Spiritual Practices

Spiritual practices are not techniques for earning God’s favour. They are more like training than performing: habits that position us to receive what only God can give, and over time reshape the grain of who we are. Jesus modelled most of these. His followers have built their lives around them for two thousand years.

1. Scripture Reading

The Bible is not a rulebook or a reference manual, though it contains both rules and reference points. It is a unified story that carries its own authority, and reading it regularly is the single most consistent way Christians throughout history have heard God speak. The goal is not to accumulate knowledge but to let the text address you. Many people find that reading whole books of the Bible, rather than isolated verses, gives them a richer sense of how each part connects to the whole. A structured plan keeps the habit alive in dry seasons.

The best place to start is on our “Reading the Bible” page which contains some helpful short videos from the Bible Project, and links to more. We also have a page which features a range of Bible Reading resources/apps which you will also find helpful.

Additional Resource: The Navigators Bible Reading Plans offer several well-tested structures, from chronological plans to discipleship-focused options, with free PDF downloads.

2. Prayer

Prayer is conversation with a person, not a ritual to perform. It is the practice through which a relationship with God becomes actual rather than merely notional. Most people find prayer harder than they expected, partly because they try to sustain it on feeling alone. The Lord’s Prayer is not just a text to recite: it is a framework Jesus gave his disciples to structure the whole of their praying, and returning to it regularly tends to deepen rather than narrow how someone prays. The basic movements are adoration, confession, petition, and intercession.

Resource: Cru’s guide to prayer is a practical, non-intimidating introduction for anyone wanting to establish or restart a prayer life.

3. Fasting

Fasting is the one discipline that most Christians acknowledge and almost none practise. Its purpose is not to suffer, and it is not a transaction where God owes you something in return for skipping lunch. It is an act of deliberate reordering. When you fast, you discover very quickly what you lean on for comfort, distraction, and relief. That discovery is the point. Hunger becomes a recurring prompt to pray. The body is brought into the work of formation rather than being left out of it. Many people start with one meal or one day, and extend the practice as it becomes familiar.

Resource: Practicing the Way’s Fasting Practice includes teaching, guided exercises, and a free downloadable companion guide designed for individuals or groups.

4. Solitude and Silence

Jesus withdrew from people. Repeatedly, in the Gospels, he steps back from crowds, from ministry, from his disciples, to be alone with the Father. For most people in the modern West this is the most uncomfortable practice on the list, which is probably the best argument for it. Solitude strips away the noise we use to avoid our own interior lives. Silence, paired with it, creates the conditions in which God’s voice can actually be heard rather than merely believed in. Start with five minutes. The point is not to achieve a mystical state but to stop, be present, and attend.

Resource: Practicing the Way’s Solitude Practice walks through the practice in four stages, with a companion guide and recommended reading for those who want to go deeper.

5. Sabbath

One day in seven set aside from work is not a suggestion for people who are naturally restful. It is a commandment given to a people who had been slaves and had forgotten that rest was permitted. Sabbath is a weekly act of trust: the world will not fall apart if you stop. It is also a rehearsal for eternity. The discipline involves actual cessation of ordinary work, intentional delight, and unhurried time with God and people. Many Christians find it the hardest practice to establish and, once established, the most transformative.

Resource: Practicing the Way’s Sabbath Practice is one of the most thorough, accessible treatments of the topic available online, with teaching, practice guides, and community discussion resources.

6. Worship

Worship is not a Sunday morning activity that begins when the band starts and ends at the sermon. It is an orientation of the whole person toward God, expressed in gathered singing, in private adoration, in gratitude offered throughout an ordinary day, and in the giving of time and money. The practice of worship trains the attention. What you give sustained attention to shapes you; regular, intentional acts of praise redirect attention toward God’s character and away from the self’s anxieties. Gathered corporate worship carries a particular weight that private devotion cannot replicate.

Resource: Ligonier Ministries offers extensive free resources on the theology and practice of worship, grounded in solid biblical exposition.

7. Service

Service is what love looks like when it puts on work clothes. The New Testament does not offer a spirituality that is purely interior: it insists that faith without action is inert, and that caring for people in practical need is one of the primary ways followers of Jesus bear witness to a different kind of kingdom. Service as a spiritual practice means doing it intentionally, consistently, and often without recognition. The discipline of hidden service, in particular, confronts the ego in a way that more public acts do not.

Resource: Practicing the Way’s Service Practice frames service theologically and practically, with weekly exercises grounded in how Jesus himself served.

8. Community

Christian faith was never designed to be practised alone. The New Testament assumes a community, names one another repeatedly in its instructions, and describes the church as a body where every part is necessary to the whole. Accountability, shared prayer, confession, and the friction of actually doing life with difficult people are all part of what community provides. A small group context, where real honesty is possible, offers something that a Sunday gathering cannot. Community is not a supplement to personal discipleship; it is one of its primary environments.

Resource: Practicing the Way’s Community Practice provides structured guidance for building the kind of deeply relational, Jesus-centred community the New Testament describes.