Around this time of year, the Supreme Executive Inbox begins to fill up with some version of “How do I play Lent Madness?” While we like to be helpful and are happy to take your calls at 3:00 am,  you should know that there are several guidelines to follow.

1) You cannot vote by mailing Tim or Scott a paper ballot -- even if it's sent by registered mail.

2) You do need access to a computer or smart phone of some kind -- votes sent by carrier pigeon, while impressive, are not valid.

3) You're welcome to drive to the global headquarters of Forward Movement in Cincinnati, Ohio, and verbally share your vote with the staff. It will not, however, count.

4. If you live in an exotic locale such as, say, Hawaii or the south of France or a Caribbean resort, and would like to fly Tim and Scott to your home to tell us your preference in person, that will be a valid vote.

Believe it or not, there is actually a method to this Madness. And it's quite straightforward. Fortunately for you, a Voting 101 video was produced at the behest of the SEC in 2013 by the mysterious Maple Anglican. Even though it's a classic, this brief video remains relevant and is a great introduction for first-time participants. As we like to say, spend four minutes now and enjoy forty days of unfettered voting fun.

Finally, remember that voting begins the day after Ash Wednesday on Thursday, February 11th — aka “Ash Thursday.” The first matchup of Lent Madness 2016 between Helena and Monnica (the matronly meltdown) will be posted at 8:00 am EST. Now go watch the video!

Ah, Super Bowl Sunday. The day preachers attempt to squeeze as many football analogies into the sermon as possible. Today, as The Big Game coincides with Luke's version of Jesus' transfiguration, it's clear what took place up on that mountain. After hearing the voice descend from heaven, "This is my Chosen One; listen to him!" Jesus waved a giant foam finger in the face of Peter, James, and John and yelled, "I'm number one!" That's in the spirit of the gospel, right?

Or maybe not.

But nonetheless, we'll still gather around our televisions for kickoff at 6:30 pm with a heaping pile of pre-Lent-so-there's-no-guilt nachos. We'll watch the game, live Tweet the commercials and halftime show, and pray no one gets seriously injured.

Just because we, like Americans everywhere, will watch the Super Bowl, doesn't mean Lent Madness isn't better. So, in the competitive spirit of the day, here are our Top 10 Reasons Lent Madness is Better than the Super Bowl...
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After a rollicking, Celebrity Blogger Week, it's time to highlight the Supreme Executive Committee. Just who are these masked (in the appropriate liturgical color, of course) men? Lent Madness creator Tim Schenck and Forward Movement executive director Scott Gunn form the self-appointed and, mostly, benevolent dictatorship that is the SEC.

In real life, the one word they would use to describe one another is "archnemesis." Fortunately, for the season of Lent they engage in a 40 day and 40 night period of detente in order to pull off the world's most popular online Lenten devotion. The moment the Easter Acclamation is announced at the Great Vigil on Easter Eve, the world returns to normal and their rivalry is revived.

Besides simply being supreme, what exactly is the role of the SEC? Well, that's a mystery that will never fully be revealed. But Tim spends much of his time corralling Celebrity Bloggers into meeting deadlines, writing introductions to posts, and  managing the Lent Madness social media presence. Scott manages the Lentorium and helps bring to bear Forward Movement's resources in terms of graphic design, publishing, and technology. He also heads the Voter Fraud Department (one vote!). Both Tim and Scott film award-winning Monday Madness episodes throughout Lent to keep the faithful informed and up-to-date on all things Lent Madness; determine the yearly bracket; and publicize Lent Madness by any means necessary.

Scroll down for some never-seen-before SEC Fun Facts!

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As a member of the staff at Forward Movement, Hugo Olaiz is the ultimate Lent Madness insider. Not bad for a first time Celebrity Blogger. There is no truth to the rumor that Tim has placed Hugo at FM, to serve as a mole into Scott's nefarious activities. None whatsoever. Keep moving. Nothing to see here.

