February 2026 – Week Two (New Communities)
- Delaney Brake
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 31 minutes ago
Open In Prayer
Begin by praying together – taking some intentional time to breathe, be still, and invite the Holy Spirit to be with you all as you set aside time to be together.
Below is an optional liturgy you could pray:
As we gather around the table, we thank You Father for the joy of being together and the comfort of friends, new and old. As we enjoy these blessings of food and drink and conversation and laughter, we’re reminded that it's these simple things that are the first fruits of that great glad joy that is to come and that will be unending. Amen.
Around The Table & Reflect On Last Gathering’s Practice
This is space during your gathering to share a meal, build relationships, and enjoy one another.
If your week were a candle, is the flame burning bright, low, or somewhere in between? Why?
What your experience engaging in the personal Rule of Life practice?
Share Your Story
The focus of our February gatherings is to share our faith stories. We received a handout at our last gathering that provided a clear structure that will guide us as we share.
Be courageously honest.
Our Community will rise and fall on the level of transparency and honesty each of us is willing to give. This process won’t work if we try to keep up appearances and squeaky-clean images at the expense of being real. Many times, God seems to do great work when we bear our souls to one another, sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Stay on track.
We ask that everyone shares for around 7 minutes. The goal here is not to share everything that has ever happened to us, but to communicate the key events, how we saw God within them, and the emotions, feelings, and beliefs in conjunction with the details of events.
Give a moment for silence at the end of each person’s story.
This may feel awkward or uncomfortable because we’re used to constantly being inundated with noise. But we take a moment of silence to honor what each person just shared and to honor their story.
After a moment of silence, give short responses to the story you just heard.
You want to avoid offering advice or sharing stories from your own life, even in an effort to relate. Instead, you could:
Ask an open, non-judgmental question
Make an observation (ie: I noticed that…or “I hear you saying…)
Reflect back on their story without evaluation or advice-giving
Practice: Creating a Community Rule of Life
Now that you’ve created a personal rule of life, you’re going to collaborate on one for your Ethos Community. The Community rule of life is a way to engage in specific practices together. Although you may not always be physically present together, these are practices that everyone is agreeing to add within their personal rule of life. But, there will be elements, like your biweekly Community gathering, that could be beneficial to include.
Your Community decides how many elements to include within your Community rule of life. We suggest that you add 3-6 elements and write a short description underneath each for the sake of clarity.
Below are a few examples from our Ethos Staff rule of life:
Sabbath
Instead of endless productively, we practice a rhythm of work and rest. We commit to take a full day every week for complete rest from our daily work and commit to make sabbath a possibility for everyone else on our team.
BREAD
Instead of defaulting to our phones & technology after waking from sleep, we practice a rhythm of solitude with the scriptures through BREAD resulting in a non-anxious presence leading into our day. We commit to being solely with the Father, Christ, & the Holy Spirit in the mornings in pursuit of Him and His way of living.
Community
Instead of individualism and isolation, we pause at 1pm each day to pray together. We practice real presence with each other. We don’t want to be asked to pray, we listen to the stories in the room and pray accordingly.
On your own, come up with some suggestions for your Community. Then, at our next gathering we will spend some time deciding on which ones we want to include within our Community rule of life.
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.