Posts tagged as:

spiritual formation

Integrating Human and Spiritual Formation

May 5, 2010

I have been contending in this series of posts that human and spiritual formation have to be integrated if we want to see the church move from a belonging to a transforming system.

The massive exodus we see of people from the church, I think, is due to this very lack. When people leave the church saying “I am not being fed,” (the number one reason stated.) And when people leave not because they are walking away from God but from a system that isn’t any longer working for them or “feeding them,” I think we need to read between the lines.

We gave them the language that “we are here to feed you, come connect and belong, we will feed and fill you.” They come with an empty wheelbarrow at the beginning of their church experience we slowly start filling it. But there is a law of diminishing return whether we like it or not. The first time I hear the story of Jonah it is very interesting but by year 15 and the 24th telling of Jonah I am not that enthralled…my wheelbarrow is overflowing. If I came to the church to belong and be fed (because after all that is what we ’sell’ to them we do) and now things “don’t hit me the way they used to.” No wonder people leave – we aren’t delivering the sell we sold. The language “I am not being fed” is the only language people have. But I think they are saying something quite different. I think people have gotten their fill of information but are trying to put their finger on “why am I not changing?” If I am right about that, and my research is anecdotal though with hundreds of stories and conversations, then I don’t think we have a feeding problem we have a development problem.
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Original Goodness and Blessing-On to the Illuminative and Unitive Ways

April 8, 2010

When original goodness and blessing gets displaced by original sin you can’t help but have anything but the traditional way of spiritual formation. It has been characterized as a three phase movement…

• Purgative, –holiness, purity, cleaness
• Illuminative –enlightenment, clarity, awareness,
• Unitive Way. – oneness with each other and world, judgments drop, unity with all of creation ensues.

I am not sure what your experience has been but the more I travel and the more I work with a wide variety of churches the more convinced I am that my experience is not unique. I have been schooled in the purgative way…almost exclusively! Unfortunately here is where the necrophila and the church intersect. If it is all about death, dying and cross you never get to life, living and resurrection. Of course the traditional way only has the purgative as movement one, but why then so little discussion and formation related to the other two?
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Adult Meaning Making and Self Development

March 30, 2010

Jane Loevinger is one of the pioneers in the area of ego development or how we see the world and how we make sense of our lives (including God, others and the universe around us) are what experts refer to as meaning making systems. Meaning making, or the development of the “self” or “ego,” is what goes on as we learn to make increasingly sophisticated meaning of the world around us.

A five year old thinks there are monsters under the bed at night. When we come in and turn on the light and show them there is nothing to be scared of we are often greeted with the explanation that “of course the monsters hide for the light they are only there in the dark.” This is the way a 5 year old makes sense of their world. If that was still going on at 13 years of age we would be concerned. Most of us are familiar with child development and the name of someone like Jean Piaget. We are less familiar with adult development.
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Acceptance, Surrender and Synchronicity

January 18, 2010

Acceptance of the grace and mystery of life means that because of our practice of letting go the core posture of our soul and pattern of our life is letting go….letting go of the need to make every thing fit, cohere. We just need to surrender to what arises and allow the mystery and grace of life to come to us uncensored and unedited

When I say surrender what do I mean?

In fact coming from the old Covey school of thought concerning goal setting, 5 year personal planning, life goal achievement the idea of surrender might seem oxymoronic.

This is a move from planning to preparedness.

Surrender is radical acceptance of our lives just as they are, it is the active turning of the mind from willfulness (resisting or trying to change what is) to willingness, (meeting what is or accepting life on life’s terms)

THIS DOESN’T imply becoming passive or condoning an unacceptable situation; instead radical acceptance is an active engagement with whatever is happening in the moment.

Radical acceptance is precisely what decreases pain. Our ability to receive and accept instead of fight and resist is what decreases pain and discomfort.

I not only read about this a lot in the larger wisdom traditions but have experienced this first hand.

When I try to control or fight circumstances in relationships or in certain church setting I work that very resistance is precisely what heightens pain and angst.

Furthermore it is in the mystery the parts that don’t initially makes sense that often God is up to something that we couldn’t see before, hadn’t planned or didn’t anticipate.

SYNCHRONICITY may be one of the greatest by products of accepting what is arising. One of the most important leadership books I have read of the several hundred on my shelf and the one I go back to over and over again is Synchronicity by Joe Jaworski. First used by Carl Jung, Synchronicity is serendipity with the “universe behind it.” In Christian language…God is involved in what might look like a coincidence.

What if we remained just as connected to the adventure of mystery and the questions of life as we did the answer seeking we are so driven by and end up in the process with these incredibly synchronicity moments?

My guess is this too is a function at some level of years and maturity.

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