If you're a first-time Lent Madness participant, you may enjoy this brief video Hugo made with fellow Forward Movement staff member Peggy Sanchez which explains the basics of how to play.

Hugo Olaiz is associate editor for Latino/Hispanic resources at Forward Movement. Hugo grew up in La Plata, Argentina — a country where provinces and cities are sometimes named after saints. After completing a degree in literature and classics, Hugo spent two years on mission in Paraguay. He later moved to the U.S. to do graduate studies in Spanish, linguistics, and translation, pursuing a Ph.D. in Hispanic linguistics at Berkeley, California. He later moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he became the news editor for Sunstone magazine. Upon moving to Carrboro, North Carolina, Hugo stumbled into an underground network of home-based businesses — hair styling, sewing, cooking — all run by Mexican immigrants; these contacts led him into Latino ministry and advocacy in the Diocese of North Carolina. Hugo lives in Oxford, Ohio, with his husband John-Charles Duffy and an aging beagle mix named Patches. In his spare time, he loves to entertain friends, edit Wikipedia entries, and watch opera clips on YouTube.

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Although Laurie Brock took St. Francis all the way to the Golden Halo last year, the SEC stubbornly refuses to sell St. Laurie garden statues in the Lentorium. It should also be noted that despite the fact that Laurie is a huge fan of Alabama football, the acronym SEC stands FIRST AND FOREMOST for Supreme Executive Committee NOT Southeastern Conference. Just to clarify.

The Rev. Laurie Brock, Distinguished Celebrity Blogger, is a returning Celebrity Blogger because she loves getting free coffee mugs and receiving celebrity red carpet treatment at Episcopal gatherings. One of those things may not be entirely accurate. She serves as the rector of St. Michael the Archangel Episcopal Church in Lexington, Kentucky. She blogs at Dirty Sexy Ministry, is the co-author of Where God Hides Holiness: Thoughts on Grief, Joy and the Search for Fabulous Heels (Church Publishing), and is also a contributor to a forthcoming book about the real lives of women clergy. A reality series on E! is surely coming soon. She is also the creative force behind Fifty Days of Fabulous from Forward Movement. She frequently shares her quirky, snarky views on faith, Alabama football,and popular culture on Twitter at @drtysxyministry, but don’t follow unless you can laugh at yourself and your religion. Otherwise, you’ll just be offended. When she’s not doing priest things, she is riding her horse Nina, the Official Horse of Lent Madness.

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Love Lent Madness? Looking for a devotional book to guide you through Lent, Holy Week, and Easter? You've come to the right place!

Lent Madness creator Tim Schenck has written a book titled Dust Bunnies in the Basket: Finding God in Lent and Easter (Forward Movement 2015). If you're looking for the perfect Lenten gift (and who isn't?) or just want to read something other than the 2016 Saintly Scorecard this Lent, we hope you'll check it out (and by "check it out" we mean buy it for a mere $10).

Illustrated by popular priest and cartoonist Jay Sidebotham, Dust Bunnies in the Basket challenges us to go deeper this Lent, to "kick up some dust every now and then, to roll up our sleeves and get involved with the world and the people around us." The book is ideal for personal reflection or seasonal study groups and includes thoughtful questions at the end of each section.

To give you a little foretaste, here's a snippet. Actually, it's the book's Introduction...

Lent is a very personal time of reflection and introspection as we examine our lives and our relationship with God, coming face-to-face with our own sinfulness and mortality. Lent is most fully experienced within the context of a worshiping community—we don’t enter into the season in isolation.

Still, this doesn’t answer our question of what to say to people at coffee hour. Fortunately, the Ash Wednesday liturgy gives us a clue. We are invited on behalf of the Church to the observance of a holy Lent. Not a successful or productive or guilt-ridden or dour or twig-eating Lent, but a holy Lent.

No matter what else David Sibley accomplishes in his life, he will always be best known for shepherding Charles Wesley to the 2014 Golden Halo. In fact, we've already taken the liberty of writing the first line of his obituary: "The Rev. David Sibley, longtime Lent Madness Celebrity Blogger..." Okay, that's all we have so far and as the youngest CB (again), we hope we don't need to finish this anytime soon. Welcome back, David!

