How to Fast the Week Before a Church Revival

Religious fasting can coincide with a dedication to prayer.

Fasting is mostly recognized as a means of lessening the amount you eat. Fasting can also be considered a conscious change in action. People fast for personal and religious reasons. Sometimes, people fast to lose weight or to detoxify their bodies for special religious events like Lent, or in preparation for church revivals. Religious fasting can be done in a variety of ways.

Instructions

1. Consider a partial fast, especially if it's your first fast. Choose fasting plans like a fruit and/or vegetable fast, a brown-rice fast, or the Daniel fasting, which excludes food like meat, wine and other delicacies. Stick to eating only the foods that are a part of the selected fasting diet during the week before the church revival. Eat your permitted foods during one part of the day and fast for the other half.

2. Abstain from a form of enjoyment. Fast by choosing to abstain from something that you usually enjoy doing on a regular basis. Make it something you will miss. For example, if you love to shop or watch television, choose not to shop or watch TV for the whole week before the church revival. Set aside the time you would normally do those activities to instead focus on your spiritual relationship.

3. Set aside time for praying, meditating, and reading the Bible, as religious fasting is a way of getting closer to God. Involve family members in some of your time with God by reading the Bible and praying together to increase family bonding. Meditate and pray solely to get that personal connection to God. Religious fasting, whether it's abstaining from food or other enjoyment, or whether it's being more open to positive changes, is a way to grow closer to God.

Tips & Warnings

• Make an actionable change in your life. Make an effort to connect and stay in touch with a family member you may not have spoken to in a long while. Focus on changing any negative personality traits you may have.

• During the time you normally spend eating or doing something you enjoy, pray and meditate instead. Make a habit to pray each morning in an effort to become better at praying.

• Don't give up if changes take a while, because change is an ongoing process.

• Consider special dietary needs regarding health issues like high blood pressure to maintain proper health during fasting.

References

• WebMD: Fasting Diets
• Spirithome.com: Fasting as Spiritual Discipline and Devotional Practice
• All About Fasting: Partial Fasting for Cleansing and Detox

Resources

• Doctoryourself.com; Doing Less And Accomplishing More ... ; Andrew Saul; 2004