Community Guides

Alafair Kionka 2/17/26 Alafair Kionka 2/17/26

Guide 1: Work

Good News About Our Bodies

(Leader note: Consider inviting people to bring a journal to each night of Community during this series, to capture what God is speaking to them during the moments of silent prayer.)

Review the Practice (10 minutes)

As we focus in this series on what it means that we carry God’s good news to the world in our bodies, we will use this review time each week to reflect together on our Lenten renunciation—the neutral appetite, habit, or activity that we are laying down for the 40 days before Easter in order to make space to experience our deeper love for God.

Have you been following through on your intention in your Lenten renunciation?
How has your renunciation shaped your awareness of God this week?
What resistance, discomfort, or attachment is being exposed in you?

Overview (2 minutes)

After breathing life into humanity, God looked at us and called us “very good” (Genesis 1v31). Since then, however—with the intrusion of shame, sickness, addiction, and broken relationships,—it has grown increasingly difficult to agree with God’s original assessment. Each of us can offer all sorts of protest to his claim: we have deep insecurity about how we look or feel, patterns of sin and shame, chronic illnesses, unwanted desires, and so much more. Despite our discomfort, though, God designed us with bodies—bodies that carry his image and declare his good news to the world around us, even in the midst of our brokenness.

During this series, we will delve into God’s claim of good news about our bodies through the lens of one of the most embodied practices in church history: fasting. But because there is more to our body than nourishing it with food, we will do so using the ancient exercise of renunciation: laying down a neutral appetite, habit, or activity in order to make space to explore and experience our deeper love for God. While we will focus on a different theme for each Guide, tonight we begin with the topic of our paid and unpaid work.

We will investigate these various implications to God’s claim of the good news about our bodies using the same framework each week. First, we’ll prayerfully explore our relationship to the week’s theme. Then, we’ll continue our rhythm of confession—this time in groups of men and women—sharing and praying for each other. Finally, we will end by receiving communion.

Exercise for Tonight

Let’s begin the first movement in our exercise for tonight: silent prayer to process with God our resonance and resistance in our relationship to our work, concluding with silent confession.

Silent Prayer (7 minutes). As we pray, let’s keep in mind that there are so many ways that sin can show up in our paid and unpaid work. Perhaps we’ve undervalued our calling as a parent or spend too many hours at the office. Maybe we envy someone else’s job, are neglecting God’s invitation to us in retirement, or are placing more importance on work than people. Maybe it’s something else entirely. We’ll let the Spirit gently name whatever is out of alignment and then confess it back to him.

As we begin, let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer.

(Leader note: Give people a moment to settle in.)

Come, Holy Spirit. Would you accompany each of us now as we pray through a few questions connected to our work? First, what are the various aspects of my paid and unpaid work? What is my current understanding of how I’ve been invited to partner with God to bring his good news to the world around me? (Leader note: Give people 30-60 seconds to reflect on this with God.)

Next, how am I currently experiencing God’s presence to me in this work? Let’s silently thank God as he brings these things to mind. (Leader note: Give people 60 seconds to reflect on this with God.)

How do I want to be experiencing God’s presence to me in this work? Let’s silently ask God for these, as they come to mind. (Leader note: Give people 60 seconds to reflect on this with God.)

Where do I feel resistance when I think about the good news of my body in my work? Let’s silently offer our resistance to God and ask him for help to yield more fully. (Leader note: Give people 60 seconds to reflect on this with God.)

Where am I living out of alignment with my embodied work? What do I need to confess to God and receive his forgiveness? Holy Spirit, we ask for your help to see where we’ve strayed in relationship to our work and why. Take us to a moment, attitude, or pattern of behavior that is out of alignment with your Kingdom. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations—not just to where we’ve strayed, but what led to that sin. And, as you bring these things to mind, we will silently confess them back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer. (Leader note: Give people 90 seconds to confess silently to God.)

God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thank you for delighting to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Help us live more in line with your good news. Amen.

Corporate Confession & Prayer (20 minutes). Ok, as we’ve begun to process these things with God, now we’re going to continue processing them with one another in two groups—men and women. Once in these groups, we’ll begin by going around, one at a time, to confess out loud in one or two sentences the sin we just confessed to God in prayer.

Before we split up, a confession for tonight might sound like, “I confess that I resent my work because it doesn’t look like my friend’s, which means I’m not trusting how God is using my work,” or “I confess that I’ve been striving to find approval in my work and have been spending too many hours at the office, neglecting my work as a parent and spouse,” or “I confess that I feel so overwhelmed with trying to find a job, that I’ve given into the sin of sloth,” or “I confess that I’ve been trying to do so much because I’m insecure about the sufficiency and importance of my work as a full-time parent.”

We’ll begin by going around in a circle so each person can make their confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will say, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you, hears you, and sees you. And so do we. And God freely forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.

After we each take time to confess and declare forgiveness over each other, we’ll spend the remaining time processing what came up for us in prayer and praying for one another.

Our conversations in this series will likely feel different from the ones we’ve typically had, due to the personal and sensitive nature of the topics. With that in mind, in order to guide our conversations and guard our vulnerability, let’s establish some shared agreements for engagement in this series.

Our Posture: Trust the process. For the sake of clarity, focus, and constructive conversation, the scope of our conversation will be highly particular each time we get together. More will be brought up each Sunday than we are able to discuss, so if you need someone to process something we don’t get to, please reach out to me (i.e. your Community Leader) to set up a time to do that.

Our Promise: Honor everyone. As we discuss personal and vulnerable topics, we will build trust and safety and maintain each other’s dignity by protecting confidentiality. If a Community member is absent during a particular conversation, the only person who gets to fill them in—if they choose—is the person who shared. The only caveat to confidentiality is if the confession reveals a threat of harm—in which case the Community Leader will contact a Communities Pastor (if the threat is less urgent) or 911 (if the threat is urgent).
Our Practice: Focus on our own bodies. There can be a temptation to use these topics to discuss other people’s experiences and bodies, instead of our own. Our shared goal, though, is to understand God’s good news about our bodies, so each of us is committing to limit our sharing to the context of our own experience.

Do we all agree to this?

(Leader note: Go around to get everyone’s agreement.)

Thank you. We’ll come back to this weekly to build trust together. For now, let’s break up into those two groups—men and women—and spend the next 15 minutes on corporate confession, sharing what came up for us during that prayer time, and then praying for one another.

(Leader note: Set a timer, calling everyone back together when both groups are done.)

Communion (1 minute). Having had time now to confess to God and to one another, we’re going to receive communion together. Before we do, let’s take a moment in silence to come back to God’s loving presence to us—to our God who calls us “very good.” Even now, draw your attention to his nearness to you.

(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)

Sisters and brothers, Jesus allowed his own body to be broken for ours—that we might be made whole. Your body is good news because his body is good news. One day, we will be raised, whole and free. Until then, we receive God’s grace to help us live as embodied good news to the world. Take the body and blood of Christ, who poured out his love for us on the cross to freely forgive and restore us to himself. Let’s eat and drink and remember him.

Exercise for the week ahead (1 minute)

Tonight we reflected on the good news about our bodies as it relates to our work, confessing where we’ve erred and receiving the grace of God through communion and prayer for one another. Until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead is to:

Continue your Lenten renunciation, turning the attention you would have given to whatever you’ve renounced to God instead.
As you continue your renunciation, be curious about how God might be inviting you towards a deeper relationship with him in your embodied, everyday life.

Alafair Kionka 2/8/26 Alafair Kionka 2/8/26

Guide 5: Vanity

Seven Deadly Sins

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Let’s begin tonight by pausing and reflecting on what God stirred in us through last week’s practice of confession around sloth. As a group, let’s share briefly:

Where did you notice yourself checking out, avoiding something important, or numbing out this week?
Did you take one small step toward engagement or responsibility? What happened?

Guide overview (3 min)

We’ve all come face-to-face with brokenness—ours and others’—and know the shame, frustration, and sadness that comes in the aftermath of not loving God or others with our whole hearts. Try as we might, though, willpower isn’t enough to make our sin go away. We need help to overcome what Jesus calls our slavery to sin. (John 8v34)—we need a Savior. The good news is that God has come to our rescue. John tells us that “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1v9). We partner with God in uprooting the corrosive power of sin in our lives through the practice of confession: telling the truth about what we’ve done so that we can receive God’s freely-given forgiveness.

During this series, we are exploring seven historically recognized root sins and inviting the light of God’s love to shine into our darkness by confessing our sin to him and to one another. While we may fear that confessing changes the way people see, respect, or even love us, hearing another person’s confession and praying God’s forgiveness over them is healing for both people. Sin is too strong for any one of us to defeat alone. But for us to confess together, we need to treat it with utmost care, which is why we’ve established some ground rules and are using an agreed upon framework each week to ensure safety, build trust, and grow together.

This week, we’re focusing on the sin of vanity. Vanity is a form of lust—not lust for another person, but lust for the perfection of our own body or image. It is the disordered desire to secure admiration, approval, or identity through how we appear. While it can look like confidence or self-focus on the surface, vanity is often driven by shame and insecurity underneath. It fixates on one visible part of us because we quietly believe that we are not enough as we are. Vanity is the attempt to assume responsibility for securing and maintaining an image that God alone can bestow.

So, tonight, we will continue in our aim to be a community of love and depth in a culture of individualism and superficiality through the practice of Community, by means of the exercise of confession.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

One of the many reasons corporate confession is important is that it allows us to hold one another in the loving presence of God, preaching the good news of God’s forgiveness to each other that is often difficult to believe for ourselves. That said, it’s important to be on the same page about how we engage in our practice of corporate confession. As we experienced last week, every confession is vulnerable and sacred, so privacy and confidentiality matter as we keep building a sustainable rhythm together. To that end, we will use the same framework every week, beginning with reading our Shared Community Agreements for Safeguarding by talking about our posture, our promise, and our practice.

Our Posture: Every confession is sacred.

It is a privilege to witness the courage it takes to confess sin out loud. When someone confesses, we are witnessing the outpouring of God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We are on holy ground together. So each confession will be met with God’s compassion by responding with something like: “Thank you for sharing. God loves you with an everlasting love and joyfully forgives you.”

Our Promise: Every confession stays in this room.

We build trust and safety and maintain each other’s dignity by protecting confidentiality. A sin confessed by someone is released to Jesus and should not be repeated by any of us. If a Community member is absent during a confession, the only person who gets to fill them in—if they choose—is the person confessing. The only caveat to confidentiality is if the confession reveals a threat of harm—in which case the Community Leader will contact a Communities Pastor (if the threat is less urgent) or 911 (if the threat is urgent).

Our Practice: Everyone participates.

We will show our support for each other by all participating in confession. Simply observing doesn’t help create a safe and vulnerable environment. Each of us is committing to participate in confession and declaring God’s forgiveness.

Do we all agree to this?

(Leader note: Go around and have everyone agree.)

Thank you all. We will keep reading and committing to this each week to build trust together. As you know, our framework for the evening is: a shortened Examen with silent confession, corporate confession, and then communion.

So let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer, and then we’ll take 3 minutes to pray the Examen—asking the Spirit to search us and draw our attention to a moment this week where the sin of vanity was present in our lives. As God brings something to mind, we’ll silently confess it to him, admitting where we sinned and asking for his forgiveness. And as we confess the fruit of our vanity, explore with God the root—where did that vanity originate?

A Condensed Examen. Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the week we’ve lived so far, we ask for your help to guide us back through it with special attention to the particular sin of vanity. Take us to a moment when our desire to manage how we were seen was more important than living honestly before you. Take us to a moment when we tried to secure worth, approval or identity through our appearance, performance, or image—when we were trying to quiet shame or insecurity by controlling the outside. Come Holy, Spirit. We yield to you. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations—not just to how we presented ourselves, but what we were trying to cover or fix. As you bring something to mind, we will silently confess it back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3 minutes.)

God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thanks that it is your delight to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Thank you for rescuing us. Amen.

Corporate Confession. Ok, now that we’ve prayed about our sin, we’re going to participate in corporate confession by sharing aloud with one another by going around, one at a time, and confessing out loud in one or two sentences the sin we just confessed to God in prayer.

