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Spiritual Formation for One

Sean Cronin — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:00:00 +0000

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Spiritual Formation for One

By Ed Stetzer

When I think about my own spiritual formation, one of the things that’s been helpful for me to remember is that people of different personalities approach spiritual growth differently. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

For instance, I am wired very differently than my wife, Donna. I’m a “get stuff done, change the world now,” type of personality. I have much more of an “activist” personality. Donna, on the other hand, has a much more contemplative personality. She is more likely to consider her actions for a while before she makes them, and this has made her naturally more prayerful than myself.

For example, when the weather is warm, Donna will bike over to the nearby park with her Bible and just sit there. In that environment, it is natural for her to engage in prayer and reflection. That’s not as natural for me. Some people are more like me and some are going to be more like Donna. In fact, there’s a whole continuum of personality; from the more contemplative to the more activist.

Jet fuel drinkers and candle lighters and everyone in between

Mindy Caliguire leads a ministry called SoulCare, which provides coaching and spiritual direction for weary ministry leaders. She is a key partner with the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center’s Resilient Church Leadership initiative. Mindy has worked in a lot of places with get-it-done people, people like myself. She calls people like that jet fuel drinkers. They are constantly on the go, often burning the candle at both ends.

That’s one side of the spectrum.

The other side, using Mindy’s terms, is the candle lighter. The candle lighter moves a bit slower. Things might not happen as fast, but they also might happen more deliberately.

In our house, I would be a jet fuel drinker and Donna would be a candle lighter. Mindy tries to help the jet fuel drinkers realize the practices that they need to stop burning the candle at both ends and exhausting themselves.

And, I see the need.

A few weeks ago, I preached at Saddelback’s weekend services. While there, I referenced a meeting that was hosted by Saddleback about a decade ago. It was one of their national conferences, and (like all such conferenes) it had a flyer. I still have that flyer to this day.

The flyer for that particular conference the conference had seven people on it. Rick Warren is on one side of the seven, I’m on the other.

There were five nationally-known pastors between us. You’d probably know all their names. Three of the five had some experience that caused them to leave the ministry, at least temporarily.Of course, the reasons would be as complex as the people involved, but I was also reminded of my own failures and frailties.

And, as a person who’s not naturally contemplative or prayerful, I actually have to say to myself, “I have to prioritize my formation.”

Spiritual formation in stressful times

This has been the most difficult year of my life and in many people’s lives. I’ve never had so many leadership challenges, amidst great personal challenges as well. The first month or so I just had to do certain things. I have a network of people that rely on me. I have faculty that I need to serve and staff members with budgets collapsing, and I had to do all these things, no matter how overwhelming it all was. In the midst of that, my kids and family are facing the disappointment that accompanies canceled high school graduations and not going off to college like they were planning to do.

And then, on a Tuesday, I just said, “I can’t do this.” Like so many others, I was emotionally and spiritually at a wrecking point. Not long after I reached my breaking point, a friend of mine died by suicide.

It was at this breaking point that I was reminded how much my spiritual practices had suffered in that period of stress. My discipleship had lost its focus. And, I realized why— I got too caught up in the work of the Lord that I neglected the Lord of the work. I got so caught up in the work at hand that I ignored the work that God is still doing in me.

One of the things that people have to do in these extreme times is to hit reset. My spiritual practices are often reset in order to prioritize them. I desperately needed a reset earlier this year.

Spiritual formation that engages you

This breaking point has taught me the value of my spiritual practices, especially in difficult seasons. I have to remind myself to take the time for my spiritual formation because I can be a busy person and forget to prioritize that time.

But then I look at that flyer, and I see friends of mine, three of the five who have had public failures.

This is both a warning for me and also a reminder of a deep need in my own heart. I need time in the Word. I need prayer and spiritual growth and formation.

At Wheaton College, many people are more formal in their spiritual practices than me; there are people are using prayer books and people going through a lectionary or whatever it may be.

That’s just not me. I’m the guy who opens his Bible. I sing aloud, so you don’t want to be around me during my prayer time. I sing songs from the eighties because that’s when I learned to worship.

I open my Bible, I read, and I pray.

