What does Tribe teach about spiritual disciplines?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on spiritual disciplines starts with a simple observation: the disciples and the Pharisees had the same knowledge of the Torah, but only the disciples could follow Jesus into something new. Joy Bhatt traced that difference to proximity. The disciples had been with Jesus constantly, eating with him, watching him, following him day by day, and that accumulated time is what gave them the capacity to recognize and receive a new work of God. Joy put it plainly: "Your capacity to recognize and receive from the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to how much time you spend with Jesus."
The disciplines themselves, reading scripture, prayer, and fasting, are not presented as religious obligations but as the practical means of building that proximity. Joy pointed to 2 Chronicles 20 as a picture of what it looks like when those practices have taken root. Jehoshaphat faces an overwhelming army, calls an immediate fast, gathers everyone, and prays from a place of remembered history with God. The congregation reads the story and sees that his responsiveness was not improvised in a crisis. It was the fruit of a relationship already built. Joy also drew on the Hebrew word shema, noting that it holds listening and obeying together as two sides of the same coin, meaning the disciplines are not passive. You cannot claim to have heard if you have not acted.
Joy Obot brought a related angle in an earlier message, drawing on Luke 23:56 and Psalm 23 to talk about Sabbath as the discipline that prepares you before the hardest days arrive. The women who watched Jesus buried still stopped when the Sabbath began, even though the work of preparing his body was urgent. Joy connected that to the idea of falling back to the level of your training: when crisis hits, what you have practiced is what remains. Her own experience of grief confirmed it. Sabbath in particular was framed not as a rule but as a rhythm that, over time, reorients a person's dependence toward God as their source.
Taught from Matthew 12:1-14 · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24 · Luke 23:56 · Psalm 23
“Your capacity to recognize and receive from the Holy Spirit is directly proportional to how much time you spend with Jesus.”
From New Wineskins ｜ Joy Abad
The passage taught · 2 Chronicles 20:1-24
1 After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
2 Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).
3 Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
4 Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- February 10, 2025 New Wineskins ｜ Joy Abad Joy Bhatt teaches Tribe Church on how time spent with Jesus shapes our ability to recognize and follow where God is moving, even when it looks unconventional.
- February 9, 2025 Being With Jesus Joy Bhatt teaches on what it means to spend time with Jesus, how that shapes our capacity to recognize God moving, and why discernment matters more than ever.
- June 5, 2023 The Power Accessible in Recalibration Joy Obot teaches Tribe on how practicing rest and spiritual disciplines now prepares you to trust God when life's darkest days arrive.