Welcome to Church Stopping: Resources for Congregational Sabbath

Welcome to Church Stopping!

Authentic Church Renewal through Congregational Sabbath/Church Sabbatical

"You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines." (Leviticus 25:11)

"The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent." (Exodus 14:14)

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me....to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." (Luke 4:18a, 19)

"You all remember the sabbath and keep it holy. (Exodus 20:6, emphasis mine)

"The industrial era at climax, in the panic of long-anticipated decline, has imposed on us all its ideals of ceaseless pandemonium. The industrial economy, by definition, must never rest.  Rest would deprive us of light, heat, food, water, and everything else we need or think we need. The economic impulse of industrial life (to stretch a term) is limitless. Whatever we have, in whatever quantity, is not enough.  Our bellies and our wallets must become oceanic, and still they will not be full. Six workdays in a week are not enough.  We need a seventh. We need an eighth. In the industrial world, at climax, one family cannot or will not support itself by one job. We need a job for the day and one for the night. Thank God for the moon! We cannot stop to eat. Thank God for cars! We dine as we drive over another paved farm. Everybody is weary, and there is no rest."  

(Wendell Berry, foreword to Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006).

Jesus will never be real to us or be compelling to an exhausted world until we finally "adopt the paradoxical and radical expedient of just stopping."

(Norman Wirzba, Ibid.)

Congregational Sabbath: Less doing. More being.

Photo from www.sxc.hu 1207860