Hope and a Future. A future for us all in God’s world.
There is much in the world at the moment where hope is needed. Life seems as if it has been put on hold, but God’s love is always there for us all. This Lent we are asking all our schools, children, and staff to take part in Bishop Stephen’s Lent Challenge 2021, to know that we live in hope and we live in God.
The Challenge will run through Lent and up to the end of the Spring Term, 22.2.21 – 29.3.21.
As we continue to live with the Covid-19 pandemic we have many hopes for the future. Our world and our lives have been shaken and we have experienced hardships and loss of life.
Above all we have experienced fear, isolation, and enormous changes in our way of life. In our schools it has been a complicated and difficult time. What can we do? Where should we look for help? How do we live our lives in this new world?
Many of our children and families have experienced trauma and we have been there for them as much more than educators alone. Children are remarkably resilient and can lift our own spirits as they enable us to see the hope and joy that is still with us. God works with us all as his children to enable us to support each other, fight the virus, to regain our lives and to see a future in God’s love and hope.
We would like to enable an open-ended approach to the Lent Challenge this year. We would like to hear from children and staff about their ideas and their thoughts; from doubt and fear to hope and a future. We would like you to be creative in how this is expressed and communicated.
The challenge is to make this year a digital year with all responses to be in a virtual form. This can be prayers, hymns and songs, video stories, podcasts and ways that the school has reached out to others.
Christian hope is not about trying hard to be optimistic for the future. Rather, Christian hope is what happens when we are set alight with the vision for God’s world as one where all can flourish. Christian hope energizes us to walk towards and into this future to which God calls us, and already to realize this future in our lives and schools and communities.
You can find out more about the Lent 2021 Challenge on The Diocese of Ely Education Directorate here.