Rediscovering a Rhythm of Life

Revd John Hellewell, Thornton-le-Moors with Ince and Elton

None of this is earth-shattering. It’s all fairly ordinary, really — or at least it feels normal to me, and I suspect it does to many of you too. What I want to talk about is rhythm of life — that steady, deliberate pattern of living that keeps our relationship with God alive.

When I first became a Christian, the practice was simple: you did your quiet time. Every evangelical I knew did it, no debate, no excuses. But somewhere along the way, it became a rule rather than a joy, and when it started to feel like law instead of grace, many of us quietly dropped it. I think we’ve lost something in that — the self-discipline of nurturing our own walk with God. And when we become ministers, that gets squeezed even further. There’s always more to do, another email, another sermon.

So for me, rediscovering a rhythm or rule of life is about reclaiming that grace-filled discipline: learning again how to abide in Christ, to become more like him, and then to do the things he did.

How do we help our people — and ourselves — do that?

One thing I’ve done since I was a curate (in the days when we still used a banding machine for the notice sheet!) is to include a short thought for the day on the week’s Bible passage, with questions for reflection. It’s a simple way for people to take the Word home with them. Recently, a member of our congregation told me how much that meant while she was caring for her terminally ill husband at home. She couldn’t make it to church, but those weekly notes kept her connected — and grounded in Scripture.

Each notice sheet also includes Bible readings for the week. In my first year here, I challenged the church to read through the whole Bible in a year. Sometimes we’ve focused just on the Old or New Testament; this year we’re simply abiding in Mark — one short passage each week to reflect on deeply. We talk about it in our midweek communion, and people engage with it at home too.

I’ve also been inspired by John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way, which reminds us that everyone lives by some kind of rhythm — the question is, whose pattern are we following? If we’re followers of Jesus, surely we should follow his rhythms.

Once a month, at our café church, we explore one of the classic spiritual disciplines — prayer, solitude, service, and so on — and ask how we can live it out today. We never tell people what to do, but we offer possibilities and a gentle challenge: try something for a month. Recently we looked at service and invited people to think about how they could serve God, family, church, neighbours, and the wider world.

One member messaged later, saying she’d realised she’d written her own plan without asking God what he wanted her to do. That’s growth — learning that this isn’t about us, but about him.

We share resources, apps, daily prayers — tools that help people keep going. Many who aren’t yet Christians use them too. My ongoing challenge is how to make these rhythms more communal. Personal practice matters but so does a shared rhythm — especially when some of us work Sundays and rest is hard to find.

I haven’t got that figured out yet. But I’m learning, one rhythm at a time.