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October - Week One

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: 

Lord Jesus, we surrender our wish-dream of community and now embrace the beautiful, messy, inconvenient, and rewarding reality of community. Thank you for these friends, this meal, and for Your presence at work within us all. As we experience more of Your love, may we be loved into loving others. Amen.

Table Conversations

This is space during your gathering to share a meal, build relationships, and enjoy one another. 


  • What is one attribute you see in someone in this group that you admire?


  • What is a lie you are struggling not to believe?


Learning: Practicing The Way: Sabbath Session Three - "Delight"

Watch the third session of Practicing The Way’s Sabbath Practice, “Delight”, and engage in the group discussion as the session prompts you to do so. 


  1. Does joy come more naturally to you? Or is it more of a struggle for your personality?


  1. What did you think of Marva J. Dawn’s claim that we “don’t know how to feast because we don’t know how to fast”? In what ways would the rest of your week need to change to set apart the sabbath as a special day of delight?


  1. Are you in a season of joy or sorrow or both? What does sabbath keeping feel like for you at this moment in your life?


Practice: Try Sabbath - Sabbath Feast & Pleasure Stacking

Refer to the Companion Guide for all of the specific details of the practices. 


  1. Plan a sabbath feast with the people around you (ie: family, friends, Ethos Community, etc). You are encouraged to follow the basic sabbath ritual: 

    1. Light two candles.

    2. Read a psalm or liturgy, like the ones we have for you in the sabbath meditations companion book.

    3. Bless the kids if they are there; bless one another.

    4. Pray.

    5. Feast.

    6. Share highlights of the week.

    7. Share what you are grateful for, or try our practice Dayenu, “It would have been enough, but …”

    8. And then just celebrate life together


  1. Engage in pleasure stacking by making a list of activities that cause you delight and joy, and plan to do one to three of them during your 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.]

October Accountability Partner

For October, identify a partner within your Ethos Community that shares your same gender. This should be someone different than you were just paired with for September! 


Your role as accountability partners is to do the following: 


  1. Schedule a time to hang one-on-one in person with your accountability partner during the month of October. 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).


  1. 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.

 
 
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