A confession for tonight might sound like “I confess my sin of vanity when I cared more about how I looked than how I loved by avoiding admitting a mistake because I didn’t want to seem incompetent,” or “I confess that I vainly obsessed over my appearance this week, feeling ashamed of myself and wanting to feel worthy,” or “I confess vanity in how I hid how I was really doing, trying to appear put together out of fear that people wouldn’t accept the real me.” We’ll go around in a circle, starting with me, and each make our confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will begin by thanking that person for confessing and reminding them that God has forgiven them. This could be as simple as saying, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you and God forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.

(Leader note: Begin with your own confession. “I confess…” It’s possible that in the anxiety of the moment, someone may forget to thank the previous person for their confession or remind them of God’s forgiveness. If that happens, don’t interrupt them, but go back once they’ve finished to thank the previous person and remind them of God’s forgiveness. Once everyone has finished, move onto the next section.)

Absolution & Communion. As we have each confessed silently to God and aloud to one another, let’s take a moment in silence to come back to God’s loving presence to us—to the Father who runs to each of us, forgiving us and clothing us in robes of righteousness. Even now, draw your attention to his nearness to you.

(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)

Sisters and brothers, hear the good news: when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. We have been washed clean of our sins by his love and restored to right relationship with him. Hallelujah! Thanks be to God! Take the body and blood of Christ, who poured out his love for us on the cross to freely forgive and restore us to himself. Let’s eat and drink and remember him.

Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)

As we look ahead to Ash Wednesday, we begin preparing for the Lenten practice of renunciation—the intentional laying down of a particular appetite or attachment in order to make space for a deeper love for God. Renunciation is not about rejecting good things for the sake of self-denial alone, but about loosening our grip on lesser loves so we can return to our first love. This week, prayerfully consider the following question, ready to begin your Lenten renunciation on Ash Wednesday:

What neutral appetite, habit, or activity do I want to lay down during the season of Lent in order to give God more room to speak to me? (e.g. social media, meat, sweets, caffeine, the news, video games, online shopping, podcasts, etc.)

Find someone this week to process and share this with. Also, in place of Community next week, please gather at Bridgetown for Ash Wednesday on February 18 at either 5:30 or 7:00 PM.

Isaiah Adeoye 1/29/26 Isaiah Adeoye 1/29/26

Guide 4: Sloth

Seven Deadly Sins

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Let’s begin tonight by pausing and reflecting on what God stirred in us through last week’s exercise of confession. As a group, let’s share briefly:

As we’ve practiced confession together these past four weeks, what have you noticed happening in your heart or in how you experience God’s forgiveness?
Where did you practice generosity this week instead of holding it all for myself?

Guide overview (3 min)

This week, we’re focusing on the sin of sloth. Sloth is not simply physical laziness—it is a spiritual and emotional resistance to the good we are called to do. It is a kind of inner disengagement in which we avoid love, responsibility, growth, or obedience because it feels difficult, uncomfortable, and costly. Sloth shows up as apathy toward God, indifference toward others, or neglect of the work of becoming who God is forming us to be.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

Our Posture: Every confession is sacred.

Our Promise: Every confession stays in this room.

Our Practice: Everyone participates.

Do we all agree to this?

(Leader note: Go around and have everyone agree.)

So let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer, and then we’ll take 3 minutes to pray the Examen—asking the Spirit to search us and draw our attention to a moment this week where the sin of sloth was present in our lives. As God brings something to mind, we’ll silently confess it to him, admitting where we sinned and asking for his forgiveness. And as we confess the fruit of our sloth, explore with God the root—where did that sloth originate?

A Condensed Examen. Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the week we’ve lived so far, we ask for your help to guide us back through it with special attention to the particular sin of sloth. Take us to a time when sloth shifted from healthy rest into avoidance, apathy, and disengagement from the good you were inviting us into. Take us to a moment when we chose comfort over obedience, distraction over presence, or indifference over love. Come, Holy Spirit. We yield to you. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations—not just to where we checked out, but why. As you bring something to mind, we will silently confess it back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3 minutes.)

God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thanks that it is your delight to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Thank you for rescuing us. Amen.

A confession for tonight might sound like “ I confess that I chose comfort instead of doing what love required when I kept putting off a needed conversation with my spouse because I didn’t want to deal with the tension,” or “I numbed out instead of being present with God when I spent hours scrolling on my phone at night because I felt emotionally drained and didn’t wait to face what was going on inside me,” or “I checked out instead of leaning in when a friend reached out for help and I ignored the call because I didn’t want to rearrange my evening.” We’ll go around in a circle, starting with me, and each make our confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will begin by thanking that person for confessing and reminding them that God has forgiven them. This could be as simple as saying, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you and God forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.

(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)

Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)

Tonight we again practiced corporate confession and absolution — bringing our sin into the light and receiving God’s mercy together.

Keep building a rhythm of confession. As we move past the midpoint of this series, begin thinking about how confession can remain part of your life with God beyond these seven weeks. Where could this practice regularly fit in your life?
Choose engagement over sloth. Sloth often looks like spiritual passivity, avoidance, or numbing out. This week, notice where you feel tempted to check out from God, others, or responsibility. Ask: What is one small, faithful step I can take instead? Then take it.

Isaiah Adeoye 1/15/26 Isaiah Adeoye 1/15/26

Guide 3: Greed

Seven Deadly Sins

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Let’s begin tonight by pausing and reflecting on what God stirred in us through last week’s exercise of confession. As a group, let’s share briefly:

What was your experience of confession like last week?
What was one way you practiced confession intentionally this week?

Guide overview (3 min)

This week, we’re focusing on the sin of greed. Greed is the desire to have more and to acquire without consideration of one’s actual needs or those of other people. Greed replaces a love for God with an idolatry of created things, forming an insatiable craving for more.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

Our Posture: Every confession is sacred.

Our Promise: Every confession stays in this room.

Our Practice: Everyone participates.

Do we all agree to this?

(Leader note: Go around and have everyone agree.)

So let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer, and then we’ll take 3 minutes to pray the Examen—asking the Spirit to search us and draw our attention to a moment this week where the sin of greed was present in our lives. As God brings something to mind, we’ll silently confess it to him, admitting where we sinned and asking for his forgiveness. And as we confess the fruit of our greed, explore with God the root—where did that greed originate?

A Condensed Examen. Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the week we’ve lived so far, we ask for your help to guide us back through it with special attention to the particular sin of greed. Take us to a time when greed shifted from a desire for provision into a way of protecting ourselves, gaining control, or securing our future apart from trust in you. Take us to a moment when we held too tightly to money, possessions, opportunities or status, when “wanting more” began to distort our love and damage our relationships. Come, Holy Spirit. We yield to you. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations—not just to how we were greedy, but why. As you bring something to mind, we will silently confess it back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3 minutes.)

God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thanks that it is your delight to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Thank you for rescuing us. Amen.

A confession for tonight might sound like “I confess that I acted out of greed this week when I carried my lunch past a houseless person, too preoccupied with making sure I had enough” or “I confess the sin of greed when I was too conscious about my to-do list to check in on a coworker who knew I was having a hard time because I knew it would take longer than I wanted to give,” or “I confess that I acted out of greed by prioritizing my own comfort and weekend plans–staying home to relax and watch the game–instead of showing up to help a friend move.” We’ll go around in a circle—starting with me—and each make our confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will begin by thanking that person for confessing and reminding them that God has forgiven them. This could be as simple as saying, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you and God forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.

(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)

Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)

Tonight we returned to the exercise of corporate confession and absolution—bringing our sin into the light with God and with others, and receiving his mercy and forgiveness. The exercise for the week ahead is to:

Stay committed to developing a personal rhythm of confession. Begin giving attention to what this practice of confession could look like in your everyday life, and let it lead you into greater freedom, honesty and forgiveness.
Choose generosity to counteract greed. Greed is taking more than we need for ourselves, regardless of how that affects others. This week consider where you can be generous. Ask yourself: What do I have more than enough of? And who could I share it with?

Isaiah Adeoye 1/8/26 Isaiah Adeoye 1/8/26

Guide 2: Anger

Seven Deadly Sins

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Let’s begin tonight by taking time to reflect on our practice of confession over this past week by answering these few questions together.

What was our time in confession last week like for you?
How did your personal practice of confession develop this last week—whether praying the Examen or confessing with friends?

Guide overview (3 min)

While society often views “sin” as archaic and outdated, we’ve all come face-to-face with brokenness—ours and others’. Each of us knows the shame, frustration, and sadness that comes in the aftermath of not loving God or others with our whole hearts. And, try as we might, our willpower alone isn’t enough to make our sin go away. Jesus says that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8v34), which means we need help. In the language of the Scriptures, we need a Savior—someone to deliver us from our sin. The good news is that God has come to our rescue. John tells us that “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1v9). The way we partner with God in uprooting the corrosive power of sin in our lives is through the practice of confession: telling the truth about what we’ve done so that we can receive God’s freely-given forgiveness.

During this series, we are exploring seven historically recognized root sins and invite the light of God’s love to shine into our darkness by confessing our sin to him and to one another. While we can fear that confessing may change the way people see, respect, or even love us, hearing another person’s confession and praying God’s forgiveness over them is healing for both people. We need help to uproot sin in our lives—it’s too strong for any one of us to beat alone, and we are not meant to. It’s for this reason that confession needs to be treated with utmost care, which is why we’ve established some ground rules and are using an agreed upon framework each week to ensure safety, build trust, and grow together.

This week, we’re focusing on the sin of anger. While the Bible teaches that anger isn’t always sinful (Ephesians 4v26), it becomes sinful when it moves beyond a momentary emotion into a disordered response that is misdirected or detached from the love of God and neighbor. It is often driven by wounded ego, fear, or frustration, and looks like wanting to punish or diminish someone to relieve our own discomfort—resentment, harsh words, being short-tempered, harboring bitterness, punishing by withdrawing, or justifying cruel thoughts because we felt wronged.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

Our Posture: Every confession is sacred.

Our Promise: Every confession stays in this room.

Our Practice: Everyone participates.

We will show our support for each other by all participating in confession. Simply observing doesn’t help create a safely vulnerable environment. Each of us is committing to participate in confession and declaring God’s forgiveness.

Do we all agree to this?

(Leader note: Go around and have everyone agree.)

Thank you all. We will keep reading and committing to each week to build trust together. As you know, our framework for the evening is: a shortened Examen with silent confession, corporate confession, and then communion.

So let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer, and then we’ll take 3 minutes to pray the Examen—asking the Spirit to search us and draw our attention to a moment this week where the sin of anger was present in our lives. As God brings something to mind, we’ll silently confess it to him, admitting where we sinned and asking for his forgiveness. And as we confess the fruit of our anger, explore with God the root—where did that anger originate?

A Condensed Examen. Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the week we’ve lived so far, we ask for your help to guide us back through it with special attention to the particular sin of anger. Take us to a time when anger shifted from a signal that something is wrong to a way of protecting ourselves or asserting power over others, and distorting our love and damaging our relationships. Come, Holy Spirit. We yield to you. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations—not just to how we were angry, but why. As you bring something to mind, we will silently confess it back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3 minutes.)

God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thanks that it is your delight to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Thank you for rescuing us. Amen.

Corporate Confession. Ok, now that we’ve prayed about our sin, we’re going to participate in corporate confession by sharing aloud with one another by going around, one at a time, and confessing out loud in one sentence the sin we just confessed to God in prayer. It just needs to be one sentence.

A confession for tonight might sound like “I confess that I acted out in anger by snapping at my kids this week when I really felt overwhelmed by this season of parenting,” or “I confess that I harbored resentment toward a co-worker when they received praise I felt was undeserved,” or “I confess that I withheld love from a friend by deliberately not responding to their text to punish them for hurting me.” We’ll go around in a circle—starting with me—and each make our confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will begin by thanking that person for confessing and reminding them that God has forgiven them. This could be as simple as saying, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you and God forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.

