Good morning! It’s 7 AM on Saturday, August 1, 2026.

Last night, my wife, and I did our first Shabbat ceremony.

I would be lying if I said we did it the traditional way because we certainly did not, but I don’t think it was any less impactful.

We are Christian—staunchly, mind you.

Some of you reading this might be asking “then why are you practicing Shabbat? It’s a Jewish tradition.” so let me tell you a little bit about why we decided to.

As christians, we have decided to practice Shabbat because we want to take this additional opportunity to be obedient to God, one that many people do not take but that all should.

And what are we obeying?

Observing and obeying the fourth commandment.

We also see it as another way to commune with God.

It’s not communion in the sacrament sense. It’s communion in the “togetherness” sense of the word.

We feel that it will bring a greater unity between us and God.

God gave us the gift of rest, it’s only fitting that we spend it the way he asks us to.

This is why we decided to begin the practice of Shabbat in spite of not being Jewish ourselves. Our savior Jesus Christ was jewish, he kept Jewish tradition and law better than any human could ever do.

And He certainly practiced Shabbat, so why shouldn’t we as his followers and as children of God?

Because it was our first time doing so, and we didn’t have anybody with us, we had to do a lot of research.

Thankfully, we found a bunch of literature to read and videos to watch so that we could get an idea of what Shabbat would be like and what it entails.

Through our research, this is an approximate order of events that we have found:

1. The woman of the house says a blessing over the candles

If done in Hebrew, it’s “Barukh attah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, asher kideshanu bemitzvotav ve-tzivanu liheyot or la-goyim v’natan-lanu et Yeshua Meshicheinu or ha-olam, Amen. “

If done in English, it’s: “Blessed are You, LORD our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, commanded us to be a light to the nations, and gave us Jesus, our Messiah, the light of the world. Amen.”

2. Worship together through song
3. Give thanks to God (reciting verses from both Psalm 91 and Psalm 121 was suggested)
4. Prayer of thanks for His protection during the current week
5. Say a blessing over the wives (the husbands do this) using proverbs 31 from verse 10 until the end is recommended
6. Bless the children (if you have them)
7. Say a blessing over the husbands (the wives do this), psalm 1 is recommended
8. Bless the wine
9. Bless the bread
10. Eat
11. Prayer for protection until the next Shabbat

Our Shabbat ceremony:

Did we follow the above to a T? No, we did not because more than a few of these weren’t applicable to us.

We did the candle lighting with its accompanying blessing in English, we gave thanks for the protection God gave us this week; we don’t drink (at all) so we used water for the wine blessing, but the intent and thought were the same.

We don’t have children so we used that prayer to pray over our entire family, none of which were present with us when we did Shabbat this time (I pray that changes in the near future).

Then, we blessed the food and drink, and also prayed for protection over our household until the next Shabbat.

In addition to that we began our own tradition of a technological lockout during and after the Shabbat ceremony and dinner. We put our phones on their respective chargers and put them in a separate room turned off.

Why?

Because Shabbat is a sacred time. You are meant to focus on God and nothing else.

After our delicious dinner (which was also not traditional, because we couldn’t afford a whole spread and did not have the ingredients for the challah bread on hand), we read scripture and watched a sermon, followed by half an hour to 45 minutes of worship before bed.

My reaction:

Obviously, it wasn’t perfect, but to me that was OK.

We did our best to stay as traditional as we could while adapting the existing traditional practices to fit our current situation.

I feel like it was a success. I focused on God for those few hours more than I have in recent months.

It felt right, it felt comforting, it felt joyous, and as though it was feeding a starving soul.

We will definitely be doing it again, not just next Friday night, but for the rest of our lives, God Willing; as our situation changes, we look forward to revamping our Shabbat ceremony and hopefully making it more traditional.

Should all Christians practice Shabbat?:

I believe you should.

Christianity was born through Jewish tradition, and through men and women who practiced the Jewish faith.

All Christians are Jews by adoption. This meaning that since God, the father YAHWEH; God, The Son—Jesus—and the Holy Spirit of God—the holy Trinity, Whom both Jewish and non-Jewish Christians worship—since we Christians are now part of the family of God as they are, we are also Jewish by dint of the sheer fact of being adopted into the family, the family of God.

M