Thursday, March 11

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 6:10 am

Spirituality of Glory or a Spirituality of the Cross

Posted by Kyle Strobel | Comments (0) |

In the words of Jean Vanier, "Grace should always perfect our nature...it should make us more human, not take away our humanity." In claiming this, I suggest, what Vanier does is to help establish a Spirituality of the cross. I am taking this distinction from Luther who worried about a theology of glory, and suggested, in contrast, a theology of the cross. I think the same can apply to Spirituality. Grace, therefore, does not simply orient us to heaven, where we now turn our attention away from the world and on to glory - far from it - grace, and through it, true humanity, is tied to Jesus' life. Jesus is the true vision of humanity - humanity at its highest perfection. It is true that one day we will know of another kind of perfection, but that is not available to us this side of glory. We are pilgrims, albeit justified and sanctified pilgrims, we are pilgrims nonetheless.

Spiritual formation therefore, if it is to be truly Christ-oriented, must understanding grace as perfecting us in such a way that we become like Christ. We do not become like Christ in his glorified body, not yet. In this side of glory, we become like Christ as he proclaimed the kingdom of God, as he ministered to the broken, needy and hungry, and as he understood his specific calling and oriented his life around that. A Spirituality of the cross necessitates seeing the cross as the ultimate shape of life. Our leadership plans, church services and formation theology should be conformed to Jesus and the organic message of true Spiritual, and therefore cruciform, growth, rather than the wordly counterpart of success, winning and vision.

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Monday, March 8, 2010 at 2:59 pm

Spiritual Anorexia

Posted by julieannbarrios | Comments (1) |

Working with youth in the image-driven Orange County culture, I from time to time must brush up on my information concerning eating disorders. Recent research reminded me of some of the basics. It’s not really about the food. It’s about the control. This is a root cleverly masked by behaviors surrounding food and attitudes about body image and weight, and while these certainly are factors, they are merely the foliage grown from the seed of feelings of powerlessness and/or a neurotic need to control.

It occurred to me this morning while out on a walk, that I am tempted to a form of spiritual anorexia at times. There have been some circumstances in my life, particularly in the last few months, that have left me feeling disappointed and out of control. In such seasons, I have come to see, figuratively speaking, it is quite tempting to me to simply “stop eating.” I make ever so subtle choices to refrain from feasting on the goodness, truth, and beauty that is around me, and choose instead to engage in, at best, nothing, and at worst, doomsday fantasy. I believe it to be a form of digging my heals into the dirt, refusing to taste the goodness as long as it is not the goodness I think I want. How much in common I have to the teenage girl who insists on eating ice cubes for lunch.

This morning I tasted and savored the sweetness of the clouded sky and brisk breeze from the crest of the Bristol St. bridge. Simple ingredients—needed nourishment.

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Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 12:39 pm

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Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 7:12 pm

What counts for true revival and transformation? (Calling all Jonathan Edwards scholars)

Posted by Brian Owen | Comments (3) |

Fifteen years ago, I had the privilege of participating in two dramatically different "revivals." The first one had been taking place for months at the Brownsville Assembly of God church in Pensacola, Florida. Night after night, as evangelist Steve Hill spoke, mass conversions and strange behavior took place. Things like: jerking bodies, uncontrollable "bowing", and hysterical crying. On the night my friends and I attended, we witnessed all of these manifestations and more. Honestly, we found the event odd, strange, disturbing, and disappointing. But as we talked with others who attended, many claimed the event had a positive impact on their spiritual lives.

My second "revival" experience took place at a national staff conference for Campus Crusade for Christ. As Nancy Leigh DeMoss spoke on "Brokeness", people began coming forward to publicly confess sins before a crowd of over 3000 CCC staff members. This went on for over twelve hours and continued for two more days. People were weeping and confessing secret sins at a level of vulnerability that was both shocking and moving. People were walking across the aisles to apologize to one another. Others lined up at pay phones (pre-cell phone days) to call parents and confess to not honoring them. Periodically, we took breaks from the confessions to sing, worship, and pray. Though virtually all who attended (myself included) would say that God showed up in a powerful way, some were skeptical. One friend felt later told me that he felt like the environment was manipulative.

