About Lent & Beyond

Lent & Beyond is a blog devoted to “encouraging and providing resources to those who are committed to praying for the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada & the Anglican Communion.” “

It was birthed as a means of promoting a special Lenten prayer effort in 2004 (which is how the name evolved), mobilizing concerned Episcopalians and Canadians to pray for repentance and renewal in the North American church in light of the crisis precipitated throughout the Anglican Communion following the actions of both the Episcopal Church in the US and the Anglican Church of Canada in 2003. (You can read more about the background and purpose of the blog at our original site, here.)

We share the conviction of Bishop Martyn Minns (missionary bishop of CANA in the U.S.) who has repeatedly asserted:

“… the defining issue [in the Anglican Communion] is … two different understandings of Truth. This is a spiritual battle for the Church that will not be won [through strategies or meetings] but only by prayer and the full armor of God”

As many testified that this blog was a helpful prayer resource, we have continued it over the years and expanded the purpose somewhat as follows:

Our purpose in this blog can best be summed up from the “tagline” at the top of the blog: “To encourage and provide resources to those who are committed to praying for ECUSA, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Communion”

We desire to help mobilize and inform a grassroots effort of intercession in these days of turmoil in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. We also aim, more broadly to provide lectionary-based resources, spiritual encouragement, devotionals, and prayer resources during major liturgical seasons, especially Advent and Lent.

This is not the effort of any specific organization, diocese or parish. (Though those of us who post regularly here make no secret of our evangelical convictions!) We would welcome being in contact with parish and diocesan prayer groups, receiving news of any prayer resources you are using, being informed of prayer vigils, and sharing together what we are hearing from the Lord as together we read and pray through the Daily Office Lectionary.

2005-2007 were years of intense activity for the blog, with several very large-scale prayer efforts (special devotional series for Lent & Advent, major intercessory prayer campaigns for the Episcopal General Convention in 2006, the Primates meeting in Feb. 2007, the US House of Bishops meeting in Sept. 2007), all of which were posted at our original blog site.

In November of 2007, a severe hacker incursion severely damaged the old blog, and almost all posts from July - Nov 2007 were lost. (Archives from Feb. 2004 - June 2007 thankfully survived intact, including several years of extensive Lenten & Advent devotional posts, and the special resources we developed to support Anglicans around the world in praying for the Primates Meetings at Dromantine in 2005 and Dar es Salaam in 2007).

In January 2008, we made the move to this site, which had been originally established as a very basic backup site to help handle overwhelming traffic during some of our past large prayer campaigns. Other commitments have until now [July 2008] kept us from developing this site fully to match what we had achieved on the old L&B site. However, we still have a core group of intercessors who post here faithfully and who desire to support others throughout North America and the Anglican Communion in praying for the needs of our church during this time of crisis and longed for reformation and revival.

Those of us who post here are all committed evangelical Anglicans. Some of us are still within the Episcopal Church, others have left for one of the new North American Anglican jurisdictions. We share a desire to see the Lord Jesus Christ exalted throughout the Anglican Communion, and for “repentance and forgiveness of sins [to] be preached in his name to all nations.” (Luke 24:47)

Please join us in prayer!

Karen B., Lent & Beyond founder, July 2008

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Our Contact Information: AnglicanPrayer@gmail.com

Our Contributors: (read more here)

Karen B.

Torre Bissell

Fr. Rob Eaton

The Rev. Tim Fountain

Rick Harris

Jill Woodliff