August - Week One
- Delaney Brake
- Jul 29
- 3 min read
Open In Prayer
Begin by praying together – taking some intentional time to invite the Holy Spirit into your gathering.
Below is an optional liturgy you could pray:
O Christ, who is our peace, be now peace. Be to us a foundation of life, a stream of gladness, a deep pool of rest. You reveal Yourself as our Father, our Shepherd, our King. It is You who hold our very beings in Your hands. So, meet us here, O Mighty God. Meet us here in the midst of our anxiety, fear, cares, joys, and expectations. Meet us here as we gather in Your name. Amen.
Table Conversations & Reflection On Last Gathering’s Practice
This is space during your gathering to share a meal, build relationships, and enjoy one another.
What is a piece of art (painting, architecture, sculpture, film, etc.) that resonates with you, and why?
Where did you experience resistance or delight as you leaned into the practices? What were some of your takeaways from either BREAD or scripture memorization?
Read This Aloud Together
We will be spending the next four months leaning into the Sabbath practice. I know, four months?! In contrast with the Prayer practice, we will be slowly engaging in Practicing The Way’s Sabbath practice with the hopes of establishing it as a rhythm in our lives, and not just a temporary behavior modification.
This Practice has the potential to be a before/after moment in your spiritual journey, but it will not be easy. Sabbath is radical and countercultural; yet at the same time, its raw power to open us up to transformation cannot be overemphasized.
As with all the Practices, we don’t sabbath because it’s good for us, (though it is), but because we are apprentices of Jesus, our Rabbi and Lord. To follow after Jesus is to adopt His overall lifestyle as our own and arrange our daily life around His presence and peace, or what the ancients called “following the Way.”
And Jesus sabbathed. In fact, many Jesus stories in the Gospels take place on the Sabbath, especially the stories of healing and deliverance. One likely reason is that the Sabbath is a day for healing and freedom. It’s a day where the kingdom to come has come, and we get to enter into a whole new dimension of time and space.
So as you give yourself to this Sabbath Practice, remember all of this is an attempt to give ourselves more deeply to Jesus Himself and let Him do what no Practice or teaching or book or podcast or technique can possibly do – give rest to our souls.
Learning: Practicing The Way: Sabbath Session One - "Stop"
Watch the first session of Practicing The Way’s Sabbath Practice, “Stop”, and engage in the group discussion as the session prompts you to do so.
What stuck out to you from that teaching? Was there a Scripture or thought that especially resonated with you?
Is Sabbath a part of your current life rhythm or not?
What are the obstacles that get in the way of your practicing Sabbath? Either practically or emotionally?
Practice: Try Sabbath
Refer to the Companion Guide for all of the specific details of the practices.
Pick a time to sabbath, and give it a try
Pick a beginning and ending ritual
Pick one to three Sabbath activities to enter into the spirit of Sabbath
[If you are looking for ways to go deeper, the Practicing The Way: Sabbath Companion Guide offers optional “reach practices”. Overachievers in the room: there is not an expectation to complete the reach practices, these are simply available for those who have the interest and capacity.]
Reminder: August Accountability Partner
For August, identify a partner within your Ethos Community that shares your same gender. This should be someone different than you were just paired with for June!
Your role as accountability partners is to do the following:
Schedule a time to hang one-on-one in person with your accountability partner during the month of August. Consider inviting each other into the lives you’re already living instead of having to create extra margin (ie: meal prep together, walk the dog together, run errands together).
Encourage one another as you lean into the practices via text etc! :)
End in Prayer
Before you conclude, spend some time as a Community praying for one another.
Below is an optional liturgy you could pray:
Lord Jesus, there is no greater prayer than yours - make us one as you are one, in devotion, in living, in love. Amen.