A Christian pastor believes the “most neglected spiritual practice in the modern world” is fasting and contends “it may be more needed than ever.”
Dr. Darren Whitehead, senior pastor of Church of the City in Nashville, Tennessee, is out with a book “The Digital Fast: 40 Days to Detox Your Mind and Reclaim What Matters Most,” in which he addresses the need to apply principles of fasting to our digital consumption.
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Whitehead recently told CBN News about the importance of fasting, which GotQuestions.org says is intended “to take your eyes off the things of this world to focus completely on God.” He pointed back to Jesus’ own 40-day fast before his ministry began, and said his church starts each year by fasting.
“I am definitely a proponent of helping people participate in a food fast several times a year or with some regular rhythm,” Whitehead said. “We, as a church, take the first 21 days of the year and encourage people to have a season of prayer and fasting.”
As for his belief fasting might be more needed than ever, the preacher pointed to the current state of culture, explaining that people today are “able to appease our every appetite at a moment’s notice at any time, and it hasn’t always been like this.”
And while fasting is often associated with food, Whitehead is also encouraging people to look more diligently at the technologies that have, in many ways, overtaken our lives, encouraging people in his book to consider embarking on a “digital fast.”
“The reason that I wanted to do a digital fast is that for some of the similar ways that we use food,” he said. “We generally can go to food when we are feeling anxious, when we are afraid of something, when we have some surge of feeling ashamed about something.”
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Reprinted with permission from faithwire.com. Copyright © 2024 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
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