(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)

Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)

Tonight we again tried out a way to practice corporate confession and absolution—of naming our sins before God and others and receiving God’s forgiveness. The exercise for the week ahead is to:

Continue developing a personal rhythm of confession. Keep taking time to intentionally consider what a personal rhythm of confession might look like in your life. Whether it’s praying the Examen each evening (here’s a Guide to help guide you in that) or starting a confession group with some friends, keep moving towards living a life of freedom and forgiveness.

Isaiah Adeoye 1/4/26 Isaiah Adeoye 1/4/26

Guide 1: Envy

Seven Deadly Sins

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Since there is no practice so far to review, let’s discuss the aim of the Guides in this series: to establish a common vocabulary for sin and confession and a sustainable rhythm of confession in our Community. So, before we dive into the overview, let’s take a moment to discuss our personal experiences—good or bad, brief or long, past or current—with confession.

Have you ever had a rhythm of confession (whether individual or with a group)? If so, what was that like?
Based on those experiences, what might we want to emulate and what might we want to be mindful of or avoid as we grow in confession as a Community?

Guide overview (3 min)

In our day and age, society often views the concept of “sin” as archaic and outdated. And yet we’ve all come face-to-face with our brokenness—ours and others’. Each of us knows the shame, frustration, and sadness that comes in the aftermath of not loving God or others with our whole hearts. And, try as we might, our willpower alone isn’t enough to make our sin go away. Jesus says that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8v34). We need help. We need, in the language of the Scriptures, a Savior—someone to deliver us from our sin. And the good news is that God has come to our rescue. Jesus’ friend John tells us that “if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1v9). So the way we partner with God in uprooting the corrosive power of sin in our lives is through the practice of confession: telling the truth about what we’ve done so that we can receive God’s freely-given forgiveness.

During this series, we will explore seven historically recognized root sins and invite the light of God’s love to shine into our darkness by confessing our sin to him and to one another. Now, understandably there may be some initial resistance to the idea of confessing your sin to other people because we fear that it may change the way people see, respect, or even love us. It’s for this reason that confession needs to be treated with utmost care. So in a moment we will establish some ground rules and use an agreed upon framework each week to ensure safety, build trust, and grow together.

This week, we’re focusing on the sin of envy. Envy is when we respond to feelings of personal inadequacy with 1) passive resentment over the good fortune of others or 2) with active delight in their misfortune. It could look like resentment over a friend’s new house, jealousy of a coworker’s promotion, joy that someone messed up in their presentation, not celebrating another’s accomplishment, or comparing yourself to someone who you think is better, prettier, smarter, healthier, or more successful than you. So, tonight, we will engage the practice of Community through the exercise of confession. Each Community Guide in this series will be the same. We will: define and explore one of the seven sins, do a shortened Examen with silent confession, practice corporate confession, and then end by receiving communion together.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

We want to be a community of love and depth in a culture of individualism and superficiality through the practice of Community, and during this series we will lean into the exercise of confession to help us get there.

One of the many reasons corporate confession is important is that it allows us to hold one another in the loving presence of God, preaching the good news of God’s forgiveness to each other that is often difficult to believe for ourselves. Hearing another person’s confession and praying God’s forgiveness over them is healing for both people because it reminds us that sin is alive in all of us and that each of us is in need of a Savior. We need help to uproot sin in our lives—it’s too strong for any one of us to beat alone, and we are not meant to.

Now, since we are just beginning, it’s important to be on the same page about how we engage in our practice of corporate confession. Every confession is vulnerable and sacred, so privacy and confidentiality matter as we build a sustainable rhythm together. To help maintain confidentiality and safety, we will use the same framework every week. But before we get there, let’s begin with some Shared Community Agreements for Safeguarding by talking about our posture, our promise, and our practice.

Our Posture: Every confession is sacred.

Our Promise: Every confession stays in this room.

Our Practice: Everyone participates.

Do we all agree to this?

(Leader note: Go around and have everyone agree.)

Thank you all. We will be reading and committing to this each time we meet to keep building trust together. And since we’ve now established our Shared Agreements for Safeguarding, we’re ready to start. Each night we meet during this series, we will follow the same framework: a shortened Examen with silent confession, corporate confession, and then communion.

So let’s all find ourselves in a comfortable, open posture of prayer, and then we’ll take 3 minutes to pray the Examen—asking the Spirit to search us and draw our attention to a moment this week where the sin of envy was present in our lives. As God brings something to mind, we’ll silently confess it to him, admitting where we sinned and asking for his forgiveness.

A Condensed Examen. Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the week we’ve lived so far, we ask for your help to guide us back through it with special attention to the particular sin of envy. Take us to a time where we either experienced passive resentment over the good fortune of others or active delight in their misfortune. Come, Holy Spirit. We yield to you. Guide our minds, memories, and imaginations. As you bring something to mind, we will silently confess it back to you and ask for the forgiveness that you so freely offer.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3 minutes.)

God, thank you for bringing up our sin so that you can forgive it. Thanks that it is your delight to forgive and restore us back to right relationship with you. Thank you for rescuing us. Amen.

Corporate Confession. Ok, now we are going to practice corporate confession. But before we do, I wanted to share a bit about my own personal experience with it these last few months.

(Leader note: Share about what confession has been like for you as you started your own rhythm of it after the Confession Workshop at November's Community Leader Cohort.)

We’re going to go around, one at a time, and confess out loud in one sentence the sin we just confessed before God. A confession for tonight might sound like: “I confess that I was envious when I didn’t celebrate my neighbor getting a new car this week.” or “I confess that I was envious when my coworker got an opportunity to share in the meeting instead of me.” or “I confess that I was envious when I got excited that my sister had to share some bad news with the family.” or “I confess the envy I felt looking at my friend’s social media post that made his family seem perfect.” It just needs to be one sentence, “I confess that…” We’ll go around in a circle—starting with me—and each make our confession. After each person confesses, the next person to go will begin by thanking that person for confessing and reminding them that God has forgiven them. This could be as simple as saying, “Thank you for your honesty. God loves you and God forgives you.” And then they will make their own confession.

(Leader note: Allow everyone about 30 seconds of silence, and then hand out the communion elements and speak these words of absolution before receiving communion together.)

Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)

Tonight we tried out a way to practice corporate confession and absolution—of naming our sins before God and others and receiving God’s forgiveness. So, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead is to:

Begin to develop a personal rhythm of confession. Take some time to intentionally consider what a personal rhythm of confession might look like in your life. Whether you do the Examen each evening (here’s a Guide to help guide you in that) or start a confession group with some friends, take a step towards living a life of freedom and forgiveness.

Isaiah Adeoye 12/14/25 Isaiah Adeoye 12/14/25

Guide 2: Stilling Our Bodies

First Light: Advent 2025

Communion

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Solitude—intentionally quieting our lives to be with the One who loves us. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercise for the week ahead: to intentionally put into practice something that helps make your life 10% quieter and slower this Advent season. So let’s talk about how that’s going!

What step did you take to slow and quiet your life this last week? And how did it go?

Guide overview (2 min)

Hospitality is the practice of making space in our lives for other people to experience the healing of God in theirs. The idea of hospitality around the holidays, though, likely causes two different reactions in a room like this—some of us feel inspired, and others of us feel paralyzed. In the frenzied pace of “Christmas noise,” we can jump into hospitality with an unsustainable vigor or a weighty moral duty. Instead, we will continue our practice of Solitude tonight, remembering that it is from stillness that, like Jesus, we “only do what we see the Father doing” (John 5v19). Stillness grants us the vantage point of seeing where in our lives God is already working so that we can join him—not the other way around. From stillness, all of our action takes on creative potential in God’s mission to remake the world and all who live in it in his image.

Without time and space to be quiet and still, all of the seasonal tradition—friends and parties, gifts and carols—will devolve into Christmas noise and busyness. We choose, instead, to slow and quiet our bodies down as a way of cultivating an openness to God. And so, tonight, we join the global church in continuing this Advent season with the practice of Solitude through the exercise of stilling our bodies.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

We aim to be a community of peace and quiet in a culture of anxiety and noise through the practice of Solitude. The Christmas season is a prime opportunity to see this anxiety and noise on display—in the world around us and the world in us. So, it is also a prime opportunity to, like Jesus, pull away from the world to sit before the Father in stillness. Very regularly in the gospels, we find Jesus going into the wilderness to be alone with God. And if Jesus needed solitude, how much more do we?

Because it’s hard to practice Solitude with a group of people, in our pursuit of becoming a community of peace and quiet, our exercise for tonight will focus on how we can begin to practice stilling our bodies in pursuit of peace. To do this, we will practice stillness together for 3–5 minutes, and then we’ll get into smaller groups to reflect on that experience and plan for how to best integrate it into our lives this season.

As we start, find a comfortable place and posture. As you do, let’s remember that it’s unlikely that any of us will be able to experience the fullness of this experience in just a few minutes in a room full of people. And, besides that, we are so often in motion that stillness is likely to cause a slight increase in nervous energy in our bodies rather than a feeling of connectedness to God. This is ok! Instead of perfection, let our goal be to practice sitting as still as possible in this nervous energy––believing that God is here with us in it—shifting our attention away from our anxiety and towards God's presence. Feel free to use a breath prayer like we practiced last week. Perhaps, “Jesus, I receive your peace.”

Ok, I am going to set a timer and we’ll all practice stilling our bodies in God’s presence.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3–5 minutes. If it’s helpful, consider playing soft instrumental or ambient music to help people focus.)

Next, let’s break into smaller groups to discuss two things:

That exercise: What was that exercise like for you? What did you notice when you stilled your body for that long? Did you find it easy or difficult?
Our Advent season: This Advent season, we are reorienting ourselves towards quiet and stillness—not instead of the joyful Christmas traditions or hospitality, but so that we can more fully enjoy them. So, let’s have a conversation about how we can grow this stillness in our lives. Remember, though, the only way to cultivate a sustainable practice of anything is to start small. So we’re not asking about how we overhaul the entirety of our lives, but simply: What can I do this Advent season to make my life 10% slower and quieter?

(Leader note: Allow people to talk for 15–20 minutes before moving onto the next section.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we tried out a way to practice stilling our minds and continued exploring the ways in which we could slow and quiet our lives this Advent season. So, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead is to:

Add stillness to your Solitude practice. Take some time to intentionally put into practice the stillness we tried tonight. It may not connect directly to your Silence practice from last week if you chose something that involves movement (like on your drive home from work). However you choose, practice it intentionally this week with the continued goal of continuing to make your life 10% slower and quieter this Advent season.

Isaiah Adeoye 12/8/25 Isaiah Adeoye 12/8/25

Guide 1: Quieting Your Mind

First Light: Advent 2025

Communion

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Since there is no practice so far to review, let’s discuss this series’ aim. We want to see our community grow in our capacity to wait with God, listening to him and opening ourselves to him through the practice of Silence & Solitude. Through the Guides in this series, we will be invited to slow down and get quiet in a few areas of our lives. So, before we begin with tonight’s Guide, let’s take a moment to discuss our personal experiences—good or bad, brief or long, past or current—with the practice of Silence & Solitude.

Do you currently have a rhythm of Solitude in your life? If so, what is it or what has it been?
What internal resistance or external distractions come up in you during Solitude?

Guide overview (2 min)

While our cultural calendar begins in January, the church calendar starts about 4 weeks before Christmas with the season of Advent. At its most literal, the word "advent" simply means "coming." It's the season of slowing down and getting quiet, allowing our own longing for Jesus' return to grow in us as we reflect on his first long-awaited arrival as Emmanuel, "God with us."

Without time and space to be quiet and still, all of the seasonal tradition—friends and parties, gifts and carols—will devolve into Christmas noise and busyness. We seek to slow and quiet down as a way of listening to God and cultivating an openness to him.

And so, tonight, we join the global church in entering this Advent season with the practice of Solitude through the exercise of quieting our minds.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

We want to be a community of peace and quiet in a culture of anxiety and noise through the practice of Solitude. The Christmas season is a prime opportunity to see this anxiety and noise on display—in the world around us and the world in us. So, it is also a prime opportunity to, like Jesus, pull away from the world to sit before the Father. Very regularly in the gospels, we find Jesus going into the wilderness to be alone with God. And if Jesus needed silence and solitude, how much more do we?

