For the past few weeks a small group of pastor friends of mine have been talking about the state of the church in America.

We all feel the absolute calamity of the moment.

The January 6 insurrection at the Capitol exposed the deep-seated anger, fear, and hatred that holds many Americans in bondage.

Were that the only noteworthy feature of the riot, we pastors would have marveled at a once-in-a-generation opportunity to share Jesus with these desperate, hopeless people.

Tragically that is not the case.

The vocal presence and gleeful participation of self-identified evangelicals laid bare cultural and political idols that we in the church have worshiped far too long.

Racism. Nationalism. Partisanship. Ambition. The failure to prioritize mission. Greed. And much, much more.

Thus a national travesty that might have opened new doors for Christian witness instead parades under the label “evangelical” and pollutes our testimony to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

And make no mistake: as horrible as it was, January 6 represents only a most glaring eruption of an ancient disease in the American church.

Like many of you, the six of us are distressed by what we saw.

More that that, we are chastened.

For we are pastors.

And what we are witnessing is a failure of pastors to do our job well—to preach the gospel clearly and unapologetically, to shepherd people to Jesus, to form people in his likeness, to love our enemies, to call out the sins of the church, to listen to the marginalized and vulnerable, to care for the oppressed, to lead the way in repentance.

God have mercy on his church, and on us his pastors.

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Though the six of us represents different denominations, traditions, and even political parties, we all confess our belief in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Like it or not, we are one.

Therefore we affirm our fundamental unity with brothers and sisters whose actions at the Capitol, deafness to the cries of minorities, and verbal attacks on social media we deplore.

By virtue of our union with Jesus we are one with them.

At the same time we affirm our fundamental unity with brothers and sisters of color, who for centuries have borne the weight of injustice and marginalization, only to find majority culture churches unwilling to listen, learn, and help.

It is a travesty that, were he still alive, Martin Luther King Jr. could publish his letter from a Birmingham jail unedited today. Worse still, it would meet the same stony resistance from fellow pastors as the original did in 1963.

The Spirit has made us one with them too.

As pastors, then, we have been wrestling with this question: what do we do in light of our fundamental unity as the people of God, the persistent idolatries of the American church, the ceaseless lament of the marginalized, and our own responsibility as shepherds of the flock?

The six of us believe it is time to repent.

And we invite you to join us.

Though we are pastors, you don’t have to be a pastor to participate. We invite any follower of Jesus who carries the same burden for the American church to fast and pray with us.

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Here’s our plan

During Lent we want to listen to leaders of color tell their stories and preach the Scriptures to us; lament our sins, both individual and (in the spirit of Ezra and Daniel) on behalf of the church; and look to Jesus for a powerful work of his Spirit among us and all his people.

To those ends we commit to do the following during Lent:

• fast every Wednesday (with an optional fast on Fridays),
• meet together for a virtual prayer meeting every Wednesday,
• read one book that will help us learn and lament, and
• watch a sermon or listen to a talk from leaders of color each week.

We invite you to join us, even if your tradition does not observe Lent.

Not all of ours do either.

Nevertheless, as we discussed our shared burden over the present calamity and our joint desire to enter into a season of fasting and prayer, Lent seemed an appropriate time.

The sum of our prayers is that God would

grant us true repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Book of Common Prayer

Here’s how you can participate

1. If you want to see what we’re doing and find links to resources we’re watching together, follow this Twitter feed,
2. If you want to go one step further and discuss what we’re reading and watching together, join the Facebook group.
3. If you want to join us for our Wednesday prayer meetings, subscribe to my email newsletter. Not only will I send you the links we share on Twitter and Facebook, this is where you’ll get the link to our Zoom meeting. For the sake of privacy we don’t want to post the link on social media. (Already a subscriber? No need to sign up again. For more on this, see below.)
4. If you are a pastor and want to invite your church to join, here’s an easier link to this post that you can share: tinyurl.com/2021LentenFast.

Would you join us?

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In all of this we take Acts 9 as our guide. In this chapter Saul of Tarsus, on his way to crush the church in Damascus, instead runs into Jesus.

The passage underscores our fundamental unity: Jesus asks not, “Why are you persecuting my people?” but “Why are you persecuting me?”

So too we do not stand over other segments of the church as though we are the righteous ones, but we lament how we have contributed to the problems by our own sin.

Furthermore we are blown away by Ananias’ part in Saul’s conversion. In a remarkable, almost incredible, turn of providence, the target of Saul’s violence became the instrument of his healing.

In that light we long for the witness of our marginalized brothers and sisters to re-form our thinking and practice so that the church may better reflect Christ’s glory.

Finally Jesus takes away Saul’s physical sight so that the future apostle might truly see. And in so doing Jesus becomes his hope.

We are not the solution.

We do not hope in our fasting. We do not rest in our praying.

Our only hope in life and in death is Jesus.

Our prayer is that, during this Lenten season, Jesus will get in our way, lead us deeper into repentance, and make his oneness with us—all of us—more visible in the American church, to the praise of his glorious grace.

We invite you to fast and pray with us.

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A note about my email newsletter: Typically I write to encourage Christian leaders in their work. But for Lent everything I send will be related to the fast. It’ll be easy for you to unsubscribe when we’re done.

We don’t have the time or resources to create a new website, so it made the most sense to use this vehicle for communication. Thanks for understanding.