Every January, Brethren in Christ U.S. invites individuals and congregations to participate in the Week of Prayer and Fasting. This annual practice connects BIC people across the world to join in prayer around a certain theme and seek the Lord at the beginning of a new year.
Participants can engage in any number of ways, but here are four practices to deeply engage in the theme and devotionals.
1. Join Others
Most things are better together, so invite a spouse, family member, or friend to join you in this devotional. Perhaps your Sunday school class or life group would like to commit to it for a week. Whoever you do it with, you can share with each other your key takeaways from that day’s devotional.
2. Pray Intentionally
Each daily devotional includes a short prayer that reflects on the content of the devotional. In addition to this, you can plan a prayer theme for your week. Maybe select a different family member, congregation, people group, or missionary to pray for each day. Let the daily devotionals be your reminder to pray for those people.
3. Fast Sacrificially
Fasting is perhaps the least discussed spiritual discipline, probably because it is physically uncomfortable. Take this week as an opportunity to dip your toe into the richness of this spiritual practice. Our Fasting Guide offers Biblical context for fasting and suggests ways you can meaningfully and safely embrace this practice.
4. Engage Scripture
Each daily devotional includes a passage of Scripture. Some are short; others are long. But we invite you to deeply meditate on all of them. Try reading the verses aloud or hand-copying them in a journal to make the passage more personal. Or practice Lectio Divina (an ancient Scripture-reading tool that means “Divine Reading”) to fully immerse yourself in the passage; you can find guides online.
However you engage in the Week of Prayer and Fasting this year, our prayer is that you will be drawn closer to Christ and will experience his life-changing power.
