Rhythms
The Community Rhythms of Hoboken Grace – April 2024
One of the most difficult and yet beautiful steps in our maturity as disciples of Christ is the embracing of our disabilities. The scriptures are incredibly clear that it’s in our weakness that His strength is displayed and yet we continue to act as if this journey is about our strength instead of His.
He calls us to embrace our weakness. He calls us to live in light of our disabilities.
The following book is designed to help us address two of the most destructive of our disabilities; our forgetfulness and our blindness.
Our forgetfulness robs us of living in light of His grace, His provision, His love, and His presence. We have the capacity to walk out of an incredible experience with Him and in a moment to believe the lie that He is distant. We need to develop rhythms in our lives and day that call us to remember the reality that we live and move and breathe in Him.
Rhythms also help us address our blindness because they draw us into a conversation with Him that does not cease. Rather than simply speaking to him once a day or once a week, we intentionally schedule times throughout our day to reignite our conversation with Him if by chance it has ceased. We seek to live our lives listening. We seek to live our lives attune to the voice that awakens us to the truth of God. We seek to pray without ceasing as we engage Him throughout our day rather than wasting our conversation by talking to ourselves.
Throughout history those who have known God well, those who have walked with Him, have lived lives with rhythms that called them back frequently to the one they loved most. We seek to do the same. We hope you’ll join us.
Each month we choose one passage on which to meditate for the month. We read this passage every day at a scheduled time and ask God to help us understand it better by allowing it to sift through the lives we lead. Our return to it over and over keeps the truth fresh in our minds as we experience the world around us and allows it to come alive. We seek to listen as the Spirit uses it to enlighten our experience of the journey with Christ.
Throughout this month we will be meditating on:
“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
1 Corinthians 10:11-13 NIV
Each month as we meditate on truth, we come to God with questions for Him to speak into during our month. We can learn truth intellectually, but we need the Spirit to speak truth into our hearts for us to awaken to it. Bring the following questions to God. Wait for Him to answer throughout your month. Allow the Spirit to do what only He can do.
Is there somewhere in my life where I’m believing I can’t win?
Where do I need to stand firm that I am beginning to compromise?
Who do I need to bring into this conversation?
God, how are you providing a way out?
In memorizing God’s word, we allow the Spirit to bring truth into our lives at any moment as He calls us back to a passage at just the right time in just the right situation.
This month our memory verse is:
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV
In God’s pursuit of us He has given us an incredible gift of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are given to allow us to know Him. They introduce us to Him. They allow us to see His heart, purpose, and plan. Each year we read through the New Testament together as a family to pursue the one who has pursued us. To subscribe to our reading plan simply visit the site below where you can sign up to receive the daily reading every weekday morning in your inbox.
God calls us to fight for people in prayer. The power of prayer is far beyond our understanding, and in faith we bring before God those we fight for. In order to fight well, we’ve designated certain days to certain prayer requests. This allows us to be intentional and obedient in prayer.
Monday – Friends who don’t know Christ
Tuesday – Family
Wednesday – Church
Thursday – Dinner Group
Friday – City and nation
Saturday – World
Sunday – Co-workers
Developing healthy rhythms in your life is about finding a schedule that works for you. It’s about figuring out how to incorporate all that we’ve talked about into your daily, weekly, and monthly experience. It’s about prioritizing and consistently pursuing the one who loves you most. To help in establishing these rhythms, we also created a way to set-up daily reminders through the Hoboken Grace App. Once you download and open the app, just go to the top left hand corner, then settings, notifications and click to turn on rhythms. You will be sent reminders in the morning, at lunch and right before the end of the work day. Many of us follow the daily rhythm schedule below, but feel free to adjust it based on your daily flow and expectations.
Morning:
Commute:
Lunch:
End of Work Day:
Before Bed:
The Lord’s Supper is another rhythm of remembrance and a rhythm we can experience in the community. Each month in your dinner group you’ll walk through our monthly communion practice that ties into our meditation passage for that month as well as our memory verse. The leader will walk you through the following questions.
As you begin communion this month, read through our meditation passage together. (See above.)
Leader: Tonight we remember the one who gave His life not only for our sin, but also so that we might find victory!
(Hand out the bread and cup.)
Leader: “As we take the bread, we remember that he sacrificed his body for us to fight with him not against him.”
(Take the bread.)
Leader: “As we take the cup we remember that he has made us clean and calls us to live out who now have become.”
(Take the cup.)
Spend time in prayer thanking Him for His pursuit of us and how we can know he is for us in our fight against sin and temptation.
Fasting is a practice that allows us to contain the appetites of our flesh while feeding our appetite for the one who loves us most. In denying the appetite for food, we learn that we are stronger than our flesh while at the same time feeding our appetite for Christ, reminding ourselves of where the desires of our hearts are actually found.
This month we will be fasting on Thursday, April 18th.
We will be abstaining from any food and will drink only water from the moment we wake until sunset.
The fight against temptation is the same as the fight against the urge of hunger. It requires that we overcome our flesh and teach it to obey truth. Train well during this time today!
It’s in silence and solitude that we create space for God to speak to our soul. Those who pursued God often did so in the wilderness. This quarter we invite you to take a day and find a space you can enjoy in solitude and silence. Try to spend at least four hours walking through this rhythm.
During your time of solitude spend time with the contemplative questions and lean into what God wants to reveal to you.
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