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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matt 5:6)

In discussion prayer and fasting, we would do well as leaders to understand that the best thing we could do to tap into the meaning of them is to do them. Consider emailing or calling your members before group and inviting them to fast the day of your meeting. You could break the fast with the meal at group. (This is admittedly difficult for the Sunday groups, so you may want to invite them to do it the following week so you have time to communicate and plan it.)

Help your group in this study to understand that the bottom line isn't etched in a complete understanding of the disciplines, but in the observing of them. If someone were to say they wanted bigger muscles, but only ever "read up" on push ups and sit ups, they would be well informed but weak. Knowing all about muscle development and recovery, etc. would be very helpful, but at the end of the day, you have to take your questions and wonder with you to the floor and start sweating. Only in the experience will you be actually learning and developing beyond the information.

This may be a great time for you and your members to take a step into assigning prayer partners, accountability structure, prayer and fasting rhythms, a google or yahoo group for prayer and fasting reminders, etc...Take advantage of it. At the same timne, understand that some of this is just a couple steps too far. Be challenging, but remain sensitive to where each of your members are. Don't set them up for failure by asking the group to cater to the strongest in the group. Creatively move everyone a step.

Thaw

• What's something God has been challenging and teaching you about through the daily devotional guide?
• What stuck with you most from the message from Sunday?
• Anything you had never heard before?

Read

• Matthew 6:1-18
• Thoughts?
• Are you surprised to find the assumption in Jesus words about prayer and fasting? What about your past or your perceptions makes it so you are surprised?

Read

• 1 Corinthians 6:12
• Thoughts?
• What is Paul getting at here?
• How does this apply to eating? Entertainment?

Leader note: the idea that everything is permissible includes the fact that it is "permissible", thankfully, to eat! It's also permissible to have a favorite show, a hobby, etc. The idea is NOT merely "good vs. bad", but about being mastered by things other than the Master. The theme of repenting of even good things when those things begin to be distraction, works throughout the scriptures. Fasting is a way of turning from even good things for a time because even good things can take you off course if they aren't controlled.

Read

• Luke 4:1-4
• Luke 11:1-4
• Thoughts?
• Prayer and fasting were a regular part of Jesus' life, as it was an assumed and celebrated part of his earliest followers'. Why do you think some people struggle with it, or even ignore it, now?

Discuss

• What are healthy ways that we use systems, patterns and rhythms in our faith?
• What are some unhealthy ways?

Leader note: help the group determine that, beyond the general definition of "religion", meeting on Sundays, meeting fro group, helping kids and one another to remember to practice prayer, read the scriptures, serve, forgive, etc. are all ways that having patterns are healthy. When those patterns become the point, or even the metric by which we evaluate each other's faith, it has turned into something that it has often turned into in the history of faith; something bad.

• How would having fixed times of prayer and fasting be helpful for the members of this group?

Leader note: Let everyone speak into this. You may have people still uncomfortable with the idea. You may have people who have zero intentions for doing anything with these practices. Let everyone have a swing at speaking into the implementation of discipline, recognizing the disillusion some have with traditions such as these, as well as the perception that this will make them "weird".

• Respond as a group to this quote from the book"Fasting" by Scot McKnight:

Fasting along with our prayer requests is not some kind of magic bullet to ensure the answer we want. Fasting doesn't reinforce the walls of our crumbling prayers like a flying buttress, nor is it a manipulative device. We fast because a condition arises- what we are calling the sacred moment-that leads us to desire something deeply. We fast because our plea is so intense that in the midst of our sacred desire eating seems sacrilegious. A body plea occurs when the unified person gives himself or herself wholly to God to plead for something or someone....Sometimes, to quote James, the brother of Jesus, we have not because we ask not. And sometimes we have not because we don't want it bad enough (James 4:2). Fasting can be the way for the unified person to turn to God to plead with God completely.

Apply

• What could this group do in patterning times of fasting, both as a group and as individuals, to regularly discipline the body and center the whole self on the pursuit of God?
• Is someone in the group willing to lead with effort on behalf of the group to help create a workable rhythm.

Leader note: You may help, depending on how this is being received and the specific nature of your group, with ideas about weekly meal skipping, month day of fasting, Lent next year, etc. You may also want to talk to the person that handles your prayer concerns about adding a group fasting schedule to some of the prayer concerns you already have on the list. Be creative, and, again, help the group take a step into what may be a totally new and practice.

Prayer-

End in prayer to God about following the patterns and disciplines of Jesus. As Him to reveal how these simple, small, even peculiar measures have the net affect of creating growth and maturity in the biggest areas of our faith.