Week 4 Fasting Guide

Week 4

Give us this day our daily bread…

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, this is a line some of us can truly understand.  You know what it is like to hunger, to wonder what if anything will find it’s way onto the table.  For many of the rest of us, that is something we may never experience. 

The hunger and poverty rates in our country are something to be lamented, especially as the numbers seem to only be increasing.  But, even at a 16% poverty rate in our country (as of the last census), we will still struggle to understand just how important this line of Jesus’s prayer was for those to whom he ministered.  Well over 90% of the world in Jesus’s day lived below the poverty line.  That means over 90% of the world knew what it was to wonder what if anything they might eat on any given day. 

When Jesus says to pray for daily bread, what he is really saying is that we need to pray for that most basic need in our lives.  For some of us it is bread, food.  But, without exception, the most basic need for all of us is the presence of God manifesting itself in our lives.  That is what we are going to seek together this week, lives that are marked and ordered by a basic need for God.

Week 4 Fast: Food.  Well, the food week is finally here!  What we are going to challenge you to do this week is to do one of two things.  First, if your family eats out quite often, challenge your family to fast from eating out this week.  Second, if you are one who eats at home regularly or even if you are one who eats out regularly, pick a food item that is something you can’t think about going a day without (pick one that isn’t a necessity for your survival or for a particular diet you are on, especially for medical purposes!).  Give up that food or drink this week. 

Fast Challenge:  If we are giving up food, what is it that we are seeking?  Think about it like this.  Most of us order our days around something.  If you’re like me, it’s probably meal times or work.  But for centuries Jews, and later on Christians, ordered their days not around food or work but around prayer.  They would pray regularly throughout the day at set times so as to know that as a community they were praying the same prayers to God together.  This week, order your day around prayer.  Choose three times a day, something close to breakfast/lunch/dinner and pray the Lord’s Prayer knowing that your fellow believers are lifting up the same prayer with you.

Prayer Focus: Each day of our fast you will be challenged to pray the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13).  Each week there will be a different emphasis of prayer.  This week isn’t about praying for something specific.  This week is about ordering our days around prayer.  Focus on what it means for you to know that as you pray, your fellow believers are praying the same prayer with you.

Shamu

Guiding Prayer For Our Season of Fasting: 

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Myself in Truth

Holy Father, challenge me to live in constant communion with you, spending my days living for you and living in you.

Nurtured and Nurturing 

Jesus Christ, Son of God, turn our families and relationships into glowing beacons of your hope, love, and grace to the world around us.

The Gathered

Holy Spirit, may our community of faith grow in your Spirit so that we might grow out of the walls of our church and into our community.

Challenge

This entire week, challenge yourself to meet someone new, talk to someone you haven’t ever talked to, share the love of Christ with someone you would not normally spend time with.

But you, Israel, my servant,

    Jacob, whom I have chosen,

    the offspring of Abraham, my friend;

⁹ 

you whom I took from the ends of the earth,

    and called from its farthest corners,

saying to you, “You are my servant,

    I have chosen you and not cast you off”;

¹⁰ 

do not fear, for I am with you,

    do not be afraid, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

    I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

-Isaiah 41:8-10

When I was a small child, only about 5 years old, my parents took us on the vacation of a lifetime.  They had been saving for years to take my older brother, younger sister, and me to Florida to visit Walt Disney World and SeaWorld.  This was back in the days before mass resort complexes, water parks, and untold amounts of theme parks dotted the landscape of Orlando.

We had spent several days at Disney World and departed to enjoy a day or two at SeaWorld.  Now, whether you've ever been to SeaWorld or not, you probably know that the main thing everyone goes to see is Shamu the killer whale.  I was so excited to get to sit and watch that whale perform all it's fun tricks for the trainers.

It was a packed house for the show.  As it concluded, everyone stood and began to depart the arena.  Now, as a child, I was really bad about getting stuck in my own little world or caught just staring at some particular person or happening around me.  I'm not sure which of these was the case that day.  What I do remember was looking up as I stood on the walkway outside the show and quickly realizing my family was no longer around me.

You can only begin to imagine the fear which quickly gripped my five year old self as I stood terrified among total strangers that I would never see my family again.  Thankfully, only a few moments later I spotted my mother frantically searching the crowd for her lost son.  It was a happy reunion and there were no more instances like it the rest of our trip.

In those few moments of isolation all those years ago, I experienced a fear and loneliness I've yet to feel since.  When you are alone, truly alone, with no hope and only your thoughts and your fears, there is little in life that can feel more scary or terrifying.  Many in our world today live in this fear and isolation every day.

As the people of God, we are reminded by the prophet Isaiah that no matter how alone we may feel, no matter how isolated we may be, our God is always with us.  

As encouraging as this is for us as believers, think about how discouraging life can be for those who do not know Christ, who do not know there is a God that longs desperately to always be with them?  May we be the ones to take the light of Christ into the darkness of their lives.  

