Tag Archives: Dallas Willard

Need some help with Fasting for Lent?

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Tonight at Crash, I am sharing about Fasting, as a part of our series, Restless People. We are preparing for our Ash Wednesday service this Wednesday, February 22nd. At the recommendation of someone on our leadership team, I created a list of resources that can help you think through your fasting questions.

Traditionally, many Christians intentionally fast from Ash Wednesday (February 22 in 2012) to Easter (April 8 in 2012). Sundays are feast days on the Christian calendar, so you may elect to break your fast on these days.

If you miss the service tonight, check out my Crash talk on our new podcast feed later this week and enjoy the resources below.

Bill Bright on Fasting – Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote a classic piece that explores his experience with a 40 day food fast, along with 7 lessons he learned in the process. Click here to download the PDF file.

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster & The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard – These two books are classics in the spiritual formation vein. They outline the list of classic disciplines (including chapters in each on fasting). Both books are available via Amazon. Also, John Ortberg’s The Life You Always Wanted is a more accessible work for a spiritual discipline newbie.

Past Crash talks on Fasting – Check out series like Lent: A Four-Letter Word (2011) , Six Weeks (2009) and Ancient Future Man (2006) .

Fasting Ideas slideshow from BeliefNet – While I don’t agree with all of the perspective on that post or that site, the 15 ideas mentioned in that slideshow will get your creativity flowing.

Resources in The Joshua Collective archives:

-I posted here about my Lenten fast from staying up late and the decision to start getting up early.

-I posted here about my fast from my smartphone (which lasted nearly a year).

-I posted here prior to Lent 2011 about the disciplines I was planning to engage in related to fasting, almsgiving and prayer.

-After Lent 2011, there were three recap posts on The Joshua Collective – one for each of the three areas I mentioned above – Twitter (Scott), walking (Kelly Young), and spending (Danalyn Savage).

And don’t forget to join us this Wednesday for our Ash Wednesday service to start this season together.

What has your experience with fasting been like? Share with us below!

top posts from January 2012

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In case you missed any of them, here are my top ten posts for January 2012.

graphic courtesy of www.wordle.net

1. A Newsworthy Day, part one (my interview on Channel 12 News in Phoenix about Tim Tebow’s 3:16 playoff game) – January 9, 2012

2. A Newsworthy Day, part two (my interview in Portraits Magazine with Francis Chan, along with video of my interview re: Tebow) – January 10, 2012

3. I know I need it, but this sucks! (It is often the things we need the most – feedback, in this instance – that we struggle to actually accept in the moment) – January 4, 2012

4. The Day My Grandfather Met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (One of my favorite family stories)  - January 16, 2012

5. The conversation about manhood in America (two interesting pieces regarding the state of manhood in America from very different sources) – January 18, 2012

6. I thought you hated rules! (9 rules for creatives and how boundaries make our creativity better) – January 26, 2012

7. Your favorite Bible verse: Philippians 4:13 (A different take on “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”) – January 5, 2011

8. Getting over that Monday Morning Hangover (Steps for pastors, church staffers and others to get past a hard Sunday into a successful Monday) – January 30, 2012

9. A Powerful Story of Forgiveness (Introduction to Afshin Ziafat, guest speaker at NPHX in January 2012) – January 23, 2012

10. Dallas Willard and the Gospel of Sin Management (a false gospel preached in many places today and a possible source to so many of our challenges in the church) – April 25, 2009

A couple of interesting lessons I learned. One, I was surprised to see two blogs from outside of this month on the list. #7 from January 2011 and #10 from April 2009 get hits nearly every day because of the tags and Google searches. So, it is cool to see blogs still get traffic after all that time has passed. Two, I need to improve in giving titles to my posts. Some of my titles would be completely unclear without the description in parentheses shows me a growth edge I have as a blogger.

I appreciate you and your presence here on the blog. Thanks to Michael Hyatt for inspiring me to start this feature in 2012 and for the model for this post.

Question: Just out of curiosity, which of the top 10 was your favorite post and why? Any topics you would like me to explore here in February 2012?