Because it’s hard to practice Solitude with a group of people, in our pursuit of becoming a community of peace and quiet, our exercise for tonight will focus on how we can begin to practice quieting our minds in pursuit of peace. To do this, we will practice silence together for 3–5 minutes, and then we’ll get into smaller groups to reflect on that experience and plan for how to best integrate it into our lives this season.

As we start, find a comfortable place and posture. As you do, I want to remind us of a few things. First, it’s unlikely that any of us will be able to experience the fullness of this experience in just a few minutes in a room full of people. So, to set appropriate expectations, assume that our minds will wander to your to-do list, we may experience a slight increase in nervous anxiety, and we may not find ourselves feeling connected to God. All of this is ok! Instead, let your goal be to practice redirecting your attention to Jesus each time it strays using a breath prayer. Tonight, we’ll all use the same one: “Come, Holy Spirit." So, each time you find your mind wandering, simply say “Come, Holy Spirit,” silently to yourself, redirecting your attention to God. Instead of getting frustrated by how many times your mind wandered, celebrate how many times you returned to Jesus. With repetition and rhythm, this practice of redirecting your attention again and again will allow your mind to quiet and your spirit to come awake to God’s presence.

Ok, I am going to set a timer and we’ll all practice quieting our minds in silence with the breath prayer.

(Leader note: Set a timer for 3–5 minutes. If it’s helpful, consider playing soft instrumental or ambient music to help people focus.)

Next, let’s break into smaller groups to discuss two things:

That exercise: What was that exercise like for you? What did you notice about your attention or the breath prayers? Did you find it easy or difficult?
Our Advent season: This Advent season, we want to reorient ourselves towards quiet and stillness—not instead of the joyful Christmas traditions, but so that we can more fully enjoy them. So, let’s have a conversation about how we can grow this quiet in our lives. Remember, though, the only way to cultivate a sustainable practice of anything is to start small. So we’re not asking about how we overhaul the entirety of our lives, but simply: What can I do this Advent season to make my life 10% slower and quieter?

(Leader note: Allow people to talk for 15–20 minutes before moving onto the next section.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we tried out a way to practice quieting our minds and explored the ways in which we could slow and quiet our lives this Advent season. So, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead is to:

Slow down and get quiet. Take some time to intentionally put into practice something that you discussed tonight. There are so many ways to do this. You could:

Begin or end your day with the Silent Prayer exercise we did tonight (here’s a Silent Prayer Guide to help you)
Spend your first or last car ride of the day without the music, podcasts, or phone calls.
Limit the number of Christmas parties you commit to.
Go on a walk in the evening.
Decide to not spend money or do any shopping on a particular day each week.

Whatever you choose, practice it intentionally this week with the goal of making your life 10% slower and quieter this Advent season.

Isaiah Adeoye 11/20/25 Isaiah Adeoye 11/20/25

Guide 5: Evening Prayer

A Prayer Shaped Life, 2025

Communion

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Prayer—the slow-growing, sweet-tasting fruit of communion with God over the long haul. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercise for the week ahead: Praying Compassion. So let’s talk about how that went!

What did you experience as you made space for midday prayer this last week?
As you’ve been leaning into the practice of Prayer these last few weeks, have you noticed any small shifts in your heart, habits, or attention?

Guide Overview (2 min)

As we’ve explored for the last two weeks, so much is competing for our attention, which is one of the most significant resources we can steward. If we’re not careful, this bombardment of noise can overtake us like a flood, sweeping away our time, energy, and attention in its fast-moving current. This attempt to distract us and pull apart our focus is an age-old problem. And, for millennia, God’s people combatted it by ordering their days by communion with God, stopping at multiple times each day to pray.

Following in this tradition, Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm aims at building a habit of communing with God in the normal parts of our lives, so that we can grow in intimacy with him and participate in his coming Kingdom in and around us. We stop to pray with intention and specificity three times a day: praying Scripture in the morning, praying compassion at midday, and praying the Examen in the evening. Over the last two weeks we explored morning and midday prayer; and tonight we conclude the series with evening prayer.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

For tonight, we’ll engage in the practice of Prayer through the exercise of praying the Examen. Each evening, we have the opportunity to either forget our day or remember our day—choosing activities that help us escape the day we just lived or to reflect with the intention of finding God in the day. While there are many tools that can help us learn to hear God’s voice and notice his presence in our daily lives, one of the most helpful is praying the Examen—a form of prayer in which we take time with God to look back over our day, paying special attention to where we noticed or missed God’s presence. Doing this reflection over time helps train our attention to find God in our ordinary days. We begin to more easily recognize what God is up to in and around us, helping us to keep in step with the Spirit.

There are four steps to the Examen: Review, Resonate, Repent, and Request. We’ll walk through each step silently together, reflecting together at the end about how it went and where we noticed God. As we begin, let’s take a moment to get comfortable, and then I’ll guide us through the four prompts, giving us space between each to silently interact with God. If it’s helpful, feel free to journal your conversation with God as we go.

Review: Holy Spirit, as we turn our attention now to the day we just lived, we ask for your help to guide us back through it. Before we assign meaning or jump ahead to the next step: from the moment we woke up to the moment we started this prayer, what happened today? What did we do? What did we feel? Where did we go? Who did we see? What did we get done? What was left undone for another day? What did we say? What victories did we experience? Where did we feel loss? We take time now to review our day with you.

(Leader note: Throughout this exercise, take care to leave a brief pause between each question. Give people 3–4 minutes in silence to Review their day. Consider playing instrumental music during this time to help people focus.)

Resonate: Now, Holy Spirit, help us comb back through our day with special attention to your presence. Where did we feel near to you? What in our day “resonated” with your closeness? Whether it was something I saw, said, felt, did, or received, or someone I interacted with, where did I feel you draw near to me? We take a moment to thank you for where we felt near to you,

(Leader note: Give people 3–4 minutes in silence to notice the resonance of his presence in their day.)

Repent: Next, Holy Spirit, help us go back through our day with special attention to where we missed or ignored your presence. We take a moment to explore with you the moments we felt far from you—Where might we have strayed? Where might we have missed you?—and then to repent, confessing those moments to you and receiving your forgiveness.

(Leader note: Give people 3–4 minutes in silence to notice where they strayed and to repent.)

Request: Finally, Holy Spirit, with our review of today in mind, we turn our attention to tomorrow: What is one simple thing we would ask of you for tomorrow in light of our reflection about today? We take a moment now to request something from you.

(Leader note: Give people 1 minute to ask God for tomorrow. Then close in prayer, thanking God for speaking and asking him to continue to make you all aware of his presence.)

Reflect & Plan. The exercise for the week ahead is to pray the Examen each evening. With that in mind, we’re going to get into smaller groups and spend 10 minutes reflecting and planning with two prompts:

What was it like for you to pray the Examen tonight?
How and when could you pray the Examen each evening this week?

(Leader note: Let people get into smaller groups to discuss. Afterwards, call everyone together to read the exercise for the week ahead.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we explored the evening prayer portion of Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm. For the week ahead, we are all going to continue practicing praying the Examen on our own:

Evening prayer: This week, we’re all going to end each day by praying the Examen, walking through the framework we used tonight—Review, Resonate, Repent, & Request. Since most of us don’t have extra time each evening, remember that it can be really helpful to pair the Examen with something else you do habitually. For example, pray on your commute home, while you’re getting ready for bed, or even as you get into bed. Also, the evening prayer section of the Lectio365 app is a helpful, free resource that will guide you in the practice of praying the Examen. And, consider continuing your morning prayer rhythm of praying Scripture and your midday prayer rhythm of praying compassion each day as well.

Isaiah Adeoye 11/13/25 Isaiah Adeoye 11/13/25

Guide 4: Midday Prayer

A Prayer Shaped Life, 2025

Communion

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Prayer—the slow-growing, sweet-tasting fruit of communion with God over the long haul. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercise for the week ahead: praying Scripture. So let’s talk about how that went!

What did you experience as you made space for morning prayer this last week?
As you’ve been leaning into the practice of Prayer these last few weeks, have you noticed any small shifts in your heart, habits, or attention?

Guide overview (2 min)

As we explored last week, so much is competing for our attention, which is one of the most significant resources we can steward. If we’re not careful, this bombardment of noise can overtake us like a flood, sweeping away our time, energy, and attention in its fast-moving current. This attempt to distract us and pull apart our focus is an age-old problem. And, for millennia, God’s people combatted it by ordering their days by communion with God, stopping at multiple times each day to pray.

Following in this tradition, Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm aims at building a habit of communing with God in the normal parts of our lives, so that we can grow in intimacy with him and participate in his coming Kingdom in and around us. We stop to pray with intention and specificity three times a day: praying Scripture in the morning, praying compassion at midday, and praying the Examen in the evening. We looked at morning prayer last week; and up for tonight is midday prayer.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

For tonight, we’ll engage in the practice of Prayer through the exercise of letting compassion move us to intercession. The middle of the day is often when we’re most tempted to turn towards ourselves—to space out or numb out. And it’s then that we choose to pause, steer our focus away from our computers, chores, schoolwork, or laundry, and towards others—the sick and dying, the lost and wandering, the poor and those struggling with addiction. We pause at midday to ask the Spirit to bring to mind someone in need, asking him to provide—salvation, rent money, friendship, help, etc.—and then asking him to send us as an answer to our own prayers.

As we practice this tonight, we are going to take some time to let compassion stir us to intercede for the three categories of people we talked about on Sunday—the lost, the lowly, and the lively—and then end by asking God to send us to be his compassion to these people. Here’s how it will work. We will work through each category, one at a time. I will invite the Spirit to bring to mind people for whom to pray, and then we will take time to pray out loud for them one at a time. As we do, let’s pray with trust and hope, remembering that our Father in Heaven is a good giver. And, let’s be sure that our prayers protect their dignity by not using names or identifiers where doing so would reveal something sensitive or private.

Come, Holy Spirit. Teach us how to let your compassion guide our intercessions.

(Leader note: Give people about 30 seconds in silence to settle in.)

Pray for the lost. God, each of us knows people who are far from you—those who are searching for home, for safety, and for rest. Even now we ask that you would bring a name or face to our mind, that we might pray for them to know your loving presence and salvation.

(Leader note: Pause for 30 seconds, and then invite people to pray out loud one at a time. Give people about 5 minutes to pray and then move to the next prompt.)

Pray for the lowly. God, each of us knows people who are experiencing some level of pain—those who are vulnerable and hurting. Whether the pain is related to health, finances, relationships, or something else, we want to see you move on their behalf. Even now we ask that you would bring a name or face to our mind, that we might pray for them to know your loving presence in their need.

(Leader note: Pause for 30 seconds, and then invite people to pray out loud one at a time. Give people about 5 minutes to pray and then move to the next prompt.)

Pray for the lively. God, each of us knows people who seem to be growing in new ways—those in whom we can see signs of new life. They could be experiencing new life in their relationship with God, or taking vocational risks, or having a baby, or something else. Even now we ask that you would bring a name or face to our mind, that we might pray for them to know your loving presence as they are on the cusp of new life.

(Leader note: Pause for 30 seconds, and then invite people to pray out loud one at a time. Give people about 5 minutes to pray and then close with the following prayer.)

Holy Spirit, thank you for the way you moved your compassion in us. As we have asked you to meet these people with your loving presence, we now ask that you would send us to be your loving presence. If there is any way that you would like to use us as answers to our own prayers, please show us how. Thank you. Amen.

Reflect & Plan. The exercise for the week ahead is to pray compassion at midday each day this week—inviting God to show you one person from one of those categories to pray for. So we’re going to get into smaller groups and spend 10 minutes reflecting and planning with two prompts:

What was it like for you to let compassion stir your intercession tonight?
How and when are you going to pray compassion at midday this week?
(Leader note: Let people get into smaller groups to discuss. Afterwards, call everyone together to read the exercise for the week ahead.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we explored the midday prayer portion of Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm. For the week ahead, we are all going to continue practicing praying compassion on our own:

Midday prayer: This week, we’re each going to pause at midday to pray compassion. We will pause for just a few moments in the middle of our day (setting alarms or reminders on your phone can be so helpful for this) to ask the Spirit to guide our attention towards a person or people for whom he is inviting us to pray. This could be praying for friends who don’t know Jesus, neighbors in need, people who are experiencing the grief of loss, or anyone else who needs to experience God’s compassion. Also, the midday prayer section of the Lectio365 app is an incredible, free resource that will guide you in the practice of praying compassion. And, consider continuing your morning prayer rhythm of praying Scripture each day as well.

