The Sabbath is more than a day. It’s a principle.
God gave us the Sabbath to remind us we are made to find our rest and, ultimately, our fulfillment in Him. It’s about the practical, yet powerful act of setting some time apart for the Lord. Listening. Searching. Remembering His faithfulness. Laying our burdens upon Him. Looking past all our distractions. It’s even about self-denial – the kind that sets us free from the weight of our fleeting earthly desires. Jesus showed us that the Sabbath is also a time to be healed. Sabbath is a lost art. It’s a forgotten treasure. It’s crowded out by the bustle of life we’ve come to accept as “normal.” We want to rediscover God’s “normal” and the transformative power of sabbath in and for our church.

 

Every Seventh Week
For seven weeks in 2010, we’re going to deeply emphasize the principle of Sabbath and set apart our time, our attention and our affections to focus more deeply on God and rest in Him. Beginning with the week of February 7th – 13th, every seventh week thereafter will be a time we as a congregation honor God together. This will include a week of simple daily devotions provided by the church as well as some scripture, fasting and prayer initiatives.

 

Why not just Sunday?
Having a Sabbath every week is important. But throughout Scripture we discover the application of the Sabbath principle beyond just one day of the week. Even the farmland was allowed to “enjoy” a Sabbath and be renewed (Leviticus 26)! To cut through the cultural static, we believe God is leading us as a church to go to greater measures to learn what it means to live as people who rest in God and set apart our time for Him. In a way, you might say that desperate times call for desperate measures. God is shaping us a Church who will go beyond the widely accepted “minimum requirements” for Christian living in a culture that is becoming more confused and stagnate when it comes to faith.