Most people give up something for Lent. What would happen though if you choose to give out instead of giving up? To use Lent as a focus for giving to others, one small step at a time? 40acts is a Lent challenge that encourages you to do just that. 40 small acts of generosity – one for each day of Lent. Each day, a different challenge – a different way of showing kindness and being generous to those around us.
This is the third year I’ve taken part in the 40acts challenge. I’m looking forward to the daily email arriving, bringing with the reflection for the day and a challenge to complete. This year, once again, there is a traffic light system for the acts. This system gives several different options for completing the challenge depending on just how generous you would like to be!
40acts: the challenges
Last year’s challenges included the following:
- Picking up litter somewhere in your local area.
- Taking time to thank someone for something they’ve done.
- Making the effort to arrive somewhere on time.
- Switching the phone off and going offline for a whole day.
- Spending quality time with someone.
- Trying to widen your social circle.
- Being the first to volunteer to meet a need.
- Putting someone else’s schedule first and doing what they wanted to do for a day.
- Sharing your story.
- A big anonymous act of generosity.
Some were fairly easy, some very hard and some took me outside of my comfort zone. The traffic light system helped take make the more challenging ones easier to complete. Somehow I managed to complete all of the challenges. It made me more mindful of the small things I could do every day to make a difference to those around me and helped me to become aware too of some bad habits that I needed to break.
40acts was also the original trigger for starting this blog through sharing a Bible verse that has helped me many times during our journey as a heart family. It’s amazing what that one challenge has led to. I’m now blogging regularly and enjoying every minute, having discovered a wonderful blogging community that I love being a part of. Who knows where this year’s 40acts journey will lead?
You can find more about the 40acts challenge on their website where you can also sign up to receive their daily emails. This year is the 6th year that 40 acts has been running. Last year over 74,000 people signed up and contributed to 2.9 million small acts of generosity. Hope you can join me and help change the world, one small act of generosity at a time!
This is such a fantastic idea! It’s great that it has a traffic light system to help build you up to harder activities period It seems like A great way to introduce the little things we can do daily within our community to help spread the love and joy. I enjoyed reading this blog, thank you! Xxx #BloggerclubUK
Thank you – the traffic light system is such a good way of making the challenges more achievable and it’s such a great thing to take part in 🙂
This sounds like a fantastic idea and far more benificial to everyone than simply giving something up. I am going to have a look. #BloggerClubUK
Hope you enjoy the challenge if you do decide to join in! 🙂
Oh what a gorgeous idea – I love it – I’ve taken a copy of the list and am going to get my 3 children involved too. Thank you for sharing #BloggersClugUK Happy Wednesday xx
Good luck with your challenge and hope you enjoy taking part 🙂
What a lovely idea and a really nice way of teaching the little ones about kindness #bloggersclubuk
Thanks Emma – it’s a lovely challenge to take part in 🙂
I love the idea of this and although (says humbly), I write a gratitude journal daily and try to be mindful, I tried this a couple of years ago and didn’t manage to complete it. the irony! Good luck 🙂
Thank you – I like the sound of writing a daily gratitude journal – I’ve only ever managed it whilst doing 40acts and then stopped doing it after Easter.
Hi Louise, what a nice slant on Lent. Doing something for someone else and putting others first is more beneficial than giving something up for Lent. I hope this years 40acts throws you some nicely challenging acts.
xx
Thanks Debbie – I’m looking forward to starting this year’s challenge 🙂
What a fabulous idea. It must be quite difficult to follow through on 40 days straight of tasks, so you did incredibly well to complete it last year. Good luck again for this year, I look forward to reading what tasks you’ve completed!
Thanks Robyn – I’m looking forward to doing the challenge again 🙂
I really love this idea for lent. I think it’s a great way to turn this time of year into that of kindness & generosity. Giving back instead of cutting back. Thanks so much for linking up with #bloggerclubuk xx
Thank you Becky, I’m looking forward to starting the challenge.