Kingdom Fasts Explained

Live Dead missionaries choose to practice 12 kingdom fasts each year. The intention of the kingdom fasts is to build solidarity among those who are fasting. They remind their bodies (flesh) that their spirits are in charge and that both body and spirit are to be under the Lordship of Jesus.

Physical hunger or difficulty of going without a good thing serves to help us long for the most rewarding and best of all things and all people – Jesus.

Feel free to participate with us in these fasts for part or all of the indicated month. Prayerfully select the fasts appropriate to your spiritual walk and stage of life and abstain from others.

We hold a disciplined yet non-legalistic approach to fasting. Sometimes circumstances and relationships do not allow us to keep the letter of the scheduled fast. In that case we feast joyously knowing that fasting and feasting are complementary.

1. Meats, Dairy and Grains (January)

A Daniel-type fast (eating only fruits, salads, and vegetables) at the beginning of the year is a great way to refocus your body and soul on Jesus. All fasts should be linked to prayer, and by simplifying our diet, the intention is we simplify our life, slow down, listen to the Holy Spirit, and obey His directions for the coming year.

This fast is a great fast to do as a community, and we suggest that you frequently meet as a church, family, or group of friends during this fast for focused prayer – prayers that listen more than request.

Some may choose to do a juice-only fast, some may choose to do a stringent water-only fast, some may choose to fast certain days of the week or meals of the day. The intention is solidarity where every mature member of the community fasts something and we come together for special prayers of inquiry: “Lord, what do you have for us this year? What do you want us to take up? What do you want us to lay down?”

The laying down of certain foods is symbolic of our willingness to lay down in the coming months whatever Jesus requires and to take up whatever He instructs.

2. Caffeine (February)

Fasting caffeine helps us humbly realize how dependent we are on stimulants other than prayer and the presence of Jesus. In this month, we will abstain from all sodas, coffee, tea, and other caffeinated drinks and products.

The intention of this fast is to help us realize our propensity to addiction and should make us slower to criticize the more obvious addictions of others. Fasting caffeine helps us look towards the Spirit for our stimulation and towards Jesus for our energy.

Jesus should be our drug. Giving up caffeine teaches us to rely on Jesus more for attention and awakening.

3. Shopping (March)

Fasting from shopping refers to giving up buying personal items that we actually can live without. This fast does not mean you stop purchasing food, gasoline, and daily consumables or stop paying your monthly bills. Fasting shopping means we limit ourselves to only what is needed for daily health.

We don’t need to buy clothes or shoes every month. We don’t need to buy sweets or movies, sports tickets or entertainment options every month. By limiting ourselves to only the essentials we realize how much we can live without, and this brings us into solidarity with the poor who have no expendable income and who often are not able to purchase necessities.

If birthdays or anniversaries fall during this month, consider planning ahead or delaying the purchase of gifts; an exercise which again should make you grateful for all the years you have been able to buy little things without planning or savings.

Fasting shopping for non-necessary items helps us simplify our lives and gives us more time for Jesus. You’ll have more resources to give to the poor or to the spread of the gospel in the earth.

4. Produced Music (April)

The music that others have created for us is a gift. An unfortunate consequence of the diligence of others is that we can forget how to make our own music to the Lord. If we are reliant on iPods, CDs, radio (including Internet and TV radio), and recorded worship music for our praise, what will we do when those things are taken away?

This fast brings us into solidarity with many around the world who either cannot afford the purchase of electronic music or had the privilege taken from them when imprisoned for their faith. In this month we give up the worship of others and feast on our own voice singing to God without instruments or electronics. We practice our praise.

This month, when we go to church and participate with others and their instruments in worship, it will be all the sweeter.

5. Games (May)

The electronic age has privatized gaming and turned it into an obsessive hunt for further levels of accomplishment. In this month we relinquish video games, games on our electronic devices, even board games and card games in favor of more active outside or physical play.

To repeat what was said in the introduction about fasting, it is not giving up something addictive or abusive, but it is giving up something good for something better, it is giving up something good for a season that we return to it later with better perspective.

Often games become controlling and it is good for us to beat that captor down and regulate it to an occasional diversion, rather than a dominating obsession. As in all fasting, giving up games gives us opportunity to feast on the great game – the game for eternal souls.

This month, perhaps you can spend the time you normally enjoy playing games with friends or family towards a time of prayer for unreached peoples around the world. Instead of competing for a new high score or against friends and family, join forces together to battle for the lost in prayer.

6. Restaurants (June)

Giving up eating out or ordering food in is an opportunity to feast with family and friends. This fast is not about the reduction of spending on food, though that is not bad either. This fast is about feasting on the tranquility the home is intended to provide. It is about growing in our hospitality and generosity to friends and neighbors.

A fast like this helps us to be intentional about sharing the gospel with neighbors, family conversations around the table, resisting the convenient and the immediate for what is planned, lovingly labored over, and intimately shared.