Isaiah Adeoye 11/12/25 Isaiah Adeoye 11/12/25

Family Activity for Dec 28

Advent 2025

Family

Families with children can use the following activity to remember the last year together. This reading and activity should take about 15 minutes to complete. You’ll need: markers and 5 stones or rocks for each person. The stones should be big enough to write a word or do a simple drawing on. If you don’t have stones, small pieces of paper will work too.

Remember

In the book of Joshua, God’s people, the Israelites, were preparing to enter the land that He had promised to give them. To help them on their way, God stopped the flow of the Jordan River, so His people could cross safely on dry land. Let’s read what happened after they crossed the river:

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”

God’s people made a monument—a special structure made to remember an important event—from the rocks they took from the middle of the river. God said that whenever their children ask what the monument of stones means, the people could share the amazing ways God had been with them and helped them.

Just like the Israelites at the Jordan River, we are going to remember the ways that God has been with us and helped us this year. I am going to ask us 5 questions to help us remember. You can write or draw your own answer to each question on a stone.

(Leader Note: give the group 2 minutes after each question for writing or drawing on their stones. Before moving on to the next question, give each person a chance to share their stone if they’d like.)

What was one good thing that happened this year?

What was one hard thing God helped us through this year?

Where did we see God this year?

When did you feel close to God this year?

What’s one thing from this year that we can thank God for?

Now, let’s stack or arrange all of our rocks together as a monument, just like the Israelites did. (Leader Note: give group 1 minute to set up monument)

Let’s end by praying together, thanking God for all of the ways he has been with us this year, and ask for his help as the new year begins.

God, thank you for your love—thank you for helping us remember the year behind us, and all of the ways you have loved us, been with us, and helped us.

Jesus, thank you for your friendship—help us to be with you, become like you, and do the things you did.

Holy Spirit, thank you for speaking to us—as the new year begins, would you guide us, teach us, and go with us wherever we go.

Amen.

Isaiah Adeoye 11/12/25 Isaiah Adeoye 11/12/25

Table Liturgy for Dec 28

Advent 2025

In place of gathering together as a congregation on Sunday, December 28, we are meeting in homes to remember and renew—to reflect on the work of renewal that God has been up to in our lives over the last year and to recommit to walking in step with that transformational work in the year to come. The following liturgy is written to be read out loud word-for-word, with facilitator notes in parentheses and italics. Before you begin this liturgy, make sure you have communion elements (e.g. juice or wine and bread or crackers), something to keep time, and something for people to jot down notes as they listen and pray. Consider having instrumental music playing throughout to help people focus during moments of silent reflection.

Note: If you are part of a family with young children, we’ve created a family activity for this liturgy which you can find here.

Family Activity

Read Psalm 100

What we call Psalms was the prayer book for the early church. This collection of prayers that reflected the spectrum of the human experience: joy, despair, trust, gratitude, hope, anger, repentance, and peace. And while each of these emotions likely surfaced in us this last year, we are going to begin our time together by reading out loud a psalm of gratitude: Psalm 100. Hear these words of praise:

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Overview

On this threshold between years—the ending of one and the beginning of another—we pause in a moment of intentionality to remember and renew. We will remember by recalling God’s faithfulness to us this last year and the transformation, healing, and deepening he has worked in our lives, celebrating with gratitude by receiving communion together. And then we will renew by committing to continue walking in step with his faithfulness in these areas of our lives over the coming year. By taking time to consider what God was up to in our previous year and what he may be up to in the next one, we allow him to draw a throughline in our consciousness, partnering with him by consenting to his loving presence.

Remember

As we begin a time of remembering our past year by reflecting through a few guided questions, find a comfortable posture that helps you reflect your openness to God, like opening your hands on your lap.

Come, Holy Spirit. As we turn our attention now to the year we just lived, we ask for your help to guide us back through it. As we walk through the library of moments, we acknowledge that more happened than we will be able to remember. So we ask that, like an expert librarian, you would guide us to the titles that stuck out to you—the ones that you want to place together that we might see common themes and get a fuller picture of what you were up to.

What happened this year? What were the big moments you lived through? Where did you go? Who did you meet? What were the highs and lows of this last year? (Facilitator note: Let people sit with each question for 2 minutes or so before asking the next one.)

What felt heavy? What felt light? As you reflect on this last year, what about it feels or felt heavy to you? Where did you experience weariness or overwhelm? And what about your last year felt light? Where did you experience a victory or growth, or feel joy? (Facilitator note: Let people sit with each question for 2 minutes or so before asking the next one.)

Where was God? Over this last year, where did you experience God’s presence? Where might you have missed his presence? Where did God show up in your home, your work, your family, your friends, your celebrations and grief? Where was God in your life this last year? (Facilitator note: Let people sit with each question for 2 minutes or so before asking the next one.)

What was God up to? As you consider God’s presence to you, begin to ask him about the work of renewal, healing, deepening, or transformation he was working through it all. How might you give name to what he was up to in your life through this last year? (Facilitator note: Let people sit with each question for 2 minutes or so before asking the next one.)

Express gratitude. Before we move on to the next movement, let’s take some time to pray out loud, one at a time, thanking God for where he revealed himself last year—for experiences we had, people we met, ways he provided, and the themes of transformation that he was growing in us. (Facilitator note: Allow at least 5 minutes for people to pray out loud. If there are any periods of silence, do your best to resist the urge to move on too quickly. Then close with the following prayer.)

Jesus, thank you for where you met us this last year. Thank you for letting us live these moments then, and for letting us relive them now with you. Every good and perfect gift comes from you. Amen.

Receive Communion together

At this point, with the last year in our focus, we are going to receive communion. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and broke it into pieces for his disciples to eat, symbolizing his own body that was about to be broken so that they (and we) might feast at the resurrection. He then poured wine for his disciples to drink, symbolizing his own blood that was about to be poured out so that they (and we) might be washed clean. He invited his disciples, as he invites us, to eat and drink, remembering his love and renewing our commitment to him.

As we hold the plate of bread/crackers for the person next to you to receive Christ’s body, we will say, “The body of Christ, broken for you.” And we will hold onto the elements until each person has them and then, after a moment in silence holding our last year before God, we will eat and drink together. (Facilitator Note: After each person has the elements, hold 30 seconds of silence.)

The body of Christ, broken for you. And the blood of Christ, shed for you. Take, eat and drink, and remember him.

Renew

For the next movement of our time together, we will turn our attention from the year behind to the year ahead. As we do, we will begin by reflecting with curiosity about whether there are themes from last year that God may want to continue this year—themes of renewal, healing, and transformation. Re-entering our postures of prayer, we will dream together with God about the next year with hope and desire, taking some time to silently reflect over a few questions, letting God guide our attention and imagination. After that, we will share our desires for the coming year with one another.

Come, Holy Spirit, guide our imaginations as you guided our memories. Would you speak to us about your desire for us this next year, that our desire might be stirred towards the same.

What does God want to do? Based on what the Spirit did last year, begin a conversation with him about how he may want to continue or deepen that work in the coming year. How may he want to heal you or transform you? (Facilitator note: Let people sit with each question for 2 minutes or so before asking the next one.)

What symbol represents this? As this work begins to take shape—even if just a wisp or stirring—continue talking to him by exploring what word, phrase, symbol, song, Scripture, or something else could represent the work he wants to do over this next year, to help us remember and return to his invitation to you. (Facilitator note: Let people sit with each question for 2 minutes or so before asking the next one.)

How will you say yes? Part of why God shares with us the work he wants to do in us is that he wants our permission and consent to do it. Give him your “yes” and then begin wondering: How do I keep in step with God’s transforming love this next year? How can I be faithful to show up to this work? (Facilitator note: Let people sit with this question for 2 minutes or so before moving on.)

Jesus, thank you for beginning to share with us—even if just faintly—what you might be up to in our lives over this next year and how we can keep in step with you. Every good and perfect gift comes from you. Amen.

Now, we’re going to share what we sensed God saying to us about this next year, starting with what he seemed to be up to last year, as a way of bearing witness with each other to where God might be moving in our lives. As we share, do your best to be fully present to each person’s words, giving them your attention and focus. We’ll take a good chunk of time for everyone to share something. Sharing hope or desire may be vulnerable for some, so assume that if people are sharing vaguely, they are doing so on purpose.

Share. What did God do in you this last year? What might God want to do in you this year? How will you say yes? (Facilitator note: Set a timer so that each person has equal time to share. While a timer may feel off-putting at first, it both allows people to stay present to what’s being shared, and it allows the person sharing to not get self conscious about how much time they’re taking. After each person shares, thank them and move to the next.)

Pray together

Before we close, we are going to lift these hopes up to God together, asking that we would receive all the good that he has in store for us. To do this, we are going to break into groups of 2 or 3 to commission each other into the coming year to pray for what each person shared. We’ll take 10 minutes to pray in these groups and then I’ll call us all back to end our time. (Facilitator note: After 10 minutes, call everyone back. It could be helpful to give everyone a 2 minute warning before closing.)

God, thank you for bringing us together today for this time. Thank you for helping us reflect on last year and renew our desire for the next one. Thank you for the vulnerability we witnessed and the community we experienced together. We covered so much ground today, so let each of us go in peace, filled with your love. We love you, Jesus, and we’re so grateful for your presence to us in and through each other. We give you praise for this last year and head into this next year with as much hope as we can muster. Help us to love you and one another well. Teach us, guide us, and guard us. Thank you, Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen.

Isaiah Adeoye 11/9/25 Isaiah Adeoye 11/9/25

Guide 3: Morning Prayer

A Prayer Shaped Life, 2025

Communion

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Prayer—the slow-growing, sweet-tasting fruit of communion with God over the long haul. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercise for the week ahead: Incarnated Prayer. So let’s talk about how that went!

Who did God lead you to as you practiced Incarnated Prayer and what happened?

Guide overview (2 min)

Our attention is one of our most significant resources we can steward, and from the second we wake up, so much is vying for it—notifications, needs, news cycles, and noise. If we’re not careful, this bombardment can overtake us like a flood, sweeping away our time, energy, and attention in its fast-moving current. And while there are certainly newer ways our attention is being stolen—like social media, the international news cycle, and having our work email on our phones—the problem is ancient. For millennia, God’s people ordered their days by communion with God, stopping at multiple times each day to pray.

Following in this tradition, at Bridgetown we too have a Daily Prayer Rhythm, the goal of which is for each of us to build a habit of communing with God in the normal parts of our lives, so that we can grow in intimacy with him and participate in his coming Kingdom in and around us. We stop to pray with intention and specificity three times a day: praying Scripture in the morning, praying compassion at midday, and praying the Examen in the evening. For the next three weeks, we will focus on one of these movements, practicing it together each night we meet and practicing it on our own throughout the week. Up for tonight is morning prayer.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

For tonight, we’ll engage in the practice of Prayer through the exercise of praying Scripture. We aim to pray Scripture each morning because we become like what we pay attention to, and because whatever we give our first attention to has exponential formative power in our lives. While any passage of Scripture can guide us in prayer, one of the most helpful is the prayer book for the early church: the Psalms. This compilation of prayers guided the prayers of the Old Testament Temple, Jesus himself, and the early church. Within the Psalms, we find the full array of human emotion on display, which makes them uniquely useful for prayer because they teach us how to pray more than what to pray. Praying the Psalms reminds us that whatever we’re feeling is safe with God. We don’t need to clean up or get our act together before coming into God’s presence; we can show up in prayer exactly as we are.

As we pray Scripture tonight, we’re going to use Psalm 84 as our guide. Here’s how it will work: I will read through it in three different sections, pausing to give us space between each to pray out loud one at a time. There is no right or wrong way to pray the Psalms, simply allow the psalmist’s words—in this case, the Sons of Korah—to guide our prayers. Maybe a word or image sparks a thought, or a feeling or emotion resonates, or maybe you want to echo something the authors actually pray themselves. Whatever it is, we’ll simply allow these words to guide our prayers as we pray out loud, one at a time. As we start, though, find a comfortable position, and we’ll take a moment in silence to become aware of God’s presence with us. And feel welcome to follow along in your own Bible, if that’s helpful.

