The Fasting Practice

The Fasting Practice

Welcome

Welcome to the Fasting Practice. For over a thousand years, fasting was one of the central practices of the Way of Jesus. Apprentices of Jesus typically fasted twice a week until sundown—on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as the 40 days of Lent. Not unlike the reading of Scripture or attending church on Sunday, fasting was simply one of the things that practicing Christians did.

After all, Jesus began his life’s work with 40 days of fasting and continued to fast throughout his lifetime. And he said, “Follow me.” It makes sense that we would follow his example and incorporate fasting—in both longer and shorter intervals—into our Rule of Life, or our overall life architecture of discipleship to Jesus.

And yet, very few followers of Jesus in the modern West fast at all.

There are all sorts of reasons for this: the influence of the Enlightenment, cultural hedonism, the widespread availability of food because of modern agribusiness, the (false) advertising of the food industry telling us that we need three meals a day, the confusion of appetite with hunger (which are not the same thing), or the struggle with disordered eating and body shame. But the greatest reason is likely the West’s emphasis on the mind over the body. We’ve lost sight of the human as a whole person—mind and body and soul. Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus, helping us integrate our whole bodily selves to our center in God.

But remember: The ultimate aim of fasting is to get in touch with our hunger for God. When we fast, we awaken our bodies and souls to their deep yearning for life with the Father. We become able to say with Jesus, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”


The Nine Practices

Fasting is just one of nine core Practices in the body of resources available from Practicing the Way. The Practices are spiritual disciplines centered around the life rhythms of Jesus. They are designed not to add even more to your already overbusy life, but to slow you down and create space for the Spirit of God to form you to be with Jesus, become like him, and do what he did. Ultimately, they are a way to experience the love of God.

To run another Practice or learn more, turn to page 92.


How to Use This Guide

A few things you need to know

This Practice is designed to be done in community, whether with a few friends around a table, within your small group, in a larger class format, or with your entire church.

The Practice is four sessions long. We recommend meeting together every week or every other week. For those of you who want to spend more time on this Practice, we’ve included an additional four weeks of material in the appendix to go deeper in Scripture and discussion. You are welcome to pause for these bonus conversations in between sessions or skip over them.

You will all need a copy of this Companion Guide. You can purchase a print or ebook version from your preferred book retailer. We recommend the print version so you can stay away from your devices during the Practices, as well as take notes during each session. But we realize that digital works better for some.

Each session should take about one to two hours, depending on how long you set aside for discussion and whether or not you begin with a meal. See the sample session on the following page.

Are you a group leader or facilitator? See page 97 for helpful information and additional ideas and tips on running this Practice.

Our Practices are designed to work in a variety of group sizes and environments. For that reason, your gatherings may include additional elements like meals or worship time, or may follow a structure slightly different from the following sample. Please adapt as you see fit.


Sample Session

Here is what a typical session could look like.

Welcome

Welcome the group and open in prayer.

Introduction (2–3 min.)

Watch the introduction and pause the video when indicated for your first discussion.

Discussion 01: Practice reflection in triads (15–20 min.)

Process your previous week’s spiritual exercise in smaller groups of three to five people with the questions in the Guide.

Teaching (20 min.)

Watch the teaching portion of the video.

Discussion 02: Group conversation (15–30 min.)

Pause the video when indicated for a group-wide conversation.

Testimony and tutorial (5–10 min.)

Watch the rest of the video.

Prayer to close

Close by praying the liturgy in the Guide, or however you choose.


The Weekly Rhythm

The four sessions of this Practice are designed to follow a four-part rhythm that is based on our model of spiritual formation.

Learn

Gather together as a community for an interactive experience of learning about the Way of Jesus through teaching, storytelling, and discussion. Bring your Guide to the session and follow along.

Practice

On your own, before the next session, go and “put it into practice,” as Jesus himself said. We will provide weekly spiritual disciplines and spiritual exercises, as well as recommended resources to go deeper.

Reflect

Reflection is key to spiritual formation. After your practice and before the next session, set aside 10–15 minutes to reflect on your experience. Reflection questions are included in this Guide at the end of each session.

Process together

When you come back together, begin by sharing your reflections with your group. This moment is crucial because we need each other to process our lives before God and make sense of our stories. If you are meeting in a larger group, you will need to break into smaller subgroups for this conversation so everyone has a chance to share.


Tips on Beginning a New Practice

This Guide is full of spiritual exercises, best practices, and good advice on the spiritual discipline of fasting.

But it’s important to note that the Practices are not formulaic. We can’t use them to control our spiritual formation or even our relationship with God. Sometimes they don’t even work very well.

The key with the spiritual disciplines is to let go of outcomes and just offer them up to Jesus in love.

Because it’s so easy to lose sight of the ultimate aim of a Practice, here are a few tips to keep in mind as you practice fasting.

Start small

Start where you are, not where you “should” be. It’s counterintuitive, but the smaller the start, the better chance you have of really sticking to it and growing over time.

Think subtraction, not addition

Don’t try to add fasting into your already overbusy, overfull life. You are likely already overwhelmed. Instead, think: Formation is about less, not more. About slowing down and simplifying your life around what matters most: life with Jesus.

You get out what you put in

The more fully you give yourself to this practice, the more life-changing it will be; the more you just dabble in it, the more shortcuts you take, the less of an effect it will have on your transformation. It’s up to you: We make invitations, you make decisions.

Remember the J curve

Experts on learning tell us that whenever we set out to master a new skill, it tends to follow a J-shaped curve; we tend to get worse before we get better. That’s okay. Expect it to be a bit difficult at first; it will get easier in time. Just stay with the Practice.

There is no formation without repetition

Spiritual formation is slow, deep, cumulative work that happens over years, not weeks. The goal of this four-week experience is just to get you started on a journey of a lifetime. Upon completion of this Practice, you will have a map for the journey ahead, and hopefully some possible companions for the Way.

But what you do next is up to you.