Western society has moved further and further from a hospitable home, but there is no better place for the follower of Jesus to share the gospel than around the dining room table. Let this fast from going out for dinner be a feast of inviting others in.

7. Internet (July)

The Internet for all its convenience is a demanding master, a helpful servant but a cruel lord. In this month we give up news, sports, personal emails, and any luxury the Internet provides, such as shopping. We retain the Internet for practical reasons like business, work email and banking.

If something happens in the world worth knowing about you can hear it on the radio, from a friend at work or church, or from a neighbor. Chances are the world will be just fine a month from now; your lack of browsing the Internet will not affect much in the grand scheme of things.

A pause from Facebook and social media will be a surprising delight to you. You will find that the extra time can be used to feast on prayer. This month we get our news and updates primarily from above (what is the Spirit saying?), not from across (what are our peers and talking heads talking about?).

We fast the perspective of humans to feast on the perspective of heaven.

8. Image (August)

An image or vanity fast gives up obsessing over what we look like, in order to feast on what God looks like. A image/vanity fast relegates making oneself look good and concentrates on making Jesus look good.

This could mean that you wear the same pair of clothes all month long, or that you alternate two sets of clothing all month long. This might mean you retain personal hygiene but give up makeup, perfume, cologne, your hair appointment, looking in mirrors, or dressing stylishly.

Perhaps you simplify to one pair of shoes all month long, perhaps you give all your clothes away except a few sets. Vanity affects us all differently and so you must chose to give up the external product or accessory which makes you most proud.

The intention of this month is not to draw attention to ourselves, so we won’t walk around in sackcloth. The intention is to learn the opposite – how to deflect attention to Jesus.

Maybe for you, your vanity is not being identified as a follower of Jesus and you need to wear a cross around your neck for a month. This fast gives up something that sets us apart from the crowd in order that attention and inquiry can be directed to Christ.

9. Screens (September)

A screen fast gives up all movies, TV, videos, sports, social media, and entertainment that can be viewed on or through an electronic device. Only what is necessary for work and ministry is retained.

Fasting TV and entertainment is a wonderful opportunity to feast on reading. You may want to retain the use of a Kindle or electronic reader for Bible or book reading. You may want to use this month to return to the appreciation of a printed book and give up your electronics for a season.

A primary benefit of this fast is the feast of time. Unwittingly screens now dominate much of our free time and by fasting them we gain the opportunity to do other things, communal things, real conversations with real people, an increasingly forgotten feast.

10. Sugar (October)

Sugar is not sinful in itself, but odds are the average person eats too much of it. This month we will give up all manufactured sugars and artificial sweeteners, while retaining the natural sugars such as are found in fruits.

Fasting manufactured sugar helps us feast on natural sweetness, it helps us appreciate how much sweetness there is in God’s creation – even outside food. The physical longing for what is sweet can help us turn our attention in prayer to what is sweet to the soul and good for the spirit.

Craving for sugar presents an opportunity to channel that longing towards more of Jesus, the sweetness of just having Him. This fast can also serve as an opportunity to discipline yourself to lowering your sugar intake after the month is over.

11. Speech (November)

A speech fast avoids unnecessary speech while retaining encouragement and exhortation of our children and a minimum amount of communication in work and ministry environments.

If you are an extrovert, have a proclivity towards gossip or aimless chatter, refer to yourself too often in conversation, you may want to take a vow of silence. This vow should allow you to be civil and gracious in work and family environments, while remaining reserved in speech for stretches or days.

You may want to consider a personal pronoun fast (both in speech and writing) where for a whole month you attempt to refrain from saying “I,” “me,” “my,” or “mine.” This type of fast leads you to feast on God as the center of all things and others as more important than yourself.

On the other hand, perhaps you are an introvert and what you actually need to fast is your silence. Perhaps you need to make a commitment that every day you are going to speak some words of encouragement to another person, or every day you are going to talk about Jesus with at least one friend, neighbor, coworker, or stranger.

One great way to apply this fast overseas is to give up your native tongue for this month and only speak in the language of your adopted country.

By giving up our words (or silence), it helps us feast on the words of others, particularly the words of Jesus.

12. Reading (December)

To fast reading means to gives up any books, magazines, blogs, printed news, and inspirational material other than Scripture and work/school/ministry-related reading.

Fasting the reading of good things allows us to feast on extra reading and memorization of Scripture. This fast and feast will lead us directly into January’s fast, which is to hear God’s instructions for us. As we saturate ourselves in God’s written Word and intentionally silence or mitigate other voices (even Christian ones), it prepares our Spirit to hear clearly what God is saying to us.

A reading fast helps place the written Word of God in the center of our thinking and meditation. It helps us think God’s thoughts about Him. It helps turn our attention and imagination to the Living Word. A focus on Scripture (in both reading and memorization) reminds us of truth and re-establishes the standard by which we judge all other writing and thinking.