Two ways to connect with supporters during Lent

We are currently in the season of Lent, when believers around the world prepare to commemorate Christ’s death and celebrate his resurrection. In many Christian traditions, Lent is a time of fasting, repentance, and prayer. As a result, Lent provides unique opportunities to engage your ministry partners in prayer.

Invite your prayer partners to weep with you before the Lord

Lent invites us to identify with Jesus as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). As the writer Tish Harrison Warren put it, “Feeling sadness is the cost of being emotionally alive. It’s the cost, even, of holiness…. Unless we make space for grief, we cannot know the depths of the love of God.”

Maybe you have areas of your life or your ministry that are hard right now, or losses that you need to grieve. Perhaps there’s trauma from your past that still hurts, or someone you know is in crisis.

This Lenten season, we encourage you to lean into your grief before the Lord. To lament and allow yourself to weep. And to do so in community by asking for prayer.

When you share vulnerably with your supporters, they feel more connected to you. When that happens, they are more likely to pray for you and stay engaged with your ministry.

In Christ, we can grieve without fearing that our emotions will overwhelm us: we know that we are secure in God’s deep love and constant presence (Ephesians 3:14-19), and that the pain won’t last forever (Revelation 21:4). He is our refuge and strength, and Easter is coming.

Reach out to a ministry partner who’s hurting

Lent also provides an opportunity for you to come alongside prayer partners who may be suffering. As the apostle Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

As a mission worker, you frequently face financial uncertainty, daunting work situations, challenging family dynamics, and health difficulties. Your ministry partners struggle with many of these same things, and you can bless them with the encouragement and comfort that we’ve received from the Lord.

A simple text message or email is all it takes to let a supporter know that you’re thinking about and praying for them. You can also send private messages through Prayvine.

And if you’re unsure how someone is doing, reaching out and asking can be a real blessing to a ministry partner in need.