May God's richest blessings and the presence of His peace be with you all today.

-Pastor Patrick

Tragic Hope

Guiding Prayer For Our Season of Fasting: 

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Myself in Truth

Holy Father, drive out the doubt, the fear, the indifference which keeps me from living the Gospel this world desperately needs.

Nurtured and Nurturing 

Jesus Christ, Son of God, help us create and nurture within our families and within our friendships a holy reflection of your love for those who have yet to come to know the grace of community with you.

                        The Gathered

Gathering Spirit, challenge our holy assembly to live the Gospel beyond our walls and into the community around us.

Challenge

This entire week, challenge yourself to meet someone new, talk to someone you haven’t ever talked to, share the love of Christ with someone you would not normally spend time with.

The story of Jim Elliot and his four friends is a story I grew up hearing during our annual missions nights at my church.  It is the story of five men compelled to share the Gospel to one of the most hostile people groups in South America, the Huarorani people.  These people lived in a remote section of Ecuador and were known as a savage people who did not care for outsiders.

Jim and his four friends decided they had to reach out to this people.  They flew into Ecuador and landed a small plane by a river close to one of the Huarorani's villages.  Early reports from the missionaries were promising.  The people seemed to be open to their presence, even sharing in some time at their campsite by the river.  Many waited anxiously to hear more from the men.

Unfortunately, the men would never get the chance to share any more with the world.  During the night, warriors from the tribe snuck into the missionaries' camp and killed all five men.  It was a tragic story made famous by the national coverage it received, including a piece in Life magazine.

The Huarorani were an isolated people who did not trust nor like outsiders.  Jim and his friends believed all people deserved to hear the great truth of the Gospel, that no person should ever have to live in isolation from God.  This would lead to their deaths, but it would not be the end of their story.

One of the men with Jim Elliot was Nate Saint.  Nate had a sister named Marjorie.  She believed wholly in her brother's mission and did not see his death as the end of God's calling to this isolated people group.  She would continue her brother's mission to the Huarorani and eventually would make inroads that would lead the entire village to come to know Christ.  Nate's son Steve spent a lot of time with his Aunt Marjorie among the Huarorani people, helping her in sustaining his father's legacy of mission work.

When I was in High School, my older brother and his wife invited me down to Houston, TX to attend a concert by the Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman.  Chapman had been inspired by the story of Jim Elliot and his friends, writing his newest album around their story.  During one point in the concert, Steve Saint joined him on stage.  But so to did another man named Mincaye of the Huarorani people, pastor of their local church

What was so significant about this gathering is that Mincaye was not only an elder in the village and pastor of the church, Mincaye was the man who many years ago had killed Steve's father Nate.  Here is Steve Saint standing on stage with his father's killer sharing in the glorious grace of the Gospel of Christ.

How far has God been willing to go to reach us with his love and grace?  How far are we as his children willing to go to share this same love and grace with the world around us?  My prayer is that there would be no mountain so high, no valley too deep, no place so far that we would not be willing to answer the call to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world around us.

-Pastor Patrick

Percolator

Guiding Prayer For Our Season of Fasting: 

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Myself in Truth

Holy God give me boldness to share what I love and who I love with others. Amen

Nurtured and Nurturing 

Jesus, Son of God, help us to know and love our neighbors. Amen 

                         The Gathered

Gathering God, may our love bubble over beyond our church walls to a community in need of true hospitality.  Amen  

Challenge 

This entire week, challenge yourself to meet someone new, talk to someone you haven’t ever talked to, share the love of Christ with someone you would not normally spend time with.

Percolator

One of my favorite books is “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. I think I love it because Miller speaks about himself and his faith with absolute honesty.  Honesty that is touching and hilarious and achingly sad at times.  The book opens with Miller talking about how he first began to love Jazz music.

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.”

As I thought about this excerpt from the book today, I thought about how true that was about so many things in life, like sharing.  You only really learn to share from people who love to share.  If sharing were unpleasant every time you witnessed it, then no one would ever do it.  You have to experience the joy that someone gets from sharing with you, to truly want to share yourself.

I remember the mornings after I would spend the night with my Grandma Patterson.  She would wake me up and make buttered toast in the toaster oven and I would watch the percolator on top of the coffee pot bubble as we waited for the timer on the oven.  After the ding, we would sit at the table together and have our toast with sausage and eggs and grandma would have her coffee. 

I remember how good that coffee smelled and how much she seemed to enjoy it. She would look at me watching her drink her coffee with such pleasure and she would get up and get me a little pink melamine coffee cup and put about ¼ cup of coffee and sugar to about ¾ cups of milk. I remember how she would smile as I would hold that cup just like her, like I was big, and enjoy the coffee with her.

That’s why l love coffee so much I think, because Gran loved to share it.

