• Rhythms

    The Community Rhythms of Hoboken Grace – March 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:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 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. 

Are there things in my life that need to be eliminated because they are causing me to waste my life?

How was I able to run the race well yesterday or today?

Who can I encourage today in their training?


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:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24 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.

Bible Reading Plan


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:

  • Bible Reading Plan
  • Personal Prayer

Commute:

  • Monthly Book

Lunch:

  • Meditation Passage
  • Meditation Question

End of Work Day:

  • Memorization

Before Bed:

  • Intercessory Prayer Schedule

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: We’ve been invited to live lives of significance, to run a race with eternal consequences. It’s challenging and incredibly rewarding.

(Hand out the bread and cup.)

 

Leader: “As we take the bread, we remember that he ran the race for us, and took the ultimate blow to his body on our behalf.”

(Take the bread.)

 

Leader: “As we take the cup we remember the salvation we’ve received and the salvation we work to see others experience in this race.”

(Take the cup.)

 

Spend time in prayer thanking Him for His pursuit of us and how he was the ultimate example of this for us.


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, March 21st.

We will be abstaining from any food and will drink only water from the moment we wake until sunset.

Paul talks about how his training to run the race well includes bringing his body into submission. He controls his flesh, it does not control him. Fasting is the practice of bringing your body into submission. As hunger hits, communicate to your body that you are its master. It won’t submit immediately, but it will eventually listen.

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.

In your time away examine your training regiment. Look at the critical disciplines of the faith:

What does your time with God look like?

How are you engaging community?

How are you engaging your rhythms?

Allow God to add or subtract from your training plan. He knows what you need during this season.

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