Practicing Sabbath as a Family: Plan Ahead

If you are like most families, your week is bursting at the seams with activities! Does practicing Sabbath find its way onto your calendar? It probably does not, unless you intentionally put it there. Why is this practicing Sabbath an important weekly rhythm? 

What is Sabbath?

Sabbath, or Shabbat, was introduced in the creation story found in the book of Genesis in the Bible. Sabbath means to cease, to end, or to rest and it is usually kicked off with a large family-style meal. You must not think of this as one more “to-do” on your list. This mandated rest day is the ultimate reset button to your week. 

Our family has been able to completely reshape our thinking about Sabbath over the past few years. Our number one recommended resource on this topic (besides the Bible, of course), is Family Teams. They were able to help us see the importance of the “seven day family.” 

I was talking with a friend about this topic recently. An important point came up that I want to share with you. It’s hard to think about adding another activity to your already busy week. But if you structure your week with Sabbath as the starting point, other things fall into their appropriate place. 

Too busy to practice Sabbath as a family?

You shouldn’t think, “oh if we have time to rest this weekend, then we will.” Spoiler alert: YOU WON’T! No offense to you, but I know you won’t! How? Because I have done it over and over and over again (or I guess, I haven’t done it…but you get what I’m saying).  There is always another pile of laundry. There are always a few more dishes to wash. There is always one more errand to run. There is always another diaper to change. Ok, you can’t rest from changing diapers all day. But you get my point. 

Prioritizing Sabbath

This is all about priorities. More specifically, rightly ordering your priorities. A great place to start prioritizing your life is with the ten commandments. The fourth commandment says:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

Exodus 20:8-11

So yes, you will still need to do laundry, work, and other weekly rhythms, but they shouldn’t take priority over Sabbath. So let’s get Sabbath on the calendar FIRST, then fill in the rest around it. 

How to Start Practicing Sabbath as a Family

Weekly Rhythms to help you start practicing Sabbath

Pick a time to sit down as a family and plan your week! Think of this as your weekly family business meeting. We like to call our weekly meeting “Family Business Council” because that sounds more fun to us than a meeting. When we look at our calendar, we start with the non-negotiables. 

Non-negotiables

These items are top-priorities. Be picky here!!! Our non-negotiables are usually: Sabbath and date-night. After our non-negotiables are set, we begin filling in the rest of the schedule for that week. This is also a good time to point out that in the beginning, Sabbath may only be 4 hours for your family. Maybe it is 6 or 12 hours? My plea for you is to just START! It will change and morph and only get better as you practice. Sabbath is traditionally observed for 24 hours, from sundown to sundown. 

The rest of the week after Sabbath

The next tier of activities (after non-negotiables) may fall into a few different categories: 

Need to do/fixed time. Need to do/flexible time. Want to do/fixed time. Want to do/flexible time. 

For us, our work schedule is a “need to do/fixed time” item. (Although we have a long-term goal to make our work schedule more flexible.) An example of “need to do/flexible time” would be things like laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep, etc. Depending upon your families priorities, exercise may fall into the need to-do or the want to-do category. And it may flex between those categories depending on what stage of life you are in. That’s ok. I am just pointing this out to reiterate that each family has a different mission and set of values. Therefore your priorities and schedule will look different. That doesn’t mean you are doing it right or wrong. 

Once you have the non-negotiable and the “need to dos” on your calendar, now you can see the time blocks left for the “want to dos.” If you don’t have a lot of time left on your calendar at this point, don’t be discouraged! Realize that some seasons are busier than others. Are some of your “need to dos” only for this season? Maybe you should take a hard look at your list of things you think you need to do and make sure that you have appropriately labeled them. You may be surprised that you have been holding yourself to a “need to do” standard for many optional things. 

Back to the want-tos

Look at the fixed time items on your “want to do list.” If there is an open block at those times, fill them in as you wish. The same with the flexible time items. 

The only thing left are the things you don’t want to do. I’m going to give you permission now: just because you were invited to something, doesn’t mean you have to go! But I’m guessing that after going through the above process, you probably don’t have much time left for the “don’t want tos” which is great! Congratulations! You have successfully and intentionally planned your week so you are getting done the things that need to get done and things you enjoy. Sorry, time is too precious to spend it on things you don’t want to do! 

Start small

By the end of today, figure out a day in the next week that you and your spouse can sit down for at least 15 minutes to look at your calendar. This will be your first official “family business meeting”! You both individually need to WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING you do in the week before this meeting so you can see it on paper. 

We created this Family Business Meeting Guide for you to use to get started! Go through the above prioritizing process. Don’t get overwhelmed. Start small, but just start. Maybe you only make one or two changes to your schedule for the upcoming week. That’s fine! You are just practicing every week and every week will get easier and better! Sabbath is a “practice” after all. 

How are you going to start practicing Sabbath as a family?

We would LOVE to hear from you after your first family meeting. Comment below and tell us what day of the week you decided to have your meeting and what day you planned your first Sabbath! 

We look forward to providing you with more resources on weekly rhythms and more specifically, practicing Sabbath as a family. In the meantime, go live a Family-style life!

-Emmy