It was only when I was in college — after having quite literally grown up in a local church! — that I first encountered the expansive history of Christianity and its rich and layered traditions of spiritual inquiry and discipline. As you might expect, these discoveries and experiences kindled within me a variety of emotions. But none was so dominant as the feeling that I had been cheated for years by those who kept these things from me. On one level, it was like finding out you are adopted and have family you might have known and loved and been loved by your whole life. On another level, here was a centuries-deep treasure-trove of guidance and answers to the very questions I had been asking about prayer, reading the scriptures, and following Jesus.
For years I had wanted more. For years I was convinced there must BE more than daily devotional books, rereading the bible every year, and attending church services every time the door was open. The bible itself and the example of Jesus convinced me of that. But I just didn’t know how, and — as I have realized in the years since — neither did those I was looking to in the church for guidance. I don’t know whether my questions and longings opened up the old wounds of their own unfulfilled dreams or if I was just a threat to the status quo. Either way, I was silenced, and knew no more than that deep ache until those college courses showed me that I was part of a larger family and introduced me to the teachers of two-thousand years’ wisdom and practice.
Ever since that initial introduction, those ancient practices that are called “spiritual disciplines” have been a core part of my life and faith. And the book that was part of that introduction — Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster — continues to be an important guidebook for my journey.
Here is one of the ways Foster describes these disciplines: “The Spiritual Disciplines are the means of God’s grace for bringing about genuine personality formation characterized through and through by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control (Gal.5:22-23). Now… it is critical for us to understand that the Spiritual Disciplines possess no moral rectitude or righteousness in and of themselves… They place us — mind, body, and spirit — before God. That is all. The results of this process are all of God, all of grace.”
I sense that the Spirit is inviting us into a radical experiment. Over the course of the summer, we are going to be focusing on the traditional spiritual disciplines of Christianity. As a framework I’ll be following Foster’s book, which focuses on twelve disciplines: meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. While we haven’t figured out the details yet, I’m hoping to have a book group reading the book alongside the Sunday services for those who want firsthand experience with Foster’s writing. I’m also intending to provide direction each week for the practice of the discipline we are learning about. Foster has written at length about the danger of studying the disciplines without experiencing them.
Here’s an excerpt of one such warning for you as you ponder and pray for the upcoming season:
“To discuss the Disciplines in the abstract, to argue and debate their nature and validity — this we can do in relative safety. But to step out into experience threatens us at the core of our being. Nevertheless, there is no other way. We cannot learn the Spiritual Disciplines in the Western, abstract way. The knowledge comes through the experience… there is only so far we can go in theoretical discussion. This is a field like science. We cannot avoid lab experiments… Of course, people will say to me there is a danger of falling off the deep end. And that is a danger, but please remember there is also a danger of falling off the shallow end. When a person falls off the deep end, at least there is a chance of swimming. If you fall off the shallow end, you are going to break your neck… May God give us the grace to jump in and get our feet wet in this adventurous life of the Spiritual Disciplines.”
Remember, we’re all in this together,
Pastor Michael