Stop Day

Practical guidelines & ideas:

• Sabbath is a day to stop in order to rest and worship, so everything you choose to do or not do should align with that purpose.
• Establish a regular rhythm of the same day each week.
  • Guard that day, or it will get eaten up by other opportunities.
• Find a place and a routine.
• Include family and friends, this doesn’t have to be a private, individualistic discipline. Others (even children) need to experience Sabbath too!
• Free and life-giving, not burdensome restrictions!
• Don’t expect instant results (similar to exercise).
• May take some preparation.
• Try monthly and annual rhythms too.
• Allow for different seasons of life, experimentation, and your own personality.
  • What restores you? What is restful and worshipful for you?

Sabbath:

one day a week set apart

for rest and worship.

STOP:

• Work/activities
  • “If your Sabbath time is very busy and filled with scheduled activities of ‘recreation’ and ministry, it will not suffice. There must be some cessation from activity or exertion.” Tim Keller
• Worry: anything that takes an emotional or mental toll, whatever stresses you out.
• Shopping? Instead focus on the gifts God has given you.
• Plugging in? Leave the virtual world (phones, tablets, computers, TVs) and be fully present to this one.

in order to…

• Rest: refreshment for our bodies
  • Nap/sleep in, light candles, listen to music, walk, read for pleasure, marital intimacy
• Worship: refreshment for our spirit
  • Corporate worship, Scripture, prayer, silence, etc
• Play and celebrate: feasting not fasting, delight not drudgery