But, I’m not at all against those other practices. Some read Puritan prayers for their growth and I praise God for them. Others are going through a prayer book. I’m for all that, as long as you are pushed toward growth and formation as a disciple. For me, I’m just more of a simple “read the Bible, pray and worship” kind of guy.

But, my point is this. Find a path to engage spiritual disciplines that changes you, makes you more like Jesus, and sends you on mission.

We all need to be pursuing spiritual formation in effective ways, no matter who we are. Furthermore, in times of disruption, we need to lean into our disciplines even more.

Source: Spiritual Formation for One

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Helping Your People Add Keystone Habits that Grow Their Spiritual Lives in 2021 with Zach Zehnder

Sean Cronin — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 10:00:00 +0000

By unSeminary: Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have Zach Zehnder with us today, the author and founder of the Red Letter Challenge. RLC began with the simple concept of trying to help people be greater followers of Jesus. It started as a book, leading the reader on a 40-day life-changing discipleship experience with Jesus and evolved into a turnkey teaching series for churches.

With the pandemic and everything else happening across the country over the last year, life has been disrupted in many ways and feels increasingly complex. So Zach had a burden to return to simplicity and find unity around Jesus by zeroing in on the keystone habits Christ practiced during his ministry on earth. Listen in as Zach shares how you can help your church discover or return to these life-giving habits in the new year.

Spiritual health influences everything. // 2020 was an exceptionally difficult year and there have been high levels of emotional and mental unhealth among Christians. Many followers of Christ have allowed the disruptions caused by the pandemic to let bad habits develop. Unfortunately this has been true for pastors as well. Our mental and emotional health is driven by our spiritual health, and our ministry ultimately comes from the overflow of our relationships with Jesus.Keystone habits. // Goals and resolutions for the new year come out of a desire to establish the right habits. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg introduces us to keystone habits, which are habits that unintentionally spill over into other areas of our lives – they aren’t any harder to form, but they have greater benefits in all areas of life. They can help lead you to becoming more productive in life, more connected to your family, and more connected spiritually. Spiritual habits are some of the most keystone of all habits because they impact every other area of our lives. So how can we help our people to develop spiritual keystone habits that will help them moving forward?Look at Christ’s example. // What are the spiritual keystone habits that can carry over into other aspects of your life? Look to Jesus and discover what spiritual keystone habits he practiced, like committing to community, studying scripture, prioritizing prayer, seeking solitude, and choosing church. All of these contributed to his spiritual health and we can implement them in our lives to grow our relationship with God and others, and become healthier emotionally and mentally too.Connect with each other and Him. // One of the first things Jesus did was enter into community with others. Community is important not only because it was one of the first things that Jesus did, but also as you try to instill keystone habits, it’s important to have a supportive community. People who are in our lives and who we habitually associate with have a profound impact on us. 95% of our success or failure can be attributed to the people we are closest with. We can be stronger with other believers who are also pursuing God. How we commit to community today may be different with the pandemic, but it’s important that we find a way to connect with others and point each other to Jesus.Spend time with God. // For Jesus, seeking solitude wasn’t just about being alone, it was about being alone with the Father. It’s intentional time with God where we step away from the noise and distractions of our culture and daily life and listen to His voice. In solitude we get our focus and our energy as we listen to what God is saying, and let Him simply love us.Dive into the spiritual keystone habits. // So how do you grow your relationship with God this year? Join the Being Challenge. The Being Challenge is another turnkey 40-day series for churches or individuals which teaches people the keystone habits of Jesus. It will unify your church beyond Sunday, and there is even a kids’ version for grades K-5 so children can begin learning these habits at a young age. About 120,000 people have gone through the Red Letter and Being Challenges and it’s led to small group growth, increased unity, and people taking practical next steps in their relationships with God, including jumpstarting their prayer life, beginning to observe sabbath, or completing their first bible reading plan.

You can learn more about the Red Letter Challenge at www.redletterchallenge.com. Or learn about the Being Challenge and receive a free book about it at www.redletterchallenge.com/being.

