A Lent app and Lenten devotional for small groups

Ordo is a Lent app for small groups on iPhone. A group writes a short Lenten rule together, including what each person will give up or take on, then keeps it daily from Ash Wednesday with scripture, a written reflection and a check-in. Reflections are revealed together once everyone has written.

Lent 2027 at a glance

• Ash Wednesday: 10 February 2027
• Palm Sunday: 21 March 2027
• Maundy Thursday: 25 March 2027
• Good Friday: 26 March 2027
• Easter Day: Sunday 28 March 2027

For how Lent fits into the whole year, and how Easter’s date is set, see our guide to the church year.

Why Lenten practices fail alone

Most of us begin Lent with a resolution and lose it somewhere in the second or third week. The giving-up becomes private willpower, and when it slips there is no one to tell and no reason to begin again. The early church kept Lent as a community: catechumens preparing for baptism, penitents preparing for reconciliation, and the whole church fasting and praying with them. A Lenten devotional for small groups recovers a little of that.

What to look for in a Lent app

• Room for fasting as well as reading. Lent is about what you set down as much as what you take up.
• Personal commitments inside a shared practice. Each person’s Lenten discipline will be a little different.
• Honesty without shame. You will slip. The app should make it easy to say so and begin again.
• Readings that belong to the season. The wilderness, the passion, the road to Jerusalem.
• A turn at Easter. Lent should end, and the feast should begin.

How to keep Lent 2027 with Ordo

1. Before Ash Wednesday, gather your group. Two people or a small group of friends, members of the same congregation, or a Lent group your church is forming. Groups are invitation-only.
2. Write a Lenten rule. Use Ordo’s six parts: scripture, prayer, reflection, absence, accountability areas and review. Absence is where the fast lives: what each of you will step back from. See how to write a rule of life and the guide to the spiritual disciplines.
3. Keep each day. Read the day’s scripture and respond, write a reflection on the Lenten prompt, and check in on your commitments. About ten minutes.
4. The reveal. When everyone has written, the reflections open together. No one can polish their answer to match the others.
5. Pray in the wilderness. Breathe with me paces the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me”), a prayer well suited to Lent, to your breathing. See breath prayer.
6. Arrive at Easter. At the close of Lent you receive a formation letter drawn from your reflections, and Ordo turns to Eastertide.

Who it is for

Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran Christians who have always kept Lent; Reformed, Presbyterian and Methodist churches, many of which keep it now; and Pentecostal, Baptist and non-denominational Christians taking it up for the first time, often with a church-wide fast. Orthodox Christians keep Great Lent on a different calendar (Pascha 2027 is on 2 May), so Ordo’s Western dates will not match theirs. It suits Lent groups, men’s and women’s groups, accountability partners and families with older children.

If your group wants to keep going after Easter, see Ordo as a liturgical calendar app or a discipleship app. Keeping Advent first? See the Advent app page. For a focus on honesty, see Ordo as a Christian accountability app.

How Ordo differs

Most Lent apps and devotionals give you a reading and a short reflection to read each day, often very good ones. Ordo gives you a rule to keep, a few people to keep it with, and space to write honestly about how it is going. It does not count your fast, rank your prayer or reward a streak. A companion creature keeps watch while the day asks something of you and rests once it is kept. Ordo is in beta on iPhone; join the waitlist before Ash Wednesday.