The Fasting Practice
What if we are missing out on one of Jesus’ most essential practices?
Fasting is going without food for a set amount of time to awaken our body and soul to our deep hunger and need for God. It’s one of the most powerful — and neglected — of all of Jesus’ practices.
What to expect
Each Practice comes with four session videos, weekly exercises and readings, and additional resources to help your group create life-changing daily rhythms as you apprentice under Jesus together. The sessions are about 30 minutes long and include time for group discussion at the beginning.
Our Practices are perfect to use with small groups or to run course-style with a larger group, but they can also be modified for a churchwide Sunday teaching series, small cohorts, and many other contexts.
Preview Session 01Week by Week
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Very few modern Western followers of Jesus fast. But through the history of the Church, it was considered just as central as reading the Bible or gathering weekly. Fasting is one of the best disciplines we have to reintegrate our mind to our body and offer our whole selves to God in surrender.
Practice: Fast for one day, focusing on offering our whole selves to Jesus.
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Fasting has many physical benefits for our bodies that mirror how it benefits our souls — our whole person. As we grow in our theology of the body, we learn how the fight for holiness involves our whole selves, including our bodies.
Practice: Fast for one day, focusing on growing in holiness.
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All through the library of Scripture, fasting is a powerful aid and amplifier to prayer. When God’s people fast and pray, miracles happen, again and again.
Practice: Fast for one day, focusing on how it amplifies your prayers.
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Fasting is not only about ourselves. It’s also a vehicle for biblical justice, for remembering the needs of our neighbors near and far. For acting on those needs, standing against evil while standing for God’s Kingdom
Practice: Fast for one day, focusing on standing with the poor. And share the money you would have spent on food with the poor.
Recommended Resources
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The Companion Guide
Each session will use the Fasting Companion Guide. We created this guide to help you and your group build new daily rhythms into your lives.
The Guide includes weekly Reach Exercises, assigned readings and podcast episodes, and reflection questions. You can purchase a beautiful printed version, or download the digital guide for free when you sign up to run the Practice.
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Recommended Reading
For the Fasting Practice, we’re reading God’s Chosen Fast by Arthur Wallis. Each week, you’ll be assigned readings in the Fasting Companion Guide.
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Rule of Life Podcast
In the Fasting series of the Rule of Life podcast, John Mark Comer, Yinka Dawson, and Jarin Oda host guests who discuss the challenges and joys of fasting.