also independent books from years past, of which these are a sampling:

• Journey to Calvary: A Lenten Devotional (In My Father’s Footsteps) (Volume 3) by Rev. Ed A Blonski Sr.
• 2021 Lenten Reading Plan: Proverbs and Song of Songs: a devotion prepared by Rev. Timothy Koch formatted by Katie Koplin. It’s a free one.

(Do tell me if you learn about more Lenten books by Lutherans! Sometimes I forget to note them when I see them, but I’d love to have a thorough list!)

Other Neat Lenten Resources

Here’s a free visual guide to Gesimatide & Lent. 🙂 It’s not a full calendar, but rumor has it that Lenten calendars are either on To Do lists or under development with Concordia Collective, Pure Joy Creative, and  Wicking Vicar.

(Hold the phone! Concordia Collective still has a dozen copies of her Family Lectionary available! It’s been working out really well for our family. We use it with morning Matins.)

I am also intrigued by the CPH Lenten calendars! A great way to help children mark the days of Lent. Plus, really, Lenten disciplines are not restricted to solitary practices. There are corporate Lenten disciples and corporate good works. Just something to think about.

AND Pleasantly Crafted has a Holy Week Banner, Devotions, and Coloring Sheets while Pure Joy Creative has four images on a Holy Week Coloring page. 🙂 Maybe I should have a separate post for Holy Week and Easter. Hmm. Concordia Collective has an Eastertide poster (color or black and white).

Neat Disciplines to Consider

• Pray! Not only do I recommend the Litany as a fabulous Lenten practice, but I can also happily report that Rev. Stratman has Lenten prayers featured at ACollectionofPrayers.com. He has collected Lenten collects and prayers for Ash Wednesday and subsequent weeks, Passion prayers, responsive prayers, penitential prayers, litanies, Holy Week prayers, Triduum prayers, etc. Rev. Stratman has also put together The Scriptural Way of the Cross, which combines Scripture with prayers for a Lutheran version of the Stations of the Cross.
• Memorize the Athanasian Creed by starting now and ending at Trinity Sunday! Every line will be a blessing! Granted, it’s not a 40 day exercise, but still a very excellent spiritual discipline and education. I even put together this document pairing the text with each week. Athanasian Creed for Easy Memorization. 
• Here’s a neat “40 for 40.”
• You know how Scripture journaling is a thing? Scripture writing is also a thing. You just copy Scripture every day. You can google it to find topical Scripture plans (like this one). You can also google Scripture copywork, because homeschoolers use Scripture sometimes to practice handwriting, too. 

Easter Vigil Finds

I even found a few vigil resources! Here are ELS resources for it and here is a setting of songs and readings: Keeping Vigil (1)

Last but Not Least

I’ll close by linking to something I put together for LutheranHomeschool.com: a page of Lenten resources & stuff for kids or the whole family. Some of it’s probably repetitive with what’s listed above, but some isn’t (though I haven’t updated it for the year yet). This would be a place, for instance, with links about fasting.