Come, Holy Spirit. Teach us how to let the Scriptures guide our prayers.

(Leader note: Give people about 30 seconds in silence to settle in.)

Read Psalm 84v1–4. “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.”

(Leader note: Give people about 5 minutes to pray.)

Read Psalm 84v5–9. “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty; listen to me, God of Jacob. Look on our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one.”

(Leader note: Give people about 5 minutes to pray.)

Read Psalm 84v10–12. “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you.”

(Leader note: Give people about 5 minutes to pray. Close in prayer, thanking God.)

Reflect & Plan. The exercise for the week ahead is to pray Scripture each morning. So we’re going to get into smaller groups and spend 10 minutes reflecting and planning with two prompts:

What was it like for you to pray Psalm 84 tonight?
How and when will you pray Scripture each morning this week?

(Leader note: Let people get into smaller groups to discuss. Set a timer for 10 minutes. After it goes off, call everyone together to read the exercise for the week ahead.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we explored the morning prayer portion of Bridgetown’s Daily Prayer Rhythm. For the week ahead, we are all going to continue practicing praying Scripture on our own:

Morning prayer: This week, we’re all going to begin each day by praying Scripture, particularly the Psalms. Whichever Psalm you choose, simply read it and let it guide your prayers to begin your day. Also, the morning prayer section of the Lectio365 app is an incredible, free resource that will guide you in the practice of praying Scripture.

Isaiah Adeoye 10/27/25 Isaiah Adeoye 10/27/25

Guide 2: Incarnational Prayer

A Prayer Shaped Life, 2025

Communion

Family

(Leader note: Under the “exercise for tonight” section, you will find two options—one for Communities who have an established mission and one for those who do not. Use whichever one applies to your Community’s situation and completely skip the other.)

Review the practice so far (10 min)

In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Prayer—the slow-growing, sweet-tasting fruit of communion with God over the long haul. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercise for the week ahead: Silent Prayer. So let’s talk about how that went!

What has your experience with Silent Prayer been like?
(Optional) On Sunday, Gerald announced that he is leaving Bridgetown to work with Practicing The Way. We are so grateful for all that Gerald has been to our church, so sad to see him go, and so excited for what God has in store for him. How are you processing Gerald’s departure?

Guide overview (2 min)

The kinds of prayer that Jesus prayed often moved him away from the center of society and towards its periphery, where he befriended those on the outskirts. As people who want to do as Jesus did, we also often find ourselves among the most vulnerable—not as service providers, but as family. Jesus made family everywhere he went, constantly inviting people to a deeper level of relational intimacy with God and with one another.

One of the core values of a Bridgetown Community is that we are on mission together—that we are taking spiritual responsibility for our part of Portland by becoming like family with those who are most in need—whether those in foster care or the under-resourced, the unhoused, the incarcerated, the refugee, and so many others. So, for tonight’s exercise, we are going to explore how we can take a step deeper into incarnating our prayers with the aim of kinship. Kinship happens as we share life with those who are often overlooked or on the margins—being interruptible, intentional, and honest in friendship. We don’t reach down or try to fix; we walk alongside, discovering that the line between “us” and “them” is only an illusion.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

Option 1: For Communities with a monthly rhythm of mission

Since our Community already has an established monthly rhythm of mission, we are going to take some time tonight to ask the Spirit about this idea of kinship, and if there is another step we can take towards the people we are serving. We want to be curious about how we can become like family with them, not just service providers.

(Leader note: If your Community already has a story of kinship, please let us know! We would love to hear about it — fill out this form)

Be curious about kinship: Before we talk to each other about any ideas we have, let’s pray and ask the Spirit for creative ideas about how we can move closer to the people we’re serving. Where is there an opportunity to deepen our relationships? Who specifically might God be inviting us to share a table with or meet a more personal need? What would it look like to become like family with someone? I’ll set a timer for 2 minutes as each of us engages with the Spirit in creativity and curiosity.

Reflect & explore (in smaller groups): Next, we’re going to get into groups of three or four and discuss the ideas that came up during that time in prayer—creative ways to cultivate kinship, specific people God might have been pointing out, and other invitations he may be extending. I’ll set a timer for 10 minutes, after which point we’ll come back and share a few of these ideas with the whole Community and decide on one we want to take action on.

Share (as a Community): Ok, now that we’ve done some initial processing, we’re going to share our ideas all together. What resonated in your smaller group that you think the whole Community should hear? What creative ways might the Spirit be inviting us to kinship relationships with someone we’re serving? Where is the Spirit stirring a creative imagination in us for kinship?

Decide on one thing: Finally, we’re going to decide on one thing that we want to commit to together. Let’s keep in mind that if something feels important to you, but isn’t selected, it doesn’t mean we will never do it, just that it’s not what we're going to do first. That said, it may also actually be a personal invitation from God—something he is specifically asking of you. We’ll talk more about that in the exercise for the week ahead. But for now: What one thing are we going to commit to together? And what does each of us need to do to make it happen?

(Leader note: Once something is decided, pray to thank God for guiding you all, and ask him for help to be faithful to it and that he would give you favor as you step towards kinship together.)

Option 2: For Communities without a monthly rhythm of mission

Since our Community hasn’t yet established a monthly rhythm of mission, we are going to take some time to decide on a step we can take towards establishing one. As we do, let’s remember that a mission is not measured by our ability to do something nice or to help others for our own sake, but by our willingness to see people on the margins as our brothers and sisters. The kind of mission that develops kinship requires us to be proximate, consistent, and vulnerable. While it can be costly and inconvenient, it draws us into true relationships of seeing and serving others with dignity, bearing witness to God’s love in and for them.

So, we’ll start our exercise for the night by exploring the roadblocks we’ve hit in establishing a monthly mission, and then we’ll decide to take one step together towards establishing a regular mission. The option we pick likely won’t be perfect or ideal, but it’s important we take one!

Look Back: First, let’s have a 10-minute conversation looking back at any previous experiences our Community has had with mission or kinship—beautiful experiences, roadblocks, and anything else. Let’s commit to reflecting creatively and constructively, understanding that our goal is to find something that works, not an exhaustive list about what all will not work. I’ll set a timer as we discuss two questions:

What positive experiences have we had with mission, service, or kinship as a Community?
What roadblocks have we faced in establishing a monthly rhythm of mission?

Look ahead: Next, with those past experiences in mind, and understanding that we won’t be able to address all of the roadblocks, we are going get into groups of 3 and take 5 minutes to look at Bridgetown’s list of partners and service opportunities, with the goal of each group picking one we think our Community could commit to for the next 6 months.

(Leader note: Send everyone this page to see the list of partners and serving opportunities. And then set a 5-minute timer, calling everyone back afterwards.)

Make a quick pitch: Next, I’ll set a one minute timer for each group to make a quick pitch for why they think this is the one our Community should commit to for the next 6 months. There will always be reasons that something won’t work, so when you’re listening to these ideas choose to have an openness and curiosity about how it could work.

Pick one: Finally, we’re going to decide on one thing that we want to commit to trying together for 6 months. If your option isn’t selected, that’s ok. It doesn’t mean we will never do it, just that it’s not what we're going to do right now. And, keep in mind that it could be a personal invitation from God—something he is specifically asking of you instead of the Community. We’ll talk more about that in the exercise for the week ahead. But for now: What one thing are we going to commit to together? And what does each of us need to do to make it happen?

(Leader note: Once something is decided, pray to thank God for guiding you all, and ask him for help to be faithful to it and that he would give you favor as you step towards kinship together.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we explored ways in which our Community can pursue a deeper family-level relationship with the people we serve through the exercise of Incarnational Prayer. That said, there are also ways for us to grow in this exercise on our own throughout the week. So this week we are going to each lean into the exercise of Incarnational Prayer by responding to the Spirit’s invitation to care more intentionally about someone in our life who is on the margins.

Incarnational Prayer: This week we are each going to take a few steps towards knowing and loving the people in our lives. We’ll do it in 3 steps: know, pray, and serve. First, know: learn the names of 4 neighbors on your block or in your apartment building. Next, pray: pray every day for those 4 neighbors by name. Finally, serve: look and listen for what they may need, and serve them—the needs could be relational or physical needs, like taking someone to coffee, mowing a yard, picking up groceries, etc. However you serve them, consider how you can pursue a deeper relationship together.

Isaiah Adeoye 10/10/25 Isaiah Adeoye 10/10/25

Guide 1: Prophetic Prayer

A Prayer Shaped Life, 2025

Communion

Family

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Since there is no practice so far to review, let’s discuss this series’ aim. By ordering our days around the practice of Prayer, we want to become a Community in which the Spirit cultivates the slow-growing, sweet-tasting fruit of intimacy with God. Through the Guides in this series, we will experience and engage rhythmic expressions of Prayer together: Silent Prayer, Incarnational Prayer, and the Daily Prayer Rhythm. So, before we begin with tonight’s Guide, let’s debrief the Prophetic Prayer Training and then take a moment to discuss our personal experiences with the practice of Prayer, whether good or bad, brief or long, past or current.

What did you take away from the Prophetic Prayer Training?

How would you describe your current comfort level with the practice of Prayer?

Guide overview (2 min)

Prayer, like any relationship, has many forms of communication—talking about concerns, asking for things, receiving affirmations and challenges, and sitting in silence. Prayer is an opportunity to slow down enough to be with God and to sometimes even hear him say something back. In this series, we will be diving deeper into the kinds of prayer that shape and form our lives in God’s love.

One of those kinds of prayer is prophecy—hearing and speaking God’s voice on behalf of an individual or group. Last week, we attended the Prophetic Prayer Training and got to try it together. Prophetic Prayer is all over the pages of Scripture, and it’s something that Scripture’s authors take for granted. God does not need a stage and music to speak: anytime God’s people gather, he is speaking. Smaller groups of friends and family—like our Bridgetown Community—is one of the best places to listen for God’s voice. So, as we lean into the practice of Prayer, our exercise for tonight is Prophetic Prayer.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

Tonight we’re going to take some time to practice Prophetic Prayer together. As we do this, we’ll use the four-step model for Prophetic Prayer that we learned at the training: ask, listen, search, and risk. Just like at the training, someone will volunteer to be prayed for and we’ll all ask God what he may want to say to them through us. Then, after a minute or so of listening, we’ll share what we sense and pray for that person. Finally,we’ll end by having the person share what resonated with them. Remember: there’s no pressure to get it right—we’re just practicing, and this is a safe group in which to risk!

Before we start, let’s remember together that prophecy is a form of prayer in which the Spirit works in cooperation—not competition—with our imagination, in order to encourage another person or group. Oftentimes, we can miss the voice of God because it sounds or feels too familiar, so it’s important to remember that it almost never feels intense or dramatic, but like a thought entering our imagination from the outside (as opposed to from the inside). Usually, we’ll see some sort of picture, symbol, or memory, or hear a word, phrase, or Scripture. Three helpful questions to process through with God are: What am I hearing/seeing? What might it mean? And what do I do with it?

Select someone: We’ll hopefully get to pray for a few people, but who wants to go first?

Ask, listen, and search: Okay, now that we know who we’re praying for, let’s all take some time to ask God what he may want them to know. Remember, the kind of Prophetic Prayer we’re practicing is not correcting or confronting, but encouraging. So, if you sense something, ask yourself if it is encouraging, if it lines up with or contradicts Scripture, and if it sounds like something Jesus would say. Search yourself to ensure that what you sense is from God and not just something you think this person should know or do. I’ll set a timer for 90 seconds of listening, and then we’ll come back and share.

Risk: Okay! Let’s take some time to risk together by sharing what we sensed. Would a few people share what they heard or saw, and what they think God might be saying through it? After you share it, take a moment to pray it over the person receiving it. (Leader note: Leaders, consider going first to help set the pace for the group. And, for subsequent rounds, encourage people who have already shared to let others share, so everyone can try it.)

