Shabbat Challenge! (January 2013)
What Is The Shabbat Challenge?
With so many recently discovering the truth of His Torah (Praise YHVH) and learning to walk in His ways, we thought sharing all of our individual Shabbat experiences with one another would be a fun way to learn from each other.
We have graciously been offered some free giveaway items from 119 Ministries, Mason Clover, Paul Nison and Teshuva Band that we’ll send out to those that share. Of course, the best prize is the blessing of keeping His Sabbath! – This should be a lot of fun and a great learning experience for all of us. We look forward to seeing your pictures and comments!
Challenge Ends: January 31, 2013.
How To Participate
We would like to see a photo or video of your family doing Shabbat. Whether that’s at home with your family, with a group fellowship or with a congregation. We want to see what Shabbat looks like for you.
You can upload/post your Photo or Video on the Teshuva Ministries facebook page: (https://www.facebook.com/TeshuvaMinistries.Net), along with a description of what you do for Shabbat.
On the FIRST LINE(S) of your post, please include the following:
“Shabbat Challenge – Our Story”
– Location: Houston, Texas, USA
– Meeting Type: My Home, Group Fellowship, Congregration, etc…
– How Long: 2 years
– Your Shabbat Description…
This will make it easier for others to see which posts are specifically related to this topic.
How To Keep The Sabbath
If you’re new to Sabbath keeping – First, we need to know when the Sabbath day is. In Genesis, chapter 1 we are told this is the 7th day of the week. The Hebrew calendar (given by God), goes from sundown to sundown. So, the 7th day Sabbath begins on Friday evening and ends at sundown Saturday.
When getting started, there are two preliminary instructions that the Father gave us to follow.
- Rest – Cease from all work, relax and enjoy time with family and studying His Word.
- No Spending – We are not to conduct financial transactions on the Sabbath.
You’ll learn more as you continue to study on the keeping the Sabbath. But much of the traditions you’ll hear about are optional. You decide what you want to do with your day of rest (as long as it doesn’t break Torah of course). Here is a teaching on The Sabbath Day by 119 Ministries to get you started.
It’s typical to study the weekly Torah portions, as this has been done for thousands of years. We post these readings on our website in the Torah Portions section under Torah. They are read by Paul Nison with some commentary, but we also link out to a few other resources for additional studies.
Shabbat Facebook Post Example:
Just to give you an initial idea, this is what our family does:
– Temporary Photo –
“Shabbat Challenge – Our Story”
– Location: Houston, Texas, USA
– Meeting Type: Group Fellowship
– How Long: 1 year
Friday before dark, we will pickup any supplies we might need for food preparation and fill up with gas if running low. Once we get the entire family home we will set the table and have a family dinner with a little wine and challah bread. Sometimes we may light a candle if it’s a nice meal or something, but this isn’t the norm for us.
We try to keep the distractions down by turning off the TV while the kids are up. They are encouraged to play with toys, color, or whatever they would like to do for fun. Once the kids are off to bed, the wife and I will do some bible study together that may consist of reading, watching a teaching through the Teshuva Ministries website or catch Shabbat Night Live with Michael Rood.
The next morning we all sleep in as late as we want to before getting a simple breakfast. At 11:00am we drive to meet at another family’s home to have a group lunch and then spend the day in study of the weekly Torah portion or other topics that come up. We have 7 kids in the group right now between the three families and they have good time playing together.
If possible, we all try to read and study the weekly Torah portion prior to arriving at Shabbat. That way, when we get there, it’s possible to dive deeper into the Word and look for hidden meanings and shadow pictures being developed. We chase any rabbit hole or question that comes up and work to make connections to other parts of the Bible where it’s being referenced.
We usually head back home around 4pm and spend the rest of the day playing with our kids and getting dinner started as the sun goes down.
It’s a relaxing time and very quickly became the favorite day of the week for our family. It was awkward the first week or two because you’re simply not used to the downtime. The Father knows we need time to recharge our batteries and it’s a blessing to have a weekly scheduled appointment to enjoy our friends, family and dedicated time with our Creator.
