How to Celebrate Lent as a Protestant → A More Beautiful Life Collective

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S2E29 – How to Celebrate Lent as a Protestant – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast

The season of Lent is a time in the Church Calendar to observe a period of preparation before the joyous season of Easter. Lent reminds us of the beauty of self-denial and obedience as we await our future resurrection. Today, we'll talk about how to celebrate Lent as a Protestant. This is a beautiful tradition that deserves a place in your year!Read more at the blog post: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/how-to-celebrate-lent-as-a-protestant/ Get our 1 page guide to Lent here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.kit.com/e3a84b5a60 Get the Celebrating the Church Calendar Guide here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/church-calendar-guide-a-pdf-guide-to-all-the-seasons-of-the-liturgical-year/ …Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you canlearn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast,A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen onSpotify orApple Podcasts, or watch onYouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. Want to support A More Beautiful Life Collective in the creation of podcasts, posts, and other resources? You can make a one-time, monthly, or yearly donation here. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources atA More Beautiful Life Collective Shop.Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

Hey everyone, and welcome to Season 2 Episode 29. Spring is fast approaching. The daffodils are beginning to sprout out with yellow joy as the days grow longer and warmer. In the South, we have very mild winters. Still, there are always a few stretches of days that tease the brightness of summer just around the corner before tumbling back down to cold wintry days.

As we near this annual rebirth, we also near another major event in the Church calendar: Lent and Easter. Today, we will look at why we should celebrate Lent – even as Protestants – and how to celebrate Lent this year. I’ll give you some tips and tricks and explain what I’m going to do this year.

If you would like to learn more about celebrating the Church Calendar, download our Church Calendar guide from the shop. You’ll get an overview of major dates in the church calendar throughout the year plus ideas for how you can celebrate the Church Calendar with your family and community.

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Why you should celebrate the Church Calendar?

The Church Calendar is often thought to be just a ‘high church’ tradition imposed by men that has no bearing on our day-to-day lives. But, as we talked about in our post on Celebrating the Church Calendar, the Church Calendar offers us a way to schedule our lives with built-in reminders of the story of salvation and our place in it.

When we pause each year to observe Advent and then celebrate with lots of feasting at Christmastime, we don’t view this as some terrible burden placed upon us. We often view this as truly the most wonderful time of year because we love the way the traditions draw us closer to God, our community, and the past.

We love Christmas because we recognize the value of traditions during that time. But, truly all of the Church Calendar can offer the same benefits for our lives. We don’t have to stop at January 1st (or 6th – if you’re being technical). Celebrating the Church Calendar can be an all-year thing – and honestly, it should be an all-year thing.

Celebrating the Church Calendar is important because it:

Makes space for feasting and fasting.
Observes the whole of Jesus’ life and the institution of the church.
Allows liturgical readings and worship in devotions throughout the year.

When you choose to celebrate the Church calendar in your family and community, you also are opening the door to discipleship opportunities as you fast and feast together.

Check out the AMBL Guide to Celebrating the Church Calendar at the shop.

Visit A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop for bible studies, planners, and other resources.

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How does the Church Calendar work?

As explained in Sacred Seasons, the Church calendar is divided into two cycles: The Cycle of Light and the Cycle of Light. Both cycles are structured with a season of preparation, a season of celebration, and a season of proclamation. The Cycle of Light focuses on ‘God with Us’ and celebrates Jesus being the light of the world. The Cycle of Life focuses on ‘God for Us’ and celebrates how Jesus is raised to life.

The Cycle of Light: Advent (preparation), Christmas (celebration), Epiphany (proclamation)

The Church Calendar begins with Advent which is a time of preparation in the period before Christmas. Then, Christmastide begins and is celebrated from Christmas Day to Epiphany (Jan. 6). After Christmastide, the Epiphany season continues until Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.

