The Sabbath is God's way of nurturing, caring for, and connecting with His people.
Jesus knew we would be busy and overwhelmed by the culture, just as He and His disciples experienced. That's why He said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).
The Sabbath is a 24-hour period set aside to stop, rest, delight, and worship. It's the best day of the week. In our era of chronic exhaustion, emotional unhealth, and spiritual stagnation, few things are more necessary than this ancient practice.
“Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.”
Eugene H. Peterson
Week by Week
The word “sabbath” means “to stop.” In Genesis, God worked for six days but then rested on the seventh. In doing so, he built a rhythm into the fabric of creation. When we live in alignment with this ancient rhythm, we find peace and joy, but when we fight it, we fracture our souls.
Practice: Set a time to rest, develop a beginning and ending ritual, and pick one to three Sabbath activities to begin our practice.
We hear about Sabbath rest and we imagine sleeping or taking a day off to chill. But Sabbath rest is a form of resistance. There are powerful forces — both external and internal — that war against a Sabbath spirituality. To sabbath will require that we resist.
Practice: Make a list of what you will not do on the Sabbath, and explore a prayer exercise.
Sabbath is not an onerous day for dour religious duty, but a life-giving day of delight — a weekly party. It’s a full day set aside to celebrate our life with God in his world. And it’s designed to be done in community, not alone. Few things are more provocative in the modern world than communities of joy.
Practice: Throw a Sabbath feast with our community and pick one to three of our favorite activities to curate joy.
Sabbath isn’t just a day to stop, rest, and throw a feast in community. Ultimately, it’s a holy day — set apart for and dedicated to God himself. Early Christians called it “the Lord’s Day.” It’s a weekly day of worship by which we cultivate a spirit of worship all week long.
Practice: Identify one to three of our sacred pathways (ways we deeply enjoy God with our personality and stage of life), and learn to spend the day in worship.
