The Revd Alastair McCollum. Picture by Terry Ife ref mhv 8783-09-11TI

Try something new, like praying.

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Lent starts this week. If you see people wandering around with black smudges on their forehead, it’s because they’ve been to an Ash Wednesday service where the sign of the cross is made in ash as a symbol of Lent being a time of seriousness.

Either that or they’ve slipped with the mascara!

When people ask me what they should give up for Lent I usually respond “nothing, try something new like praying or reading your Bible”, but most go away and stop eating chocolate because that’s probably a bit easier!

Lent encourages us to make serious effort to take our spiritual life seriously – for some that might be denying themselves something – but for all of us it means taking God seriously and finding out about God’s way of doing things, and that can only really be done in prayer, worship, reading our Bibles and living faithfully.