I knew when Jackson and I got married, I wanted to find rhythms that would become pillars of our life together. After almost a year and a half of marriage, we have landed on a few that are keepers. They keep us grounded, connected, and organized.
I believe each of these practices are beneficial and have something to offer someone in every season. Whether you are married or single or dating or engaged, have young children or no children or older children or grown children, I think you will find these rhythms incredibly life-giving.
1. Family Meeting
Family meeting is essentially a business meeting but for our family. It is a designated time for us to get on the same page. We reflect, set goals, and delegate tasks.
Ground Rules
Family meeting is not date night. I know some people who lump family meeting into date night, but I don’t recommend this. Family meeting is a wonderful time to connect, but it is also a time to discuss the sometimes stressful things about your schedules, tasks, and relationships. I find keeping these the two rhythms separate is best.
Have an agenda. Compiling a list of things you need to discuss or plan leads to a much more productive meeting. This can be the same general list each time or a unique list tailored to each meeting. Personally, we use a combination. I make a shared page in Notion with an agenda similar to the sample one below. Then, throughout the month, we can both add specific things within these categories as they come up.
Leave time for open and honest conversation. During our family meeting, we try to discuss ways we could better support one another and how we are doing overall (reflection). If something is urgent, we try to talk about it immediately, but having a designated time to dig deeper or sort through harder things is also really helpful.
Pray together: We like to end our meetings by praying together. This is also a great time to ask how you can be praying for your spouse!
Frequency
We have family meetings monthly, but you can do these in whatever timeline works for you! Some people do them weekly, and I know others who have meetings quarterly. Figure out what works best for you!
2. Date Night
I see date night as the opposite of family meeting. Family meeting is for all the businessy things - like money, schedules, tasks.
But date night is all about having fun together!
Ground Rules
It has to be fun! This is the number one and most important rule.
It does NOT have to cost money. Date night can be as extravagant or as frugal as you want. But remember, the goal is to have fun, and if you are spending the whole night worrying about the budget, you probably aren’t having much fun!
There is no work and no talk of work. This includes household work like dishes, laundry, etc.
No phones! We try to turn our phones off and put them away at least for some part of the date. Of course, there are countless reasons you might need to have one on hand, but try to at least minimize your time on them.
Try out a date night schedule. If you struggle to come up with ideas for date nights, try out some sort of structure. You could swap off planning every month with your spouse. You could also create weekly rhythms for your date night - here is an example to get your juices flowing!
Frequency
I think the frequency of your date nights will 100% depend on your season of life.
However, I also think it depends on how you are viewing what date night is. If you are trying to have a fancy meal away from home every single week, that might not feel very feasible. But when you see it simply as time set aside for you and your spouse to put away thoughts of work and chores and just have a little fun together, it can feel much more attainable!
I suggest weekly date nights, but just as I said with family meeting, make it work for you!
3. Sabbath
We are ending on my favorite and the most life-changing of our family rhythms - Sabbath. Sabbath is a full day completely devoted to rest.
Sound like something you could use?
“Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy. For six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”
Exodus 20:8
Ground Rules
No working and no thinking about work. Sometimes not thinking about work or chores you need to get done is even harder than not doing them. I struggle to be able to rest or have fun when there are still things on my to-do list or when things aren’t exactly “perfect” to me. This is excellent practice to fight that urge.
No shopping. Sabbath is also about rest from wanting. On your Sabbath, you simply enjoy what you have and fight the feeling of “needing” to acquire more. Not shopping also allows others to rest from work. John Mark Comer shares a ton about this - check out his resources below!
Limit or eliminate screens. This isn’t a requirement, but I think it makes it a million times easier to rest. I saw this video on my Instagram feed recently with this caption, and it fits perfectly with this point: “When we are resting on our sabbath, are we *engaging* in rest with the Lord, or are we simply numbing out by an *entertaining* tv show?”
Do things that feel restful and bring joy. This is the fun part. Sabbath is not about what you can’t do but about all the things you get to do as you rest in the Lord. I’ll leave a list below of some ideas.
Frequency
Sabbath is made to be a weekly practice.
You can do it on any day, at any time. The traditional Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) is Friday sundown to Saturday sundown because they start their day at nightfall.
Whenever you choose to do it, let it be both a day whose rest you look forward to as you grow weary at the end of the week and a day whose rest you live out of as you begin a new one.
An Excellent Sabbath Resource: John Mark Comer
He has tons of podcasts all about Sabbath, and he talks about Sabbath in his books, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and Garden City. His organization Practicing the Way also has tons of amazing resources.
Thank you so much for reading! Comment or respond and let me know what rhythms you and your families do! Talk to you next Monday!
Take care,
Caroline