Reflect: Thank you all for sharing. As we hear from the person who received all the words now, let’s remember that if and where something connected with them, it’s something we can be praying for and checking in with them about in the future. Okay: What resonated with you and felt like God was speaking to you through another person? And was there any word that you may need to weigh more, whether for clarity or application?

(Leader note: As you have time, move onto another person, continuing to give people more opportunity to receive and practice hearing and sharing.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we experienced an exercise that involved community, but there are also ways for us to grow in the practice of Prayer on our own throughout the week. We all have busy lives, so the ask is not to turn your life upside down to practice Prayer 24/7, but rather to take a step forward in the practice of prayer. In doing so, we partner with God in our own formation for the benefit of our Community.While the practices are personal, they are not private—they are ways of letting God shape us so that when we come together, our Community will be richer, deeper, and more like Jesus.

That said, while we practiced Prophetic Prayer together tonight, until our next Community Guide, the exercise for the week ahead involves the exercise of Silent Prayer:

Silent Prayer: This week we are going to practice Silent Prayer–the prayer of remembering and remaining in the love of God. I will send out a one-page Guide (linked at the button below) to help you develop and build this rhythm.

Silent Prayer Guide

Isaiah Adeoye 9/28/25 Isaiah Adeoye 9/28/25

Vision 2025, Guide 3: Commitments & Individual Examen

In Portland As It Is In Heaven, 2025

Communion

Family

Conclude this series practice (20 min)

In this series, we focused on the practice of Community—leaning further into doing life together as we seek to be a community of love and depth. In the previous Guide, we agreed on our exercises for the week ahead: to read through the Bridgetown Community Commitments and to consider the cost of our desires for Community. Let’s take a moment to conclude this series by discussing each of the four categories of our Commitments and recommitting to each other.

Commit to following Jesus: How are we each feeling invited to recommit to following Jesus this coming year?
Commit to our Community: Where do we each sense an opportunity to invest more deeply in our Community this coming year?
Commit to Bridgetown Church: How could you contribute more intentionally to Bridgetown?
Commit to Portland: How is God inviting us to partner with him to more fully love and serve our city together?

Before we go on, let’s take a moment to recap the decisions and commitments we’re making for this next year. (Leader Note: This is the time to sum everything for clarity. Take some time to close the loose ends. If there’s something that needs more time to discuss/discern, agree on when that follow-up conversation will occur. As you conclude this section, close in prayer, asking God to help us with the commitments we’ve just made.)

Guide overview (2 min)

To speak meaningfully in any way about apprenticeship to Jesus, it’s important to talk about counterformation—about how we are de-formed by the time and place we live, and about what it means to swim against the cultural current of control and toward the formative joy of consent. There are many ways of practicing consent: we consent with our possessions through generosity, we with our relationships through hospitality, and we consent with our image through confession.

One helpful way to practice this formation of consent is praying the Examen. This daily reflection on our day helps us to increasingly yield ourselves to God as we take time to relive that day in his presence. So, in our final Guide for this series, we are going to bridge between this series’ practice of Community and next series’ practice of Prayer by engaging the exercise of praying the Examen.

Exercise for tonight (15 min)

Tonight, our exercise will be to pray the Examen together. The Examen is a form of prayer that involves reflecting back over our day with the Holy Spirit to practice naming signs of his presence to us. While the Examen usually has five steps, we’re going to use one with three: reflecting with gratitude, naming where we saw or missed God, and confessing where we fell short.

As we start, find a comfortable position and get into whatever posture of prayer feels honest and helps you focus. I’ll guide us through the prompts as we review our day with God.

Come, Holy Spirit, and walk us back through our day. What did we do? Who did we talk to? Where did we go? What did we feel? Where were you?

(Leader Note: Let people silently review their day for 1–2 minutes.)

Gratitude: What kindled gratitude? As you reviewed your day, what brought you gratitude? What or who were you thankful for today? Let’s pray aloud, one at a time, short prayers of gratitude, thanking God for every big and small gift we can possibly recount from today.

Review: Where did I see or miss God? As you reviewed your day, where did God show up? Big or small, where did I see or miss God’s presence in a moment or through a person? Let’s pray aloud, one at a time, short prayers noting the little whispers from the Spirit we missed and those we responded to, particularly paying attention to all those we saw and welcomed hospitably as well as those we may have looked past.

Confess: Where did I fall short today? As you reviewed your day, where did you experience a moment of weakness, coming face-to-face with your humanity? Let’s pray aloud, one at a time, short prayers about ways we fell short today, freely receiving God’s forgiveness—a forgiveness that is, mysteriously but certainly, more powerful to shape and redeem us than perfection.

(Leader Note: Close this time asking god for help to see him more clearly tomorrow.)

Exercise for the week ahead (2 min)

Tonight we experienced an exercise that involved collaboration and teamwork, but there are also ways for us to grow in this practice of Community and Prayer on our own throughout the week. We all have busy lives, so none of us have time for too much. But taking a step toward the practice on our own is a way of partnering with God in our own formation for the benefit of the Community. While the practices are personal, they are not private—they are ways of letting God shape us so that when we come together, our Community will be richer, deeper, and more like Jesus.

That said, as this Community Guide completes this series, until the next one, our exercise for the week ahead is to:

Pray the Examen. Whether on your commute home or before you get into bed, take a few minutes each evening to review your day with God, journeying through our three movements: gratitude, noticing God, and confession.

Isaiah Adeoye 9/21/25 Isaiah Adeoye 9/21/25

Vision 2025, Guide 2: Family & Discipleship

In Portland As It Is In Heaven, 2025

Communion

Review the practice so far (10 min)

In this series, we are focusing on the practice of Community—leaning further into doing life together as we seek to be a community of love and depth. In the last Guide, we agreed on our exercises for the week ahead: to continue processing our relationship to change and to attend the Hospitality of Need lecture with Kevan Chandler. So let’s talk about how that went!

Did anything more come up as you processed your relationship to change?
What invitations did you sense the Spirit extend to you through the Hospitality of Need lecture?

Guide overview (2 min)

Our story at Bridgetown has always come back to practicing the Way of Jesus together in Portland—to planting the seeds of our apprenticeship to Jesus deep into the soil of community. And more than Bible studies or sermon discussion groups, our Bridgetown Community is a practice-based formation group built around our shared desire to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.

The Communities Team spent the summer looking under the hood of Bridgetown Communities—collecting feedback, dreaming together, and discerning what God was up to. And near the end of that time they realized that, if anything, there was an invitation to double down on the direction we were already going—specifically, to reinforce our Community rhythms: Family, Discipleship, & Mission. Tonight we will explore a few of these shifts by considering how to deepen our expression of Family & Discipleship in the coming year.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

As we center our Community around practice-based formation, there are 2 main changes we will start implementing this month: 1) developing our Family rhythm, and 2) deepening our Discipleship rhythm. Tonight we will explore these shifts and plan our next steps together. Then we’ll have space to dream together about anything else God might be inviting us into during this next year.

1. Our Family rhythm (10 min)

For years, Bridgetown Communities have had a monthly Family night intended to build trust and relational depth. And while this rhythm has worked for some Communities, most feel like once per month is somewhat lacking. So, the first change we’ll make is to move from a monthly Family night to a weekly Family practice during dinner. Starting next week, our first hour together will look something like this:

After communion and as we start eating, we will have some kind of intentional conversation. The Communities Team will recommend a prompt with each series for us to use each week, like they do for communion. This new rhythm will only take 15 minutes of our hourlong meal, deepening our relationships together. And, since next week is the series finale, we’ll each answer the question: In one sentence, what do you want God to do in your life over this next year?

One person this change will specifically impact is our Family Coordinator. They have done a great job coordinating our Family nights, and we’re so grateful! So I want to share about how my conversation with them went about their role. (Leader Note: Share the plan. Will they coordinate the weekly Family practice? Plan extracurricular events? Step down?)

Before we talk about the next change, let’s take a moment to process this one. Let’s get into groups of 3 or 4 and answer the following questions:

What excites me about this new Family rhythm?
What will I miss about our old Family rhythm?
What steps do we need to take to make sure this happens each week?

2. Our Discipleship rhythm (10 min)

Some may be wondering what is going to happen to our monthly Family night. As we continue to run after what the Spirit is inviting us to, we want to press deeper into our Discipleship rhythm. The Communities team heard a lot of feedback about Community Guides—namely that they’re long, infrequent, and lack actual practice. So the shifts coming to Community Guides are that they will be 45 minutes, they will be more practice-based, and there will now be 3 of them per month. Having 3 monthly Guides allows them to be shorter and more closely tied to the series, letting us engage the practice more regularly. That said, if something happens (like our mission night overlaps with a Guide’s release), I will simply send the Guide to everyone for us to go through on our own, so we can come ready to discuss the “exercise for the week ahead” next time we meet. This allows us to be more intentional about our own formation and gives us more time as a Community to engage in practice and reflection.

Before we talk about any other invitations we’re sensing, let’s take a moment to process this change. Let’s get back into groups of 3 or 4 and answer the following questions:

What excites me about this new Discipleship rhythm?
Am I feeling any resistance? Why might that be?
What could God do in our Community through this change?

3. Anything else (10 min): Before we talk about the exercise for the week ahead, let’s take the rest of our time to process anything else we’re feeling invited into as a Community. Whether it’s a new or old invitation, what has been stirring in you for our Community? Maybe you want to step up to help serve in some way, or need to step back from a role you’ve had? Maybe there are ideas about our mission, or how we do meals? Let’s take a few minutes to discuss and dream together. (Leader Note: Set a timer for this to make sure it doesn’t go too long.)

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

Tonight we experienced an exercise that involved collaboration and teamwork, but there are also ways for us to grow in this practice of Community on our own throughout the week. We all have busy lives, so none of us have time for too much. But taking a step toward the practice on our own is a way of partnering with God in our own formation for the benefit of the Community. While the practices are personal, they are not private—they are ways of letting God shape us so that when we come together, our Community will be richer, deeper, and more like Jesus.

That said, until our next Community Guide, the exercises for the week ahead are to:

Read through the Community commitments. Next week, we will be reviewing our Commitments for the coming year. So, before then, let’s each look over the commitments we’re making to one another in being part of this Community. We can review those at: bridgetown.church/community-commitments
Consider the cost. As we continue to dream about what God has in store for our Community, let’s each take some time in prayer this week with the following questions: What do I want to be true of our Community in a year? And what might I need to sacrifice in order to make that happen? We’ll come back next week to discuss.

Isaiah Adeoye 9/4/25 Isaiah Adeoye 9/4/25

Vision 2025, Guide 1: Annual Examen

In Portland As It Is In Heaven, 2025

Communion

Review the practice so far (10 min)

Since there is no Practice so far to review, let’s discuss this series’ aim. Each fall, we take a few weeks to reorient ourselves around our vision: to see God’s Kingdom come in Portland as it is in Heaven. This year, we do so with a renewed desire to deepen our practice of Community, reaffirming our commitment to one another and to the whole church. The Guides in this series will invite us to reflect on and adjust our practice of life together—changes that our Community Leader(s) will unpack at Cohort on September 17, and that we will process together in the next Community Guide. While most of these shifts will be small (focused on Community Guides and our Family rhythm) we each respond differently to change, so let’s start our time by splitting into smaller groups to discuss our responses to change—whether it’s energizing or daunting—and what may be helpful for us to know about each other in seasons of change.

In general, does change make you nervous or does it energize you? Why?
What is important for others to know about you in seasons of change?

Guide overview (2 min)

Everyone is a disciple: Everyone is following someone or something, aiming their attention and affection in a particular direction. And whoever or whatever sets that direction, is forming us in its image. As followers of Jesus who live by the story of the Scriptures, we find God inviting his people repeatedly to pause and remember what he’s done in their midst. From moments of deliverance and victories in battle to annual feasts and the weekly Sabbath, remembering is a practice that helps God's people mark moments of his presence and action so that we can let him set the direction of our future.

