Advent 2024
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PRACTICESPERSPECTIVESENGAGEMENTGROUP RESOURCES
Practices
PrayerScriptureMeditation
SearchingSabbathGivingFasting
Practice 1 - Prayer: Talking and Listening to God in Everyday Life
Growing in the Practice of Prayer:
- Commit to creating space for prayer in the morning, midday, and evening.
- Identify the obstacles to your prayer life and choose one to work on this season
- Use a journal and take notes on your prayer life:
- Who are you praying for?
- What are you praying for?
- What are you thankful for?
- How has God answered, provided, ministered to you today? Describe what you feel including anxiety, courage, frustration, joy, mundaneness, and peace (among countless other feelings/responses)
- As you pray throughout this season, consider how you might pray differently than before. Perhaps you might focus on a needed area of prayer that you may have avoided or struggled with. Practice praying out loud or writing out your prayers in a journal. To grow in our prayer lives, we’ll want to challenge and stretch ourselves beyond what we already have been doing.
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Practice 2 - Scripture: Reading and Applying the Bible to Life
Growing in the Practice of Scripture:
- Spend 30 minutes on the Bible Project site and consider what tools you might use to learn and understand Scripture. There are Bible Studies for personal or group use, videos that give commentary, context and insights, and there is an app you can download.
- Choose a book of the Bible and read an accompanying commentary. For example, choose to read the Gospel of John and reading John for Everyone Part 1 and Part 2 by Tom Wright or Read Exodus and use the commentary Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone by John Goldingay.
- Use a journal and create an ongoing list of questions you have as you read the Bible. Create an ongoing list of insights you discover as you read the Bible.
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Practice 3 - Meditation: Silence and Reflection
Commit to creating space for the purpose of meditating, reflecting and listening to God for 10 – 20 minutes a day 2 or 3 times a week. Note that this is different from praying, this is a practice of spiritual active listening.
Ask these three questions and keep a journal of what you sense the Lord saying to you:
- What has God been showing me through meditation in these recent days?
- What do I hear God telling me through Scripture, prayer, community and in worship?
- What might God be leading me to do next?
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Practice 4 - Searching: Investigating and Wrestling with Faith
Commit to creating space for the purpose of meditating and listening to God for 10 – 20 minutes a day 2 or 3 times a week.
Note that this is different from praying, this is a practice of spiritual active listening.
Ask these 4 questions and keep a journal of what you sense the Lord saying to you.
- What has God been showing me through this?
- What am I learning about myself? What fears and hopes are coming to mind?
- What am I processing about God, the Bible, and/or my faith now?
- What might God be leading me to do next?
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Practice 5 - Sabbath: Finding a Rhythm of Work, Rest and Renewal
Create your own plan of Finding “Sabbath Moments.” Examples include stopping from Friday Evening to Saturday Evening or choose to Sabbath Sunday (or Saturday if you prefer) or maybe instead of a full day, you choose a portion of your weekend to stop working, to rest, to allow respite for your body and soul.
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Practice 6 - Giving: Stewarding Resources and Energy Wisely
Take inventory of what you are giving to and spending your money on, what you are giving towards and what you are saving towards for a specific set of weeks and dedicate a time where you reflect asking yourself the following spiritual direction questions:
- What has God been showing me through this?
- How does this reflect my values, my faith and my hopes?
- What might God be leading me to do?
Create a new personal budget, or a new giving plan. The key to this practice is take inventory, prayerfully invite God into the process and chart a course ahead for the season ahead (we recommend 3 months).
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Practice 7 - Fasting: Abstaining from Food, Technology, etc.
Consider the different types of fasts you can pursue such as fasting from food for a specific duration or fasting from sweets, alcohol, caffeine, technology, buying non-necessities. As you fast from something, consider also what you are fasting for. Take time in your prayer life and ask yourself the following questions:
- What has God been showing me through this fast?
- Is there a specific message from Scripture, or worship, or in prayer that the Lord is placing on my heart?
- What might God be leading me to do?
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