The Cycle of Life: Lent (preparation), Easter (celebration), Ordinary Time (proclamation)

After the Epiphany season ends, the season of Lent begins. Ash Wednesday is observed four weeks before Easter, which heralds 40 days of fasting (except on Sundays). Lent ends during the Passion Week which leads up to Easter. Easter Sunday begins Eastertide which lasts for 50 days until Pentecost.

After Pentecost, the nearly six-month period of several feasts and fasts ends. This ushers in ‘Ordinary Time.’ Fittingly for an agrarian society, this time generally begins when farming and the harvest would take over much of the time that people have. There are a few feast days observed throughout the months between May and December, including All Hallow’s Eve (yes – Halloween) and the (new) Feast of the Kingdom.

After Ordinary time ends, Advent begins, and the Calendar is repeated.

What is Lent?

Nestled in between the two greatest periods of feasting in the Church Calendar – Christmastide and Eastertide – is Lent. The word Lent comes from an Old English word for Spring which meant ‘lengthen’ – probably a reference to the days lengthening. Most other languages derive their name for Lent from the Latin word for 40, as a reference to the length of Lent.

Lent is a 40(ish) day period observed before Easter as a time of preparation for Easter. Generally during this time, people fast, pray, and give alms.

As Danielle Hitchens states in Sacred Seasons, “Lent invites us to contemplate the connections between winter and spring, death and resurrection, and how self-denial makes our hearts fertile growing places for the seeds of faith.”

How to Celebrate Lent #1: The Dates

The first step in knowing how to celebrate Lent is to know when it begins and ends.

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday which is 46 days before Easter Sunday. In 2025, this means Ash Wednesday falls on March 5th.

Cultures all around the world celebrate a day of feasting before Lent begins called ‘Fat Tuesday.’ Yes, some places take their Mardi Gras celebrations a little far, but this was a time when people used to use up any food that they would give up during Lent so that it wouldn’t go to waste. Since one of the ‘forbidden foods’ was traditionally butter, Fat Tuesday was the day you literally ate up all your fat. If you would like, you can observe Fat Tuesday with a feast before beginning your Lenten fast on Ash Wednesday.

One aspect of Lent that can be easily overlooked is the placement in the agricultural year. Lent came at a time when food was at its scarcest. In the BBC documentary Tudor Farm, Ruth Goodman explained that truly the very beginning of Spring was the hardest time of year. The winter stores were used up and the garden, chickens, and cows were not producing anything yet. Lent helped to make your food last longer as you participated in fasts and light eating. Then, by the time Easter came the garden, eggs, and dairy were producing and ready to put on a feast. It was a grace even though it seems now like meaningless self-denial.

Lent ends during the week leading up to Easter. Some traditions call for the end of Lent on Holy Saturday, the day right before Easter, and some on Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter. (Maundy Thursday is recognizing the day the Last Supper occurred. Maundy comes from the word for commandment and recognizes the commandment Jesus gave his disciples to love one another.)

Why 40 days?

Why does Lent last for 40(ish) days? 40 is an important symbolic number throughout the Bible. Moses spent 40 days on the mountain. The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness. And, Jesus spent 40 days in the desert. The number of days observed in Lent is patterned off the period that Jesus spent forty days in the desert resisting temptation, practicing self-denial, and preparing for his ministry.

Why should you celebrate Lent?

The symbolic nature of the 40 days of Lent speaks to why we should celebrate Lent in the first place. Yes, there’s no command in the Bible dictating how to observe Lent (or any of the celebrations in the Church Calendar). So why should we celebrate it?

Lent offers an opportunity to practice self-control while turning our focus on God through prayer and fasting. In a culture that values excess and materialism, Lent gives us a chance to walk as Jesus walked. When we give up something for the Lenten fast, we are following in Jesus’ footsteps. That’s a beautiful thing.

Danielle Hitchens explains, “As we approach Lent and prepare our hearts for Easter by fasting and prayer, we are invited to share in Christ’s power to overcome. Through his death and resurrection, we are new creations, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are capable of communing with the Father, understanding his revelation, and resisting the temptation to sin. Lent invites us to make Jesus’s powerful season of desert wandering present in our own lives while living into the future promise of our full restoration.”

