Make It Happen
- Compile your list of participants and their preferred contact information.
- Set up a Twitter account and share your username or “Twitter handle” with participants, and invite people who want to be part of the program to follow you. Trying to come up with a name? Use something that’s meaningful to your young adult group. This could be a Twitter account you use in the future to remind folks of events or share other information. Does your parish or organization already have a Twitter account? Look into posting your daily inspirations from that account.
- Pair up participants so that everyone has a Lent buddy — someone they will connect and check-in with during the Lenten season.
- You could choose to assign partners randomly or pair people up by geographic location in case they want to meet up in person some time during Lent.
- On the other hand, you might want to take things in the opposite direction and pair a local person with an out-of-towner.
- You might choose to pair up people with things in common, or you might choose to highlight the diversity, by pairing a college student with a young parent, for example.
- If you don’t know the people in your young adult group that well, we suggest pairing up people based on their location, as much as possible.
- Make sure the Lenten partners have each other’s contact information (phone number and e-mail address).
- On Ash Wednesday, invite buddies to contact each other and share how they have decided to observe Lent through prayer, fasting, and/or almsgiving.
- Each day, for the 40 days of Lent, tweet a reflection or thought for the day. This could be the quote itself (for Twitter: 140 characters or less) or a link to a website. You can create these reflections yourself, use resources like Christian quotes online or your own collection of inspirational quotes, or link to an existing resource like Busted Halo’s Fast Pray Give Lenten Calendar or daily scripture readings. Here are some examples: “Prayer is not doing, but being,” — Kathleen Norris or “Remember the people who have inspired your faith journey.”
- Each day, for the 40 days of Lent, the buddies can send a text to each other or reach out with a phone call, e-mail, or handwritten note offering a prayer, words of affirmation and encouragement, or checking in to see how their partner is doing with their Lenten commitment. Young adults might also share an insight from the daily quote or thought of the day.