I wonder if the same could be true of hospitality.  What if others will never experience and show hospitality unless they experience someone else’s love of it first?  I think hospitality is contagious. When we open our homes and lives up to others, they feel freer to open theirs up as well. 

But hospitality isn’t just about our homes; it’s a way of living. When we get to know the guy or girl behind the counter at the gas station, they feel freer to share of themselves and get to know me as well.  Hospitality can give us something to look forward to everyday.

When we share what we love or simply just share our love, then we show others, and sometimes remind others how to share and love in their lives. It has a percolating effect on the people around us, and the love of Christ bubbles up everywhere.

Week 3 Fast Guide

Good morning everyone!  I want to apologize for not having posted the first two weeks worth of Fasting Guides here on the blog.  Each week, from now till the end of our fast, we will begin posting those guides at the start of each week.  Below is Week 3's guide as well as the intro piece on what fasting is and why we as a church are engaging in this important spiritual practice.  Thanks everyone!  Have a great week.

-Pastor Patrick

The Fast: Losing to Find 

            Be honest.  How many of you cringed when you saw the word fast, visions of your favorite foods racing through your brain in fearful anticipation of what it would be like to not enjoy them for days on end?  For most of us, those are the images that first come to mind when we hear someone talk about fasting as a spiritual discipline.  “I’m not going to be able to eat.  How will I survive?”  The problem with this is it is only half the truth about fasting.  Yes, fasting is giving up something.  But, the point of fasting is that you give something up in the hope of finding something else, namely God.

            We are on the cusp of an exciting new chapter of ministry here at Antioch Baptist Church.  A team of people will soon begin the process of helping us seek God’s vision and direction for the future of our church.  As we move into this time of vision and discernment together, I am calling our church into a 7 week fast.  7 weeks?  Yes, 7 weeks.  It’s a nice, holy number!  The hope is that as we spend each week fasting from something, it will draw us as a church family together toward something bigger.

            Here’s how it’s going to work.  Each week, you will be called to fast from something.  It could be TV.   It could be food.  It could be gossip.  You’ll just have to wait and see!  But as you are fasting from something, you are also going to be challenged to try and gain something bigger.  Along the way we will be providing you with many helpful resources.  One of the most important will be our online blog in which you will find daily meditations and prayers as well as testimonies from your fellow church members on where they are finding God along the way.  You can find the blog at www.antiochasitis.blogspot.com. (To submit testimonies, please email them to office@antiochweb.org.  We want to hear where you are finding God along the journey!)

            Another helpful resource will be our weekly Gathering Place prayer times.  Each Tuesday evening from 6-8 p.m. we will open up the sanctuary here at the church for a time of prayer.  It will be a time of guided prayer that you can participate in as individuals or families and will be come and go as it fits your schedule.

            Each week will center on a portion of the Lord’s Prayer.  You will focus on that theme during the week.  Then, as we gather together to celebrate the risen Christ each Sunday, we will focus our services around that theme and learn how it can and will impact the body of Christ, us!

            Will every week touch you in the same as it will others?  Probably not.  But our hope is, over the course of the 7 weeks, we will all join together, united in our pursuit of God’s presence and leadership in the life of our church.  So come and join the fast!  Let’s see what we might find together by losing ourselves in the light of Christ.

Week 3

Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

Last week, you were challenged to fast from your hurried life.  Did you find a way to make the focus of your day something or someone other than yourself or your schedule?  Did God begin to become the center of your day?  I hope so!

I want to tell you a quick truth about growing up a city boy.  I didn’t grow up in what I’d call a big city.  Waco was not and still is not the size of a Dallas or Houston, or even Raleigh.  It’s not even close.  But it’s still plenty big enough.  Growing up in a city has its perks, but it also has its downside. 

One of the downsides to living in a big city is very rarely do you actually get to know your neighbors.  When Courtney and I were living in Houston it took me almost 6 months to actually have a normal conversation with the people who lived just across the landing from us at our apartment.

You don’t have to live in a big city to know what it’s like to live in isolation.  You may know the people you work with or go to church with, or you might even know most of your neighbors.  But how many of those you don’t know are you trying share the love of Christ with by taking time to actually meet them?  We live in more isolation in our lives than we care to admit.  So that’s our challenge this week.   We are going to give up living in isolation so as to invite others to share in the richness of God’s table of grace.

Week 3 Fast: Isolation

   Fast Challenge:  This week, challenge yourself to meet someone new, talk to someone you haven’t ever talked to, share the love of Christ with someone you would not normally spend time with.  When we gather together next Sunday, we will be doing so around the Lord’s Table.  There is always room at God’s table.  Who might need to find their seat there this week?

   Prayer Focus: Each day of our fast you will be challenged to pray the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13).  Each week there will be a different emphasis of prayer.  This week, pray that God might empower you with courage and strength to live out the Gospel to the world around you, especially the parts of the world in which you might normally not spend time.