Not only does Lent allow us to participate in the same practices as Jesus. It also helps to prepare our hearts for the upcoming celebration of Easter. All too often, Easter is a day that is glossed over. We may go to Church and then have a Sunday dinner, but generally, that is the grand total of our Easter celebrations (unless we through in an Easter Egg hunt for good measure).

I’ve heard it argued that truly Easter should be a bigger celebration than Christmas because this is recognizing the foundational event of our faith. Jesus is risen! Hallelujah!

Lent can help us to get our hearts in the right place. By practicing self-denial and feeling the want – the longing – we physically remind ourselves of our spiritual reality: that without Christ we are dead. We are hollow. But, we are raised to life in Christ Jesus.

How to Celebrate Lent #2: Fast, Pray, Give Alms

So, what should you do during Lent? Here is a basic guide for how to celebrate Lent.

The three pillars of Lent are fasting, prayer, and giving alms. These come from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 when Jesus talks about giving to the needy (v. 2), praying (v. 5), and fasting (v. 16).

This means that during Lent we do the following:

In humility, we fast from something – whether that be animal products as traditionally done or shopping, social media, or alcohol – and focus on restoring our relationship with God and others.
Through prayer, we restore our relationship with God. We focus on time for private and communal prayer.
Through almsgiving, we restore our relationship with others. Almsgiving is a term used to describe giving that is above and beyond our usual tithing. Generally, this is giving to the poor in a way that brings about justice.

Importantly, if we want to know how to celebrate Lent, we need to remember two rules: (1) Lent is not another form of the New Year’s Resolution and (2) Lent requires humility.

We don’t use Lent as a time to reset our diet and exercise plans that we failed to follow through on after New Year’s. Lent should be a time to prayerfully abstain to have a deeper spiritual life. To know how to celebrate Lent means to know that we are giving up good things in order to point ourselves to the best thing. We aren’t trying to break a bad habit or lose a few pounds before Summer. We are trying to get our hearts right before God.

The second part of knowing how to celebrate Lent is knowing the importance of our attitudes. If you read through Matthew 6, you can recognize that Jesus (1) expected his followers to pray, fast, and give alms. These are all spiritual disciplines repeatedly talked about throughout the New Testament. But, you also see that these spiritual disciplines were supposed to be done with a humble heart. Matthew 6 teaches against being prideful for doing these spiritual disciplines. Remember, that observing Lent should not make you prideful. It does not save you.

Jesus’ teaching in this section pointed to the hiddenness of the Christian life, as Bonhoeffer described in The Cost of Discipleship. We aren’t supposed to pray, fast, and give alms ‘for show.’ They are done in secret for the benefit of our relationship with God.

This means if you have the choice to tell someone about what you are doing for specifically Lent (other than generally telling them that it is an excellent spiritual discipline that they should do too) and not, you should choose to keep silent. Then, you will reap your reward from heaven.

Another important note for how to celebrate Lent is that Sundays are always feast days even during Lent. This means that you can break the fast on Sundays as you observe the Sabbath. This is a reminder of the specialness of our Sunday Sabbath. As a feast day, we are invited to celebrate in the joy of a risen savior, even in the darkest of times.

Church Calendar Guide | A PDF Guide to all the Seasons of the Liturgical Year

How to Celebrate Lent #3: Deciding Your Fast

One crucial aspect of how to celebrate Lent is the Lenten Fast.

Traditionally, people would give up meat and animal products like eggs and dairy throughout Lent. They would also limit themselves to a light breakfast, one-half meal, and one full meal per day. Children, pregnant and nursing mothers, the sick, and the elderly were not obligated to follow this fast.