The Rev. David Sibley, Distinguished Celebrity Blogger, is in the middle of his seventh year as a southern transplant into the northeast, where he now lives on Long Island and serves as Rector of Christ Church in Manhasset, New York. Raised right in the middle of South Carolina, David studied and did research as a chemist before being whisked away to seminary in New York City. When he’s not in church, David enjoys travel, hiking and camping, all things food and music related, and is a sports fanatic – with his teams of choice in baseball (Chicago Cubs), college football (South Carolina Gamecocks), and soccer (Liverpool FC) being minor obsessions. When the ideas are forthcoming, he’s been known to blog at Feeding on Manna, and holds forth much more often with his partners in crime on Twitter at @davidsibley.

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We're excited that Amber Belldene will soon begin her third year as a Celebrity Blogger because, well, name another online Lenten devotion that can claim to have an Episcopal priest/romance writer on their team. Yeah, you can't. Because we're unique! Or at least Amber is. Read on!

The Rev. Amber Belldene is a romance writer and the alter ego of a vampire-loving Episcopal priest. She grew up on the Florida panhandle swimming with alligators, climbing oak trees, and diving for scallops…when she could pull herself away from a book. As a child, she hid her Nancy Drew novels inside the church bulletin and read mysteries during sermons — an irony that is not lost on her when she preaches these days. Amber believes stories are the best way to examine life’s truths, and she is passionate about the relationship between sexuality and spirituality — namely, that God made people with a desire for love, and that desire is the heart of every romance novel. Her paranormal romance series Blood Vine is now available from Omnific Publishing and her sexy contemporary novella One Sinful Night in São Paulo, about an Episcopal seminarian looking for love, is scheduled to release later this year. She loves wine, history, heirloom tomatoes and she lives with her husband and children in San Francisco. For more information about her books or to check out her blog go to www.amberbelldene.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmberBelldene or Facebook.

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Scandal has rocked Lent Madness! People have accused the Supreme Executive Committee of being nothing more than hucksters. To prove them wrong, Scott and Tim remind everyone that you can download a FREE full-color bracket any time. You can also add fancy Lent Madness widgets to your website for NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE. With NO PERFORMANCE LICENSING FEES you can gather the whole family around the computer and binge-watch Monday Madness. And of course, more important, participating and voting in Lent Madness can be done by anyone for FREE.*

Isn't the SEC remarkably generous? We thought you'd agree. But generosity is not limited to free stuff. Those of you who procrastinated buying your giant poster-sized Lent Madness brackets are in luck! Forward Movement is running a Procrastinator's Special. By using code PS16 during checkout, you can get as many bracket posters as you want (while supplies last) for just seven bucks.

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"Is there a doctor in the house?" One of the reasons we invited Derek Olsen to join us on this Lenten journey as a Celebrity Blogger, was to be able to answer this question in the affirmative. If the excitement of the saintly smackdown causes you shortness of breath, be sure to call on Dr. Olsen. He'll leap in to save the day by blogging about obscure liturgical minutia with reckless abandon. We're glad to have this new life-saver on the Lent Madness team!

Dr. Derek Olsen is a layman within the Episcopal Church with a Ph.D. in New Testament and an interest in most things medieval, monastic, and liturgical. He is the liturgical editor of the St. Augustine’s Prayer Book, and the author of Reading Matthew with Monks, an investigation of early medieval reading and preaching. Forward Movement will be publishing his book on the spirituality of the Book of Common Prayer near the end of 2015. Derek currently serves on the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission for Liturgy & Music. An IT professional by day, Derek is also the mastermind behind St Bede Productions which is responsible for the St Bede’s Breviary, Forward Movement’s Daily Prayer site, and the St Bede Blog (formerly haligweorc). He lives in Baltimore with his wife, an Episcopal priest, and their two daughters. He spends most of his spare time driving his daughters to and from ballet.

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