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Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 11:05 pm

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Friday, March 5, 2010 at 7:14 am

Fearing Emptyness

Posted by Abbie Smith | Comments (2) |

We are afraid of emptiness. Spinoza speaks about our "horror vacui," our horrendous fear of vacancy. We like to occupy-fill up-every empty time and space. We want to be occupied. And if we are not occupied we easily become preoccupied; that is, we fill the empty spaces before we have even reached them. We fill them with our worries, saying, "But what if ..."

It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives. Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen. It requires trust, surrender, and openness to guidance. God wants to dwell in our emptiness. But as long as we are afraid of God and God's actions in our lives, it is unlikely that we will offer our emptiness to God. Let's pray that we can let go of our fear of God and embrace God as the source of all love.

-Henri Nouwen

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Friday, March 5, 2010 at 3:48 pm

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Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 1:11 pm

My Time

Posted by Jamin Goggin | Comments (1) |

I have found that time is quite an interesting thing in my life. I may be wrong, but I have come to realize that it perhaps is the thing which I most pridefully attempt to possess.

"It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend's talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tete-a-tete with the friend), that throw him out of grear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time a his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption 'My time is my own.' Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours."-C.S. Lewis, the ScrewTape Letters.

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interuppted by God."-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.

Who is the Lord of your time?

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Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 6:28 pm

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Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 4:47 am

Knowing God for Us

Posted by Kyle Strobel | Comments (0) |

One of the aspects of a truly spiritual theology is to highlight the reality that our knowledge of God must correspond to who God is and what God is willing. In other words, knowing God as an object, albeit a mighty, transcendent and eternal object, is still not knowing God. Furthermore, in knowing God in Christ, our knowledge must be truly spiritual - which means, I suggest, that we know God as beautiful - or, as I put it here, that we know God for us.

Knowing God in Christ means that we not only know him as true. It is necessary that we come to know that God is true, that God assumed flesh and dwelt among us, that he atoned for the sins of the world, that he died on the cross and was raised by the Father to glory. But that knowledge can very well exist external to ourselves - what might be called "academic" knowledge. Likewise, we may come to the realization that not only is it true that God did these things in Christ, but that it is good that he did so. We might come to know God as a good God - that his plan for the redemption of mankind is not only true, but truly good. But again, that is not what it means to know God in Christ. This knowledge is necessary, but not enough.

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Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 9:42 am

Claimed

Posted by julieannbarrios | Comments (2) |

When I intentionally claim the good that God has placed before my eyes and acknowledge that He has indeed placed it there for me taste and feast from, I find myself not only claiming these goods as my own, but simultaneously discovering that he has, in all of His goodness, claimed me as one of His great gifts.

How is God claiming you today?

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Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 6:40 pm

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Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 7:18 pm

The Spirituality of Descent

Posted by Brian Willats | Comments (0) |

Mike Regele wrote a book some years ago entitled The Death of the Church, an analysis of the contemporary Western church and its prospects for future survival. In the introduction to the book, Regele speaks of what he calls the "Frenchlick error." In the fall of 1979, Regele was invited by the late Dr. Ray Stedman, author and long-time pastor of Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, Calif., on a speaking trip to a conference in Frenchlick, Indiana. Dr. Stedman was one of several speakers at a conference for the staff and leaders of Christian conference centers around the country. One of the other speakers at the conference was a psychologist that Regele describes as "quite interesting and entertaining." Regele had the opportunity to hear this gentleman on several occasions; his messages offered "keys to living life to its fullest and being a truly happy Christian in successful ministry."

As interesting and entertaining as this speaker was, there was also something in his speeches that left Regele uncomfortable. Yet, try as he may, he found himself unable to pinpoint the source of the discomfort in this psychologist's message. He turned to Dr. Stedman for help to distill what was missing or wrong. Dr. Stedman agreed with Regele's observation, but told him to ruminate over the dilemma for a day and see if he could come with the answer on his own. A day of pondering the question produced no satisfactory answer, and Regele returned to Dr. Stedman hat in hand, still seeking an answer. Dr. Stedman finally resolved the quandry with a simple statement - "There is no death in his message."

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