Don't fast for Lent | Just worship

Some people give up chocolate for Lent. Or meat. Or Facebook.

let me suggest an alternative. Commit to regular worship for Lent. Don't skip a Sunday. Not one.

Attend every Wednesday midweek service. Re-up on a bible study. If you can't make a traditional worship time, join an alternative spiritual practice group, a Monday morning prayer team, or yoga.  Sponsor a catechumen.

Mark all the Holy Week services on your personal calendar, and plan to attend Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter morning.

Lent is exactly the right amount of time to make a new practice "stick." It takes about seven weeks for a new habit to become habitual.

You will benefit personally. You will take a journey of repentance and new life with Christ that is incomparable. If there is any season of the Christian calendar worth sacrifice of time and energy, it is Lent.

Your church will also benefit. Congregational vitality is measured at least in part by the number of those present Sunday morning. Others need you. The church needs you. Show up.

Of course, you can also give up chocolate or meat or Facebook if you'd like. Christian spirituality is very both/and. But commit to Lent.

Lent is designed for renewal. The lessons on Sundays are selected to focus the spirituality of the community as it journeys with Christ towards Holy Week and Easter. Temptation, mission, repentance, prodigal love, costly grace. If you worship regularly, twice a week, you will grow in your love of Jesus Christ. Guaranteed.

Consider giving to ELCA World Hunger. http://www.elca.org/40days

Finally, consider some kind of reading. Read Thom Rainer's fantastic little book about church membership, or Rowan Williams book on the essential components of the Christian life.

But most of all, worship. We live in a modern secularizing era that fails to realize how important the "useless" activity of worship is essential. Give it a try.