With that, we will spend the rest of our time tonight looking backward and forward—backward at our lives as a Community this last year and then forward at God’s invitations to us this next year. As one of 130-or-so Bridgetown Communities, we have our unique strengths, weaknesses, advantages, and blind spots. And, like every Community, it can be easy to fall into routine and forget to pause and look at what God has been and wants to be doing in and through us. So while our practice for this series is Community, our exercise for tonight will involve reflecting on what God has brought us through, where he has taken us, and how he might be leading us forward.

Exercise for tonight (30 min)

To guide our reflection tonight, we are going to do an annual examen with reflective prayer and conversation through a few different prompts with the goal of remembering and celebrating what God has done in our midst.

Here’s how we’ll do it: After settling in, we’ll take some silent time to let the Spirit walk each of us through the last year—bringing to mind events, people, and moments—and to speak to us about the coming year. Then, we’ll come back to share, reflect, and celebrate together. To get us started, I’ll pray through this next section (Pray & Reflect), including a list of questions to springboard our memory and imaginations, then we’ll sit in silence for 5 minutes. As God brings things to mind, feel free to jot them down on paper or in a note on our phones.

Pray & Reflect (5 min)

Holy Spirit, so much has happened in our lives individually and as a Community this last year—more than we’re able to recall right now. So we ask you, Good Shepherd, to guide our memories and focus our thoughts on moments, people, and events that stood out to you. Whether it’s a moment from the Holy Spirit Conference or the time we added new people or transitioned Leaders or had a sweet moment on mission together—what is it that you would have us remember about this past year? And then, whether adding new people, shifting around some roles, or recommitting to this Community—what would you have us dream together for this next year?

Regarding this last year:

Who did we meet?
What miracle, gift, or healing did we witness?
How did we serve Portland?
How was I personally impacted by our Community?
How did I see people in our Community change?
How did we grow closer to God and one another?

Regarding this coming year:

Where do I need to ask for help?
Who might God be inviting us to become?
How might he be calling us to serve Portland?
What might need to change or transition to make room for how God’s forming us?
How do I feel invited to recommit to this Community?

(Leader Note: Set a 5 minute timer, closing in a quick prayer of gratitude before moving on.)

Share (20 min)

Now, as we share what God brought to mind, we’ll spend 10 minutes looking backward and 10 minutes looking ahead. I’ll set a timer for both parts, so that we can all stay focused.

As we look backward, remembering what God has done, we’ll take each memory one at a time, so feel free to add more detail or gratitude to what each person is sharing. But before we move on from that memory, we’ll all pause together and say, “Thanks be to God.”—praying in unison our gratitude for God’s kindness.

Then, after those 10 minutes, we’ll look forward. While this time will also be an open discussion, let’s try to not get too bogged down by the details—this is mainly a time for personal reflection, we don’t need to agree to change anything tonight. This is the beginning of a conversation we’ll continue through this series, so give each other time to process and pray over the next few weeks.

Finally, before we begin, can someone keep a list of what gets shared, so we can have something to call back to in the future—building a collection of gratitude to God for what he’s done and to keep talking about what invitations we sense God extending to us for the future.

Exercise for the week ahead (3 min)

That said, until our next Community Guide, the exercises for the week(s) ahead are to:

Continue processing your orientation to change. Transition can be disorienting. Taking time to reflect with the Holy Spirit on our postures towards change can help us show up healthily. In the coming week, consider your relationship to change: What is it? Where does it come from? What invitation might God be extending to you? Consider continuing the conversation we started tonight with God, a good friend, or a therapist.
Go to the Hospitality of Need midweek lecture. On Monday, September 15 at 6:30 PM, Bridgetown will be hosting an evening with Kevan Chandler about the hospitality of need, exploring how our own needs can create space for kinship within the ordinary rhythms of life. Communities are being encouraged to make this their mission expression for the month.

Isaiah Adeoye 8/24/25 Isaiah Adeoye 8/24/25

Genesis Series, Scripture Guide 5

Over the next three summers, as we work our way through the scroll of Genesis, we will dive into the practice of Scripture in our Communities. Because Jesus was immersed in, lived by, and ultimately lived out Scripture, we engage in this formational practice to learn how to recognize God's voice, understand His character, and find ourselves in the story of His world and mission to make all things new.

Take Communion (2 minutes)

Leader Note: Begin this time by taking communion together, whether as a full meal or some version of the bread and the cup before or after your meal. If you don’t already have a Communion liturgy, have someone read through the Psalm below.

Psalm 104v1–3, 33–34

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

He makes winds his messengers,

flames of fire his servants.

He set the earth on its foundations;

it can never be moved…

I will sing to the Lord all my life;

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

May my meditation be pleasing to him,

as I rejoice in the Lord.

Review the Last Practice (5 minutes)

Let’s take some time to check in with one another about how the practice of Scripture is going.

How have you chosen to practice Scripture this summer, and what was your experience engaging with it this week? (e.g., rich, dry, surprising, challenging, refreshing)
What do you want God to do in you, through your Scripture practice this summer?

Leader Note: Set a timer for 5 minutes. When the timer is up, call everyone back together before reading the next section.

Read this Overview (5 minutes)

After the flood, humanity spread across the earth, yet their hearts were still bent in the same direction, away from God. At Babel (Genesis 11), the people came together to “make a name for ourselves,” building a tower to the heavens in defiance of God’s command to fill the earth. Their unity was rooted in pride, not trust. In both mercy and judgment, God confused their language and scattered them, bringing their self-made kingdom to an end.

Centuries later, at Pentecost (Acts 2), we see a stunning reversal. The Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to speak in many languages so that people from every nation could hear the gospel in their own tongue. What was scattered at Babel began to be gathered in Christ, not by human achievement, but by the Spirit’s power.

At Babel, language is divided. At Pentecost, language is united. God’s vision is not uniformity, but a beautifully diverse family made One in Jesus.

This summer, we’ve taken time to explore a number of different ways to engage the Scriptures, any of which can be applied to any passage of Scripture. For example—considering the passages we just discussed (Genesis 11v1–9 & Acts 2v1–13)—if we were to read Scripture aloud or study Scripture, we might read them back to back, listening for the contrast between scattering and gathering. Or if we were to meditate on Scripture, we could spend time with Genesis 11v4 (“Let us make a name for ourselves”), asking the Spirit to reveal where we might be building “towers” in our own lives. Or if we were to memorize Scripture, we might commit to memory the first few verses of Acts 2, holding in our heart the story of Pentecost.

Practice for the Night (20 minutes)

For tonight’s practice we will spend time reflecting on how we were formed by God’s Word these past months as we engaged Scripture through the Genesis teaching series .

We began this summer series with a simple question: What might happen if we gave ourselves more fully to the Scriptures? We’ve explored ways of reading, meditating on, memorizing, and praying Scripture, allowing it to shape our understanding of God and our life with Him. Over these last several weeks, each of us has likely had a range of experiences, from moments of deep connection to times of distraction or struggle.

As we look ahead, we want to pause and name what God has done in us through this practice, and to consider what we want to carry forward into the rest of the year. This is an opportunity to thank Him for the ways He has met us, to be honest about what’s been challenging, and to make intentional commitments for the future.

With that in mind, let’s take the next fifteen minutes to talk through these questions together:

What did we set out to do when we began this series and how did that goal go?
How did I experience God deeper or more fully through this practice?

Let's now pair off and talk about how we will each continue to engage Scripture after this series. It could be helpful to consider things like what it might look like to give God more quality time as opposed to simply more quantity, or how we might rearrange our days so Scripture has space to speak in moments that matter most.

How could I continue engaging in Scripture after this series is over?

Practice for the Week Ahead (5 minutes)

As we step into this week, let’s not leave our commitments here in the room. Go and do the thing we committed to doing and watch for how God shows up.

End in Prayer (1 minute)

Leader: Pray to close your time, asking the Spirit to guide each person in their practice of Scripture.

Kylee Logan 8/10/25 Kylee Logan 8/10/25

Genesis Series, Scripture Guide 4

Take communion (2 minutes)

Psalm 104v1–3, 33–34

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

He makes winds his messengers,

flames of fire his servants.

He set the earth on its foundations;

it can never be moved…

I will sing to the Lord all my life;

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

May my meditation be pleasing to him,

as I rejoice in the Lord.

Review the Last Practice (5 minutes)

Let’s take some time to check in with one another about how the practice of Scripture is going.

How have you chosen to practice Scripture this summer, and what was your experience engaging with it this week? (e.g., rich, dry, surprising, challenging, refreshing)
What do you want God to do in you, through your Scripture practice this summer?

Leader Note: Set a timer for 5 minutes. When the timer is up, call everyone back together before reading the next section.

Read this Overview (5 minutes)

In John’s Gospel, Jesus challenges the Jewish leaders by saying: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5v39-40)

In saying this, Jesus is warning them that it’s possible to read Scripture—even passionately—and still miss him. The goal of reading Scripture isn’t simply to gain knowledge or to learn facts, but to know the person of Jesus and to help us be with Him, become like Him, and do what He did. The Scriptures are not something that we master, but rather, they help us learn to hear His voice and aim our entire lives towards Jesus.

To do that, we need a way of reading that opens us to God’s voice and forms us through reflection and response. Lectio divina, or “divine reading,” is a historic way of engaging Scripture meditatively that does just that. It involves five simple movements that make up the acronym BREAD: Be still, Read, Encounter, Apply, and Devote. We are going to take time to meditate on Scripture through this particular practice of Scripture tonight.

Practice for the Night (20 minutes)

Leader Note: Before you begin, read through the practice and assign reading parts in advance to ensure a smooth and focused flow. Timekeeping is important—feel free to gently move the group forward if any section lingers too long.

Tonight we’ll practice this way of meditating on Scripture together by reading Genesis 8v15-22. While each of us may come to this feeling something different—some excited, some nervous, others uncertain—no matter how long we have been reading Scripture or following Jesus, we can trust that God desires and does speak to us. This exercise is not about who knows the Bible best or who can interpret the passage in its historical context. In fact, let’s actually do our best to resist any urge to explain or analyze this Scripture passage. This time is about patiently listening for how God might be speaking to us personally, here and now.

Be Still: Before we begin, we’ll take a moment to get comfortable. We might silence our phones, make sure the kids are okay, and settle into a posture that helps us become open to the Holy Spirit. We’ll slow our breathing, quiet our thoughts, and invite God to meet us here.

Read: Next, one of us will read Genesis 8v15–22 slowly and clearly. As we listen, we’ll each pay attention to a word or phrase that stands out. After the reading, we’ll sit together in one minute of silence, reflecting. Then, we’ll take some time to share what stood out.

Encounter: Then, another person will reread the same passage, this time even more slowly. As we listen, we’ll ask: Why is this word or phrase standing out? What might God be saying to me through it? Then we’ll enter another minute or so of silence to ponder and listen together.

Apply: Then, as we reflect on what we’re sensing, we’ll begin to pray—offering our thoughts and responses to God. After another minute or so of silence, we’ll take time (as we feel led) to speak aloud what we sense God is saying. An example might be: “The word steadfast stood out to me. I want to pray that, as a Community, we would be steadfast in our discipleship to Jesus.” Not everyone has to speak, but God honors our vulnerability and boldness, and it shapes us as a Community.

Devote: Finally, we’ll close with a final minute or so of silence. We’ll rest in God’s presence, give thanks for His voice, and ask together: How will we walk this out in our daily lives?

To end our time, we’ll take 7 minutes in groups of 2–3 to share with each other what we felt God was saying to each of us. We can ask each other, “What was that experience like, and how did you sense God speaking to you?”

Practice for the Week Ahead (5 minutes)

This week, we will continue pressing into each of our chosen practices of Scripture. For any of us who want to grow in this practice of reading Scripture meditatively, BREAD is a great resource for this. You can download it for free at bridgetown.church/bread or purchase a copy at the bookstore on Sunday.

If you would like to practice BREAD with the Genesis texts for the upcoming Sundays, here’s a reminder of the passages we will be exploring for the rest of the Summer.

Aug 17: Genesis 9v8–29
Aug 24: Genesis 10v1–11v9
Aug 31: Genesis 11v10–12v3

End in Prayer (1 minute)

Leader: Pray to close your time, asking the Spirit to guide each person in their practice of Scripture.