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Source: Helping Your People Add Keystone Habits that Grow Their Spiritual Lives in 2021 with Zach Zehnder

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The Spiritual Practice of Silence

Patrick Bradley — Sun, 25 Feb 2018 10:00:31 +0000

by Brandon Cook: Think of your brain as a series of roads that you travel every day. This is actually what your brain is like on a physical level: a series of ruts—like paths or highways—that your thoughts travel over and over again. Have you ever noticed how you often have the same thought, as though your brain is on repeat? “I’m so stupid” or “Why can’t I get things right?” This is why our internal monologue can be such a nightmare. Your brain gets used to “driving the same route;” the more times it follows a particular path, the more likely it is to go the same way the next time. On a physical level, in the brain, the neural highways get coated with a fatty substance called myelin, re-enforcing them.[1] Familiar thoughts are marked out on your brain and easy to find because you have already traveled them so many times, like a trail through a forest.

The brain loves the familiarity of this established path even if you hate it. We need stability and familiarity, even if it makes us miserable. But these brain patterns aren’t who you are. The conversation in your mind is not your true self. And our thoughts certainly don’t always represent or reflect the story of “new creation” available in God. A friend of mine has a placard on his desk that reads: “Don’t believe everything you think.” That’s it exactly! We must learn to doubt and supplant what we think is true if it doesn’t align with God’s greater truth. We have to disassociate from the negative thoughts and emotions—whether they’re about God or about ourselves—with which we have over-identified. We have to cease believing that they’re true.

In silence, then, there’s the possibility of a new road being built in our minds. Silence becomes a gateway by which the Spirit of God is able to over-write our normal thinking, freed from the self-deception of our own thoughts. In silence and solitude, in prayer and in Scripture, a new highway appears, and an entry ramp with it. We become free to make a choice to enter this new highway rather than just getting back onto the worn-out old one. To believe the new story of our adoption in God, for example—even if for just a moment. And the more you make this choice and travel this new highway, the bigger it becomes. Indeed, the more the new highway is used, the more it becomes a freeway that’s readily found and traveled.[2]

In silence, we can receive a new God-image, to steadily supplant all the false views of God we have built up over the years. Such views are almost always initially based on our parents and how disciplined or permissive they were, how distant or how loving, or on trauma that we endured growing up. But such impressions are never adequate to fill out a transformative image of God.

What tired story about yourself—perhaps paved by some failure or mistake, or by some way that you were abused or betrayed—needs to be intersected by the new story of “new creation” in Jesus? What tired stories about God (that He’s distant or uncaring or angry) need to be supplanted by a transforming image of God? Every one of us need to fall into the story of adoption that Jesus tells, seeing who God is in a way that re-wires us. And we need silence to open our minds to these realities.

As a way of engaging silence, consider this practice: In silence, practice breathing deeply, to calm your body. Then simply say, “I receive your nearness, God,” and remain in the silence. Every few moments, repeat this prayer. Such practices train our souls to become open, and it’s in openness before God that we are transformed. See how long you can stay in the tension of this prayer, and of silence itself.
[1] Merriam-Websiter: Myelin: a soft white material that forms a thick layer around the axons of some neurons and is composed chiefly of lipids (such as cerebroside and cholesterol), water, and smaller amounts of protein

[2]Thus the Scripture speaks of “the renewal of the mind” and the “casting down of every obstacle that keeps people from knowing God,” including “rebellious thoughts. See Romans 12:2 and 2 Corinthians 10:5.

*This blog was originally posted on Brandon Cook’s website here. It has been republished here with permission.

Brandon Cook is the lead pastor at Long Beach Christian Fellowship and a co-founder of The Bonhoeffer Project. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, he studied at Wheaton College (IL), Jerusalem University College, Brandeis University, and The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He worked as a professional storyteller before joining a transformational training organization and moving to SoCal in 2006, becoming a pastor three years later. Over the course of five years of pastoring, he became convinced that his work—and the work of the church—is to become fully committed to discipleship and making disciple-makers. The Bonhoeffer Project is for him a quest to live into the question “How are people transformed to live and love like Jesus?”

Photo by Mark Tuzman on Unsplash

Source: The Spiritual Practice of Silence

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