Introduction to our 2025 Lent Course

This year's Diocesan Lent Course, 'Hear our Prayer' - led by Bishop Philip - is now available on multiple channels.

Some of you may be using the Lent Devotional which is available in both printed format and on our Fruitful App. 

This course complements these and focuses on the prayer lives of five Old Testament figures. 

There are two parts to the Lent Course:

• The guidance notes. These can be accessed below. 
• The videos. There are five of these, each 15-20 minutes long. 

The videos and guidance notes are also available to view and download on our discipleship app, 'Fruitful'. They can also be accessed via our Diocesan YouTube channel here. See more about fruitful below. 

Please note. If you delivering the course and need to download the videos in advance as part of your preparation (in case they need to be available locally offline) you can do so via a special download button on our fruitful app. 

If you want to know more about the technical side of accessing the Lent Course, please contact Sarah Marston (sarah.marston@blackburn.anglican.org)

Bishop Philip's new ‘Hear our Prayer’ course has five sessions. It examines the prayer lives of five Old Testament figures who prayed, how that relates to the prayer life of Jesus and by doing so, we can reflect on our own prayer own lives. The sessions are:

• Personal Prayer (Hannah)
• Ambitious Prayer (Elijah)
• Hopeful Prayer (Ezekiel)
• Communal Prayer (Esther)
• Constant Prayer (Daniel)

If you are following this course as part of a group, there will be a chance for conversation and discussion. And most importantly, in each session, we will do some praying. For each session there will be:

• Opening time of prayer
• Listening to the Scriptures
• Video talk
• Discussion
• Prayer Exercise
• Closing prayer for Growth and Renewal

The course is designed to be reasonably simple for those who are leading it. It should require minimal preparation and can easily be led by a lay-person. It could last anything between an hour and 90 minutes, depending on how long you wish the discussion and prayer to flow.

Transcripts and guidance notes for Bishop Philip's Lent course ...

• Session One: Personal Prayer (Hannah): Transcript; Guidance Notes
• Session Two: Ambitious Prayer (Elijah): Transcript; Guidance Notes
• Session Three: Hopeful Prayer (Ezekiel): Transcript; Guidance Notes
• Session Four: Communal Prayer (Esther): Transcript; Guidance Notes
• Session Five: Constant Prayer (Daniel): Transcript; Guidance Notes; Rhythm of Prayer Printable Document; Rhythm of Prayer Digital Fill in Form (to download and email)

Bishop Philip's Lent course on our fruitful app

All the Lent Course videos are now available on the Diocesan YouTube channel but you can also download the videos to view offline from our own discipleship App; fruitful and its linked website, fruitful.faith 

Fruitful' is available to download from Apple’s App Store and Google Play and provides support to people of all backgrounds and ages in our Diocese to grow in confidence in their faith through this new digital space. 

Once downloaded it's then available 24/7 for people to read the Bible; be inspired in prayer and encouraged to respond in worship in a variety of ways.

Ronnie Semley, February 2025