Start with Sabbath

Our #1 piece of advice for sacred rhythms at any stage of faith

Hi friends,

Mariko here.

Raise your hand if you feel overwhelmed by, under-qualified for or just plain irritated by being your family’s spiritual director. (Whether you are a family of one or twenty-one, this is valid.)

Listen, I get it. It’s 2025. California’s burning. Every public surface is being coughed on by a glassy-eyed toddler. Planes keep inexplicably crashing.

Somehow in the midst of this, we’re supposed to be “making our faith our own?” Many of us have been doing this since the early Covid days, when church got cancelled for a while…(and when many of us started questioning elements of said church and then found ourselves cancelled…) This liminal spiritual space can be liberating, but it can also be wearying.
For those of us with kids, the added responsibility of our kid’s spiritual welfare, feels impossibly heavy.

Take a deep breath. I got you.

First of all, you’re not alone. Our inbox is full of people saying similar things. In fact, Rachel wrote a whole essay about y’all and how we intend to help this year.

To anyone who comes to me loving The Book of Belonging but looking for more, I say the same thing:

Start with Sabbath

(Now comes more personal stuff, but if you want our version of “Jump to Recipe”, click here to scroll down)

If you’re here, you’ve probably read The Book of Belonging so you probably know that Sabbath means “rest”. It’s the first spiritual practice God ever introduced. It’s one that God points God’s people to repeatedly throughout Scripture, when they seem to forget who they are or who God is.

Sabbath reminds us of our identity. And our identity will always inform our actions.

We humans tend to slide toward one extreme or the other when it comes to our posture towards God’s love. We disintegrate into shame, hiding because we feel unworthy or overwhelmed. Or we rev up into striving, trying to earn what God is already giving.

Sabbath basically reminds us that all of that is um, garbage. It’s unnecessary. It makes jokers of us all.

Once a week, we get a chance to be reminded of who we are: human beings. Not human doings or human havings. Just being. It can be excruciatingly humbling or excruciatingly vulnerable, depending on where you land. That’s how unconditional love works, it seems.

Sabbath does not have to be a formal to-do. In fact (lean in close now so I can whisper) it doesn’t have to include a church building.

Sabbath is about restoration and that will look different for every person and every family.* Maybe you feel most spiritually present in nature, so you go hiking on Sabbath. Maybe you’re stimulated by study, so you start a Sabbath book club. Maybe you’re more sensate, so you cook/dance/craft together. Maybe you have a newborn at home and your spiritual practice is napping and gratitude.

I am here to tell you that Sabbath can be as unique and varied and imperfect as the people who practice it. And I wholeheartedly believe that God intended it to be so.

There’s an old saying that “You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” When I look back on my life or when I read the stories in the Bible about folks like us, seeking and stumbling after God, I see how true that is. I think that is what Sabbath is for.

After all, Sabbath was famously reintroduced by God after God’s people escaped from generations of enslavement in Egypt. God led them to the wilderness, a place of quiet closeness, to re-establish relationship with them.

Picture this group of people, heartbroken and traumatized. Looking for safety and healing. Likely overwhelmed by the liminal place they found themselves. As the story goes, it was a long and winding road to their Promised Land, but God gave them headlights for that road, in the form of Sabbath.

Sabbath is how God takes the overwhelming, messy weight of SPIRITUAL LIFE and breaks it into manageable pieces.

So how about it. Should we just…try? Should we give ourselves a chance to view this long road ahead through our headlights?

Let’s start with Sabbath.

How to Create a Family Sabbath Practice

Ingredients

1. A weekly time
   We do Friday sundown to Saturday sundown because we are nerdy little Bible nerds.** Maybe you work weekends and Monday brunch is your thing. Maybe your family huddles up every Thursday at Chuck E Cheese. Just be consistent or you’ll never commit, trust me.

2. A few consistent elements…
   Every Friday, my middle kid runs home from the bus stop, Naruto-style, bellowing

   SAAAAAABBBBBBAAAAAAAAAATTTTTHHHHH

(My neighbors love it, so let’s chalk that one up as evangelism.)

Is this because I birthed holy angel children who love to sing hymns, listen to sermons and memorize Scripture? Uh, no. It’s because we’ve been honing our family Sabbath practice since 2020 and it’s the single best thing we have ever done for our family’s spiritual growth.

Not church.

Not books.

Not sermons or podcasts or prayer or songs or baptism or sword drills or…

No. We order Five Guys, we watch a movie, everyone gets snuggled at bedtime and then Saturday morning is family time.

It doesn’t have to be complex. It doesn’t even need to be overtly religious or spiritual. It just needs to create what researchers call “family warmth”, the single greatest predictor of lifelong faith engagement***

I’d love to do some more contemplative or educational practices in the future, but for now, with the ages my kids are at, this works for us and we all look forward to it every week.

Instructions:

1. Create a Catchphrase

Come up with a slogan/mantra/jingle for your family Sabbath practice.
You could recite the fruit of the spirit. You could borrow from BoB (“I belong to God, I am loved by God and I am delightful to God.”) You could choreograph a silly dance to Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney. It just has to resonate with you/your family and create some intention around the time.

We always ask our kids “what do we remember on Sabbath?” they respond with some version of “Mommy loves me, Daddy loves me and God loves me.” and we ask “What could you do to make Mommy Daddy or God STOP loving you?” and they get to shout (never underestimate shouting) “NNNNOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTHHHHHHIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!”

2. Make it Special

The human brain is wired to love novelty, so designate certain “Sabbath” things for an easy dopamine hit. We have a Sabbath Candle we always light (yes, there is a weekly battle over the lighting AND the blowing out.) We have a Sabbath Blanket that we spread out to protect our couch from greasy fingers and farts. I try to remember to pick up some sort of special Sabbath Dessert (literally a can of whipped cream one time).

3. Set some Structure

Come up with a few easy, easy rules.* Not only does this keep the time special and intentional, but nothing delights kids more than catching you breaking them.

Ours are: no work, no phones, we play and we remember (insert our catchphrase).

4. Let it Be

Let it be simple. Let it feel ridiculous. Let it feel like you’re getting away with something. So many of us were taught to believe that if it wasn’t uncomfortable, guilt-inducing or boring, it couldn’t possibly hold spiritual value or be considered Sabbath. But I promise you that designated time for rest and family warmth is lovely and meaningful in a way you can’t anticipate. If your brain isn’t cooperating, maybe agree to a trial run. Commit to four consecutive weeks and see if you don’t feel more connected to God, yourself and one another.

Resources:

*Sacred Pathways : If you’re having trouble finding what fits you or your family best, consider this resource. I read this book way back in the early 2010s, so I can’t endorse every word in it...But the author lays out nine different ways people tend to connect with God. Helpful if you need some language for self-reflection.

**BEMA Discipleship Podcast is one of my favorite resources to recommend. (You can catch our episode here! And you can catch Elle’s influence all over our book as one of our advisors!) This episode in particular was so helpful in understanding Sabbath and setting up a practice of my own.

***Woven by Meredith Miller is such a fantastic resource for understanding family warmth…and also just in general

Whew, that was a long one. Thanks for sticking with me. I promise I’ll continue to stick with you, too. And you can stick with one another — please share your own family Sabbath practices in the comments, so we can crowdsource this important rhythm! We’re in this together.