Intimate Spirituality and the Creative Journey
March 30, 2007
In our ‘class’ people are gathered in groups of four. To share not necessarily a ‘testimony’ but an experience or a moment in which they felt God became in anyway possibly more real to them.
What is it about sharing in smaller groups? Is it the defusing of fear in an intimate environment? Is it the lack of competing voices in the group? Is it because there might be lesser likelihood of someone ridiculing or rejecting their thoughts, feelings, or ideas?
Whatever it is, it seems to almost always stimulate better discussions.
Point of the exercise - there are so many distinct ways in which people have encountered God in the past - through relationships, prayer, meditation, media, intrinsic longings, unique circumstances, etc.
Why is it that going forward we often only advocate a limited number of ways of continuing the journey with God? Ie. Read your bible, and make sure you come to church…?
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April 2nd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Perhaps it’s because that without regular immersion in the Scriptures and regular heartfelt prayer many meditative practices are lacking.
I was talking to a good friend about contemplative practices this week (which I’ll probably post about at some point) so don’t get me wrong. I think many of these new old practices are super valuable. I just think we need to keep them in the context of the core disciplines that nearly every contemplative person I’ve heard of has implicitly and explicitly valued.
So my question back to you is. How do we help people build these core disciplines so their heads are full of Scripture when they come to meditate?
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Hey Parke, good thoughts as always.
One beginning point for me is allowing people to see the necessity for spiritual disciplines and how Scriptures relate to them. I have no doubt there are plenty of people who feel that what gets filtered down to them sunday morning’s is enough to go on.
I think as leaders we need to help them see the beauty of receiving revelation first hand. That it’s not something that comes easily, but takes experimentation, creativity, and perseverance…. but that it’s completely worth it when you hear the voice of God, maybe even as fresh as the day we first heard him!