What does Tribe teach about prayer and fasting?

At Tribe, the teaching on fasting starts with a simple observation: Jesus did not treat fasting as optional. Joy opened her message by pointing out that in Matthew 6, Jesus says 'when you fast,' not 'if you fast,' placing it alongside prayer and giving as an expected rhythm for his followers. Fasting, as she defined it from the Greek root, means not eating, not merely giving up sugar or social media. The model Jesus set in Matthew 4, before beginning his public ministry, is water only, with nothing else unless something like black coffee does not raise glucose levels.

Joy gave five reasons to fast, and she spent the most time on the connection between fasting and holiness, working through Deuteronomy 8 and what it reveals about how God used hunger in the wilderness to form Israel's character. She drew a direct line between a full stomach and a drifting heart, and she put it plainly: 'Pride and a full stomach are bedfellows.' The physical discomfort of fasting is not incidental. It is the point. Romans 12:1 calls believers to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, and Joy argued that fasting is one of the most direct ways to do exactly that, because you feel the cost in your body. As she put it, 'Our motive in fasting is always to offer ourselves to God. It is an act of worship.'

The immediate context for this teaching was Tribe's twenty-one days of prayer for Israel beginning September 8, 2023. Joy framed fasting as the way to make room in the heart for something beyond yourself, to deny yourself in order to be more attentive to God and to others. She made clear this is not a practice reserved for a spiritual elite. It has been central to most world religions throughout history and is now being rediscovered even by the medical community. Tribe holds that it belongs in the regular rhythm of every follower of Jesus.

Taught from Matthew 6:16-18 · Matthew 4:1-11 · Romans 12:1 · Deuteronomy 8:2-3 · Isaiah 58