Christine Stride is Executive Assistant to the Baptist National Leader and works at the Baptist National Support Centre in Auckland. She is a member of Titirangi Baptist Church in Auckland.
Lent is the 40-day period (not counting the six Sundays) before Easter. It begins with Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025) and ends with Easter Sunday (20 April 2025). Lent is traditionally a time for reflecting on what it means to follow Christ and resolving to live as a follower of Christ in the world. In the early church, this was preparation for being initiated, or re-initiated, into the Christian community at Easter.
We asked some of our pastors to share what their churches are doing to observe Lent this year.
Andrew Sangster, pastor of New Plymouth West Baptist Community Church
In the season of Lent, we embrace a few traditions that help turn our hearts, minds and hands towards Jesus. A more recent four-year-old tradition involves taking down all the handwritten prayers that have been pegged to our Prayer Net over the previous year. These prayers have been offered during Sunday worship and at other times. They are burnt, and the ash made into a paste we use to ‘cross’ people on the first Sunday of Lent, drawing on Ash Wednesday thinking and imagery. At the time of writing, I’m trying to work out how to sensibly get people of all ages cooking pikelets/pancakes together while I preach — to aid the teaching and practice of confession that Lent invites us into. We love Arotahi and engage with Renew Together during Lent with its focus on God’s mission in the world, prayer, and on giving something of ourselves to others (quite Jesus-like right?!) Often, we’ll utilise a seven arm candelabra, symbolising each week of Lent. We’ll have a Bible verse and prayer connected with each one and have a range of people leading us in this aspect of our worship.
Colleen and Adam Hutchinson, pastors of Papanui Baptist Church, Christchurch
This year, our overarching theme is ‘Stories’. We’ve just finished a series called ‘I’ve Been Meaning to Ask’ looking at how some of the biblical stories show us how we can come together in meaningful ways, offering support and encouragement as we journey through our individual life stories, which in turn are being collectively woven into God’s big story.
Lent continues the story’s theme by looking at ‘The Story Behind the Door’. We take a dive into the seven last sayings of Jesus using a progressive art installation by Peter Majendie. Following themes such as forgiveness, being in the presence of Jesus and whānau, each week, a door, painted to illustrate the key sermon text, will be put up within the sanctuary so that by Easter Sunday, all seven doors are present and open, inviting people to make a choice to cross the threshold and enter into all Christ welcomes us into.
These doors (see main photo) were created to be used by many, so if anyone in Te Wai Pounamu would like to become their custodians for their next season – let us know!
Aidan Wivell, pastor of young adults & teaching, Windsor Park Baptist, Auckland
This year at Windsor Park our Lean In community will be engaging deeply with the season of Lent. For context, Lean In is an intergenerational and interactive discipleship space that gathers around tables in our café on Sunday evenings. Our series is called ‘Lent It Go: Self-Denial in an Age of Indulgence’ and we will be exploring the three pillars of Lent: self-denial, prayer, and almsgiving. These are wonderfully countercultural disciplines in a world of consumption and instant gratification.
Given Baptists have never embraced Lent in the way other church traditions have, we know people will come with different perspectives and experiences. The goal of this series is not to become legalistic observers of the season but to be open to what we can learn from tradition and rituals. In Luke’s Gospel (9:23) Jesus calls his followers to carry their cross daily, (not just for the 40-days of Lent!), but our hope is that engagement with this season of self-denial will teach and remind us to carry our crosses all year round.
Lent It Go Lean In Community Worship Evening at Windsor Park Baptist
Jody Kilpatrick, pastor of Ponsonby Baptist, Auckland
We tend to use the season of Lent to overview Jesus, his message and mission, and prepare us to enter again the powerful mystery of Easter.
This year the lens will be ‘Locations of interest’ and in our Sunday gatherings we will cover Desert, Lake, Mountain, Road, Table and Temple. These locations each open a significant aspect of Jesus’ life and teaching. Our children don’t have a separate teaching programme, so this is an annual opportunity to help them comprehend the person of Jesus and his journey to the cross and out the other side. Of course, this is useful for everyone, not only children!
‘Locations of interest’ fits with the place aspect of our broader exploration of ‘Belonging; presence, place, vocation.’
Outside of Sunday services we will have a pop-up Centering Prayer group, for anyone who wishes to learn or deepen this practice. (The timing of this celebrates and honours our wonderful Sheila Pritchard who died recently.) Someone in our congregation has shared a Carbon Fast resource with us, and if there is interest this may become a shared Lenten practice.
Stu McGregor, pastor of Cityside Baptist Church, Auckland
We are exploring Arma Christi—translated as ‘weapons of Christ’ or, more contemporarily, ‘instruments of the cross.’ Essentially, it offers a very different doorway into the Stations of the Cross (a tradition we’ve engaged with for many years).
I was inspired for this while researching a Cretan Orthodox icon and discovering how the spear that pierced Jesus’ side is known as the Spear of Destiny. Around the world, there are five century-old prayer rolls, each 2.5m long and featuring these symbolic objects alongside meditative prayers. I’m curious to see how object-centred reflections can assist in our understanding and perhaps visceral contemplation of the Passion narrative.
Our Good Friday installation — a three-hour contemplative space where people can come and go as they please — will make full use of the tactile nature of these items, offering a quiet, immersive experience punctuated by a brief talk to provide some context for those who are present.
We’ve also embraced a new tradition of viewing Lent, Easter Sunday, and the Easter season as a full fourteen-week journey. At the front of the church, seven candles are displayed, with one extinguished each Sunday leading up to Good Friday, then rekindled one by one in the weeks during Eastertide leading up to Pentecost. In a way, it offers a path out of Lent — an intentional movement into resurrection and renewal.
Check out the resources for Lent at Leadership.baptist.nz
Photo: Doors painted to illustrate a key text during the Lent/Easter period at Papanui Baptist Church. Colleen and Adam Hutchinson.
