Will You Take The Lent Spiritual Challenge?

I came up with this idea for Lent a couple of years a go but never took any action on it.

The idea is based around the question, what can we learn from other religions that challenges us, and can challenging our own thoughts and beliefs ultimately make us better people?

Swiss Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung believed so. He wrote, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

And while other religions may not necessarily not irritate us, would you agree challenging our beliefs is paramount to learning a greater understanding of them?

Galileo Galilei once wrote, “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”

For example, I was raised Roman Catholic - I'd never even heard of Lutheran churches - and after I did - I had no desire to step inside one...

Yet, after I had, I saw a refreshing take on Christianity, and this in turn made me appreciate what I see in Roman Catholicism even more. It made my own faith stronger.

Obviously, the similarities between RC and Lutheranism are greater than the differences, but it's a good starting point for this challenge.

Lent is, after all, a Christian event.

So, for the next four weeks my challenge for Lent is to visit four different denominations of the Christian faith to develop a greater understanding of your own denomination and beliefs.

Now, some groups are large (e.g. Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans or Baptists), while others are just a few small churches, and in most cases the relative size is not even evident.

Then there's modern movements such as Fundamentalist Christianity, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement sometimes cross denominational lines, or in some cases create new denominations out of two or more continuing groups, (as is the case for many United and uniting churches, for example).

So yes, this could be tricky. But I still urge you to take the challenge and see what you discover!

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