Establishing a Rule of Life

One of the toughest things about this season of life has been how our rhythms of community, faith, and work have been disrupted. Over the last six months, some of us have found new rhythms and new normals, but with winter upon us and rising risk in our city, we are being asked to alter our lives and patterns again. We want to set our community up to endure, grow, and even thrive during this season with God’s help. Towards that end, we are suggesting a community “Rule of Life.”  

What is a Rule of Life?

In short, it is a set of communal practices and habits that help us become more like Jesus. The word “rule” comes from the Latin word regula, a word associated with a bar or trellis - the woodwork on which a plant grows. In the same way that a grape vine is aided by the support and structure of a trellis, the life of Christ in us is so often held up and supported by various habits and spiritual disciplines. This Rule of Life then is a set of habits and disciples that provides support and structure to our life together so that we can abide in Christ more fully and continue to bear fruit for him. 

This winter, we’re inviting you to join us in taking up 3 daily habits, 4 weekly habits, and 1 quarterly habit.

3 Daily Habits

1. Start the day in quiet prayer and Scripture

Light a candle and start the day in quiet prayer and Scripture. Do this before reading anything digital, like Instagram, or the news, or television. If you have kids, ideally this will be before they wake up. Simply start the day in quiet with God and his Word.

If you are new to Scripture reading, maybe this could look like meditating on a psalm a day. Perhaps you could start by using one of our suggested Advent devotional guides. We’re also challenging our whole congregation to read the New Testament in the 120 days between Advent & Easter (December 1 - April 4). See the reading plan below.

This is a great time to memorize Scripture and seek to hide the Word in our hearts. Consider a challenge to memorize one or all of the following passages: Romans 8; Psalm 103; Romans 12; Matthew 6.  On the first Sunday after Easter, instead of our regular sermon we’ll have some folks recite the passages above aloud.

2. Kneeling prayer 3 times a day

It may seem like a small thing to kneel when we pray, but our souls are connected to our bodies. When our bodies kneel, our souls come to attention. When we’re working from home, in quarantine, or simply stressed by the constantly changing nature of our days, it helps to take a moment to stop and consider God, bring order to our lives, and remind ourselves that He is with us and that the world and our life are under his control. 

Take a moment when you wake, midday, and before you go to bed to kneel and recite the Lord’s Prayer or short phrases like these:

Morning: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Midday: “You sustain my life and spirit this morning; help me now endure in loving service to You and neighbor.”

Night: “I love you. Help me to rest in peace."

Setting a reminder on your phone can be helpful when you are first starting out. 

3. (Dis)connect

The temptations to escape behind our screens are strong this season. Take an hour after dinner to put the phone away. Turn it off completely and redeem the time by spending an hour in Scripture, reading a good book, taking a walk, giving uninterrupted time with your kids, etc. This is an hour of intentioned connection with God, family, and/or neighbor. 

4 Weekly Habits

1. Community

In this time of isolation and stress, we need to be more intentional than ever in making space in our lives for Christian fellowship and relationship. We’re challenging each person at Grace to schedule:

1 hour of safely distanced interaction each week with someone who gives you life. This could be your Small Group, a Bible study, or simply seeking out someone you love. The point is to schedule it in and be intentional about talking about the issues that matter to our hearts and souls.  

1 Hour of safely distanced interaction with someone you can give life to through hospitable relationship. There are so many folks around us, inside and outside the church, who are isolated, lonely, hurting and desirous of connection. This could be a regular phone date with someone. Perhaps it might look like adding someone to your family “pod” and having them over for a meal. Whatever form it might take, we’re challenging our church to engage in one hour of intentional, creative, missional hospitality each week this season.

2. Prayer & Fasting

In difficult times, Christians make it a priority to pray. To aid in that, we’ll be offering morning prayer (10 to 15 minutes) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7:00 a.m. over Zoom. This proved to be a great source of encouragement for many in our community early on in the pandemic, and we hope that even more folks will join us this time around.  

Along with that, we’re inviting you to fast for breakfast and lunch on Wednesdays. 

When we fast, we bring our hunger for redemption and change before the Lord. While fasting, we grieve and lament the state of our world, identify with its need, and bring our hunger for renewal before the Lord in an embodied way. It is an intensified form of prayer and is something that Christians throughout the centuries have turned to in particularly difficult times. 

We understand that fasting from food may not be healthy or helpful for everyone. If you are one of those people, consider fasting for the same period of time on Wednesdays from screens, coffee, or something else whose absence will be a felt experience in your life. 

3. Disconnecting / Curating Media

Again, it’s easy to want to escape behind a screen these days. We binge watch, shop, and scroll endlessly to our detriment. Let’s avoid escapist behaviors by disconnecting and/or curating our media. Our souls, more than ever, need life-giving stories and interactions to keep us on track and pointed in the direction of life and love.

Perhaps this means you commit to getting off social media altogether this season. Maybe you set a limit for your screen use each day or week. Perhaps this means more carefully curating the stories and voices you listen to so that you are seeking out stories that uphold beauty, teach us to love justice, and turn us to community. 

4. Sabbath and Worship

What a great season to work toward establishing a weekly Sabbath. The Sabbath is a 24-hour period where we cease from work so that we can rest, worship, and enjoy the fruit of our labor. This, I’m guessing, will be the most difficult habit for our community to form.  It also has the potential to be the most life-giving and transformative practice of them all.

The weekly practice of Sabbath teaches us that God sustains the world and that we don’t. It is a gospel practice because it reminds us that the world doesn’t hang on what we can accomplish, but rather on what God has accomplished for us. It is a countercultural practice that embraces our limitations and serves as a balm for our restless souls.

To give folks a picture of what this might look like, we’ll be doing some practical teaching on this in the coming weeks. If you’ve never practiced Sabbath before, this is a great season to start. 

1 Quarterly Habit

1. Simplicity

We are told that “the good life” is found in accumulation - that more is better. We search for the things that will make us happy, yet happiness never comes. Or at least, it doesn’t last. Searching and coming up empty can bring us to a miserable place. The way of Jesus calls us to create space—in our schedules, in our homes, in our finances—for what really matters. It calls us to life with Jesus, to abide in his goodness, and enjoy life to the full in the Kingdom of God.  Simplicity is the practice of cultivating an inner contentment that allows us to live with less so that we can give more. 

Over the last year I’ve (Pastor Ben) been doing a lot of reading and study on this ancient practice. It has been very challenging for me, and I’m still very much at the beginning of my journey, but am looking for pilgrim partners who are looking to take some first steps towards simplicity with me. To be honest, I need the communal accountability if I’m going to make this happen. This would include doing some assigned reading on the practice this December and after the first of the year doing some practical teaching on creating budgets and simplifying our closets, living areas, and lives all with the hope of cultivating a deeper contentment in God and spirit of generosity. If you are interested in joining me on the journey, email me at ben@gracepca.com and I’ll add you to a special email list of those interested in exploring this practice together.