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    Life Balance: A Five Session Course on Rest, Work and Play for Lent
    Life Balance: A Five Session Course on Rest, Work and Play for Lent
    Life Balance: A Five Session Course on Rest, Work and Play for Lent
    Ebook96 pages59 minutes

    Life Balance: A Five Session Course on Rest, Work and Play for Lent

    By Sue Mayfield

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    About this ebook

    Focusing on getting the right 'life balance' between rest, work and play, this course in five interactive sessions aims to help groups explore how to build Sabbath time into the crazy pressures of everyday life, and how Sabbath attitudes can transform the way we spend our time.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChurch House Publishing
    Release dateDec 8, 2014
    ISBN9780715146729
    Life Balance: A Five Session Course on Rest, Work and Play for Lent

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      Book preview

      Life Balance - Sue Mayfield

      Acknowledgements

      The authors and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. If there are any inadvertent omissions we apologize to those concerned and will ensure that a suitable acknowledgement is made in all future editions.

      Special thanks are due to Gordon Mursell, Bishop of Stafford, for kindly allowing the authors to use unpublished material from his research notes.

      Extracts from the New Revised Standard version of the Bible, Anglicized Edition (NRSV): copyright © 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Extracts from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible (CEV): copyright © American Bible Society 1991, 1995.

      Extract from God of Surprises by Gerard Hughes, copyright © 1985. Used by permission of Darton, Longman & Todd.

      Contents

      Title

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

      Session 1 Time to Pause/Beforehand

      Time to Pause/The Session

      Session 2 Time to Celebrate/Beforehand

      Time to Celebrate/The Session

      Session 3 Time to Rest/Beforehand

      Time to Rest/The Session

      Session 4 Time to Play/Beforehand

      Time to Play/The Session

      Session 5 Time to Liberate/Beforehand

      Time to Liberate/The Session

      Bibliography and Further Resources

      Copyright

      >> Introduction

      Life Balance is an opportunity to examine our patterns of rest, work and play, and to look afresh at our values and life principles in the light of the Bible’s teaching about the Sabbath.

      >>What is Sabbath?

      A large pot had been in the possession of a family for more time than they could remember. It had served a number of purposes during that time and was currently being used as an umbrella stand in the hall. When a TV Road Show was in the area doing valuations, one of the children persuaded the parents – just for a bit of fun – to take the pot along. It proved to be a very rare vase, worth a small fortune.

      The Sabbath is rather like that. We all have it, it has been around for ages, we have put it to all sorts of uses, but most of us have only the haziest idea what it was meant for. And we do not realize what a treasure it is!

      >  Sabbath is a gift more than a demand. It is the gift of a break from the routines of life and a means of refreshing us. For Jews, celebrating Sabbath from sunset to sunset, Sabbath begins with the gifts of food and sleep. For Christians, celebrating Sabbath on the first day of the week, Sabbath is not so much the gift of rest at the end of a hard week’s work, as a reminder (at the start of a new week) that the whole of life is sustained by God’s grace and generosity.

      >  Sabbath is a door opening up a new dimension – taking us beyond the necessary, the urgent and the everyday. Sabbath is not so much a day for not doing things (despite misconceptions reinforced by both Pharisees and Victorians!) but rather a day for doing the really important things: giving and receiving rather than buying and selling; enjoying the goodness and reality of God’s presence and the beauty of his world. Sabbath is about entering into the fullness of life Christ promised here on earth as a foretaste of the richness of heavenly life.

      >  Sabbath is an attitude not just a day. Sabbath invites us to take its principles of resting, thanksgiving, justice and generosity into the whole of life – reducing the stress and rush and enlarging our vision.

      >  Sabbath is a surprise! The story of Creation in the opening verses of Genesis has a fascinating twist at the end. For seven days God creates spaces, habitats and living creatures. On the last day God rests, and makes holy, Sabbath time. This has striking relevance for us in a society that has been described as ‘cash rich, time poor’. We talk of ‘finding time’, ‘spending time’, ‘catching up’, ‘chasing our tails’. What we do not talk about is receiving time as gift or valuing it as holy.

      >>Why study Sabbath during Lent?

      Lent and Sabbath (be it Sabbath days or longer ‘Sabbatical’ periods) are seasons of stopping. Both are opportunities to pause, to find new rhythms, to create space and to clear some of the clutter in our overcrowded and lopsided lives.

      Both Lent and Sabbath are about:

      >  Time: taking ‘time out’, making special ‘holy’ time to refocus mind and spirit and refresh the whole of life.

      >  Spiritual disciplines: Sabbath is one of the most neglected spiritual disciplines. We may practise prayer, fasting, giving and service but forget to practise Sabbath – even though it is one of the Ten Commandments.

      >  Good news: understanding Sabbath is a

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