A new weekly online Diocesan Lent course starts February 24 and features talks from Bishops and Archdeacons.

This course will be in addition to the new Lent Devotional booklet.

The new course (overarching title 'Looking Out in Lent') takes place across five Wednesdays from February 24, 7.30pm-9pm on each occasion.

This is the latest digital resource for parishes to engage with as the pandemic and lockdown continues; following other recent digital content such as for Advent and Christmas; the recent ‘Call to Pray and Give’ and the popular #HomeGrown online conference.

‘Looking Out in Lent’ will use St Mark’s Gospel and the five marks of mission to explore ways of being a more outward-looking church as we start to move out of the pandemic.

The course will be accessible two ways. There will be the five ‘live’ sessions on Zoom, each consisting of 15-20 minute talks immediately followed by a Zoom breakout Q and A discussion. 

Meanwhile, each talk will also be made available in pre-recorded form on our YouTube channel by the weekend before each Zoom session date, at the latest.

This is to further assist parishes wanting to run their own Lent courses at the same time but using the same video content.

Click here for links to each of the YouTube versions of the talks which will be collated together as the weeks progress, or go straight to our YouTube channel.  

• To register for the Zoom-based course book now on Eventbrite via this link. Click on the orange button to select a date and book your ticket.

The five sessions (and the leaders for each) are as follows:

All evenings run on Zoom from 7.30pm to 9pm 

• Week 1: February 24 (Bishop Jill) BOOK HERE
• Looking Out in Lent by: Telling the Good News (Evangelism) 
• Mark 1, 14-20 Proclamation of the Kingdom and call of the disciples 

• Week 2: March 3 (Bishop Julian) BOOK HERE
• Looking Out in Lent by: Teaching the Faith (Discipleship) 
• Mark 4, 21-34 Parables of growth 

• Week 3: March 10 (Archdeacon David) BOOK HERE
• Looking Out in Lent by: Tending to human need (Service) 
• Mark 5, 1-20 Healing of a demon-possessed man – service of the whole person, physical, spiritual, relational 

• Week 4: March 17 (Bishop Philip) BOOK HERE
• Looking Out in Lent by: Transforming society (Justice) 
• Mark 10, 35-45 Contrast between the kingdom and the world 

• Week 5: March 24 (Archdeacon Mark) BOOK HERE
• Looking Out in Lent by: Treasuring creation (Environment) 
• Mark 16, 1-8 Good news to all creation