Guide 1: Quieting Your Mind
First Light: Advent 2025
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.
