How to Stop the Sunday Scaries: Rhythms For a Peaceful Sunday Routine
A faith-based guide to trading the frantic, overwhelm-filled Sunday for one that's sacred, restful, and worth looking forward to.
What if Sundays genuinely felt like a day of rest?
Not the kind of day that brings a pit to your stomach as the week ahead looms — but one you actually look forward to. Not stressful or scary, but sacred and sweet.
If you're a high-capacity woman who leads well all week, there's a good chance Sunday has become just another day to manage. Sometimes it feels frantic. Sometimes it feels fine. Rarely does it feel holy. But here's the truth worth sitting with: Sundays set the tone. They're an opportunity to begin again. And when you find a rhythm that starts your week well, you walk into it with peace and purpose, clarity and conviction — filled up by the Holy Spirit instead of numbing out or already feeling like you're behind before Monday behinds.
Building that kind of Sunday might require a reset, some sacrifice, and a little discipline. But the peace on the other side of it is so worth it.
1. Remember That How You Do One Thing Is How You Do Everything
There's a quote I come back to often: how you do one thing is how you do everything. Small choices matter — whether you make your bed, whether you fuel your body, whether you reach for your phone and email first thing or turn to talk to Jesus as you begin your day.
Sundays work the same way. The way you spend this one day quietly shapes the whole week that follows. Or, as the old saying goes, "A Sunday well spent brings a week of content."
This is exactly the kind of work coaching supports: taking a big, inspiring goal that feels a little out of reach, and building it on a foundation of faith until it becomes focused and possible. And it starts with a simple question.
A coaching question to sit with: What brings you joy and fulfillment? What do you do where you actually feel better, not worse, afterward? Start there.
2. Let God Shift Your Heart Posture Toward the Day
For a long time, I tried to fill my Sundays up, and honestly, I still catch myself doing it. But the biggest shift in my life came when I realized Sundays were always meant to be His day. A holy day.
Two moments cracked that open for me.
The first: I was sitting in a church pew, anxious and frustrated, because we had plans with friends a good drive away. We needed to grab food and get on the road, yet we were in a church service that extended past the normal 60 minutes I was accustomed to. In that moment it felt like it was getting in the way. It's uncomfortable to admit and I cringe looking back now. Because the truth? Being in God's presence is a privilege and the best kind of rest and start to set up our week possible.
The other moment came a couple of years later, as I was driving to church frustrated again by everything I had to do. Yet the Lord spoke so sweetly: What if you trust Me with your time in the same way you trust me with your tithe? That was the unlock. My Sunday wasn't something to protect from God — it was an opportunity to extend faith to Him.
Those experiences are hard to acknowledge, but I'm grateful for them. They required a bit of dying to self, learning to trust Him to hold it all together (that's His job), and to care more about what He was saying than about doing what I wanted, when I wanted.
A coaching question to sit with: If you let Him, what might God be doing in your heart as you approach Sundays?
3. Know What You're Actually Building
Finding a Sunday routine that works required sacrifice. No more sleeping in. There was a season before kids when even making an 11:00 service felt hard because I loved and needed my sleep (feels like a far away time now, ha!), but the shift was worth it.
Because the routine was never really about the schedule. It's about prioritizing community over comfort. It's about building a household that serves the Lord. There's a particular sweetness in sitting hand in hand in the house of God, worshiping and being grounded in the Word together. Scripture reminds us that a cord of three strands is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Our Sunday rhythm became part of the foundation our family is built on.
I think back, too, to my own childhood. One of my fondest memories is our Sunday routine: church, and then bagels afterward — simple grocery-store Lenders bagels with chive cream cheese. It was sacred, sweet, holy time. Connection I could count on, grounded in God.
So if you want to build the muscle of discipline, of consistency, of hearing from Jesus. And if you want to encounter God and be loved by the church body, your Sunday routine matters. Deeply.
A coaching question to sit with: What "this is what our family does" rhythm are you excited enough about to begin and protect? Maybe it's a shared meal, talking through the sermon, a Sunday afternoon walk, or a cup of tea and reading together.
4. Discover Which Kind of Rest You Actually Need
Consider rest across three categories:
Emotional rest — for some that's connecting with people; for others it's a beat of solitude.
Physical rest — sometimes doing is filling. A quiet walk might be what draws you closer to God.
Spiritual rest — prayer journaling, dreaming with Him about the season ahead, soaking in worship music, or dancing to it with your kids.
Maybe your rest is a blend of all three. Maybe it's a hobby purely for the joy of it — not to be productive, just delight. Many of the women I work with want every hour to be useful (I get it!); the invitation here is to let something be good simply because it stirs your heart.
I once heard a preacher say the heart of Sabbath is to stir your affections for God. That reframes everything. It's not about forcing yourself into a box — it's about noticing what genuinely draws you toward Jesus and honoring that regularly. For me, that's dreaming: sitting with Him, hearing from Him, planning, and then acting on what He's speaking.
5. Name Your Clear Nos, and Start Small
Sabbath also means deciding what you won't do.
When my husband and I visited Israel in 2019, we watched people honor Sabbath so completely they wouldn't make coffee or even press an elevator button, because it was considered work. Travel like that opens your mind to different ways of living. For our family, my husband leads us well in prioritizing rest — which means the other days require more work to make it possible, and that's okay. Sometimes it looks like no dishes, no cooking (just simple assembly), no chores, no cleaning. As a Type-A, productive person, that can genuinely make my skin crawl — but it's a good practice in putting my faith in Him.
If you're an all-or-nothing woman, let me gently encourage you to simply find a place to begin. Pick one thing to try each Sunday for a month. Fold in one habit, or try a different rhythm each week and see what clicks — what you enjoy, where you connect most deeply with Jesus, what works for your family.
And think about who you can tag-team this with! Rest is easier to protect together.
Sabbath is about rest, about growing closer to God, about honoring what matters most and being in relationship with Him. Think of Mary and Martha: Martha had good intentions, busy making the space work — but Mary showed us what it looks like to value presence, to sit at Jesus' feet. The call is being above doing. When you seek the stillness, that's when you know you're in your sweet spot on Sabbath. You don't have to figure it all out or do it perfectly. You just have to begin — and trust God to hold the rest.
If you enjoyed this blog post, make sure to head over to your favorite podcast platform and listen to the full "How to Stop the Sunday Scaries: Rhythms for a Peaceful Sunday Routine" episode!
Or you can watch the entire "How to Stop the Sunday Scaries: Rhythms for a Peaceful Sunday Routine" episode video on YouTube!
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