40 Days of Decrease

Last year I began my pastorate after the Lenten Season began, so I was unable to implement an intentional practice for our church during the Lenten Season. However, this year I want to invite all FBC disciples and friends to our 2024 Lenten Study & Prayer. Lent is “the period preceding Easter that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence in commemoration of Christ's fasting in the wilderness.”

For our 2024 Lenten Study & Prayer, we will be using the book “40 Days of Decrease” by Alicia Britt Chole as our guide. In the book, Chole writes, ““The purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to ‘soften’ our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden ‘thirst and hunger’ for communion with God.”

As we seek to be Unashamed witnesses for Christ, hungering and thirsting for communion with God is paramount. To that end, on weekdays, starting on Ash Wednesday, Wednesday, February 14th through Friday, March 29th, we will gather on the conference line (605-475-4000 Pin 919803#) from 6:30am-6:45am to begin our days as a corporate body seeking God together. 

And since I cannot do this on my own, I will be asking for volunteers to help lead our sessions. During this time, I anticipate God decreasing us, that He might increase in us.

In Christ’s Love,

Pastor Donna Olivia Owusu-Ansah