Today, food is not the only thing that dictates our appetites and desires. You can use these questions to help you figure out how to celebrate Lent with the Lenten fast:

When I’m tired or stressed, what things do I turn to to help me relax, decompress, or escape?
Do I routinely make nonessential purchases that could be ceased for a time to redirect that money to those in need?
When I consider my daily routine, what are my favorite parts of my day? Do I love those things more than I love my time with the Lord?

Once you’ve figured out what you will give up, think about the following:

How will giving up this thing make more space in my life for prayer?
How will giving up this thing make more space in my budget for almsgiving?

When you give up something, you are participating in a sacrifice that ultimately brings about justice and righteousness in your life. Through your self-control, you are helping to bring about life out of death.

That fasting pours over into the other two pillars of Lent: prayer and almsgiving. The first step of knowing how to celebrate Lent is determining your fast. But, then the next step of how to celebrate Lent is using the time and money gained through your fast to prayer and giving alms.

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Celebrating Lent with Your Family

Part of the beauty of the Church calendar is the way it allows us to repeat and enter into the story of Jesus’ life each year. The Lenten season is no different. Here are some ideas to observe Lent with your family to prepare your hearts for Easter. Each of these ideas will help you know how to celebrate Lent as a Protestant.

Lenten Candles: Place 7 violet candles on your table in the shape of the cross. Every Sunday, extinguish one candle, blowing out the last on Maundy Thursday.
Make a paper chain: Count down to Easter by creating a chain. You can use white or gold for Sunday and Easter, Purple for weekdays and Saturdays, and black for Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
Fast on Ash Wednesday and practice confession
Observe the Friday Fast: Traditionally, the church fasted from meat every Friday (as a reminder of Good Friday). This is an opportunity to dip your toe in the water even if you don’t follow this practice for the rest of the year.
Observe the Sunday Feast: Have a Sunday dinner with friends and family or maybe a special treat each Sunday.
Pray the Decalogue: Memorize the 10 commandments and pray through them throughout Lent.
Set up an almsgiving box– you simply set out a box, and take 1 thing from your own pantry every day of Lent. At the end of Lent, take the box to a food pantry.
Add extra prayers to your daily life. Maybe this is extra prayers in the morning or at bedtime. If you have older kids, encourage them to set extra goals for personal prayer as well.
Set up an offering jar– all you need is a jar or piggy bank of some kind. Spare change goes into the jar for the length of Lent and then is donated.
Motivate your children to do good deeds and make sacrifices with the crown of thorns, a sacrifice jar with beans, and Sacrifice beads.
Attend stations of the cross at your church. We especially love to do this on Good Friday.
40 bags, 40 days. You pick the size of the bag (Paper bag, Wal-Mart bag, trash bag, lunch sac) and you get rid of 1 bag full from your house every day. Donate what you get rid of. This is an excellent exercise in living simply.
Decide 1 day of the week during Lent to go “screen-free” as a family.
Read the Bible together as a family daily. This can be done in the morning at breakfast and doesn’t have to take long. You can just read a paragraph each day.
Do a Negativity Fast and replace complaints, gossip, and mean comments with kind, grateful words.
Be hospitable and invite a family into your home for a meal and conversation.
Fast from frivolous spending or eating out and giving the money to charity.

Church Calendar Guide | A PDF Guide to all the Seasons of the Liturgical Year

How I’m Celebrating Lent this Year

Lent offers a time in the year to practice self-control and simplicity as we walk in Jesus’ footsteps. Through the clarity and space we gain from fasting from something, we receive. Out of the ‘desert’ of this time, we gain time and space to spend in prayer to God and give in alms to others.

How to celebrate Lent? We celebrate with an attitude of humility as we act in obedience to our savior.

Lent is to experience the paradoxical nature of how dying to self means being made alive in Christ.

Through observing this tradition in our homes, we are passing on this spiritual truth to our families and communities.

How will you celebrate Lent this year? Comment below!

Don’t forget to check out our Church Calendar printable on the shop. This printable has important dates in the church calendar throughout the year plus ideas for how you can celebrate these special traditions with your family.

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Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.

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