Spiritual Formation Groups
During the Lenten season I want to encourage as many of us as possible to participate in a Spiritual Formation Group. These are small groups of people who gather together for a prescribed period of time (about 8 weeks) to encourage one another, experiment with new ways of growing in Christ and learn more about following Jesus.
The curriculum for a Spiritual Formation Group is the "Spiritual Formation Workbook" by Jim Smith and Lynda Graybeal. I have used this material numerous times as have some other folks in our community. It is a different type of experience than what you might have experienced in a bible study or small group and one well worth the investment. For those of you involved in our House Churches we will be organizing those groups in such a way as to make it work well in our existing setting. However, for those of you who aren't a part of a group already this is a great way to start.
If you want to participate:
1) Identify a few friends to be a part. Small numbers are great. Two people are OK, three is better but try to keep it less than eight. (If there are more I won't complain.)
2) Get the book. It is best for each individual to have one copy but it is OK for married couples to share. (Not best but OK.)
3) Find a time to meet. The larger your group the more time will be required. However, it is good to count on at least an hour and fifteen minutes for a group of 3-6. One time my group met at breakfast and another time at lunch. Evenings might be best because of the freedom from the clock.
4) Get started. The book itself has some great ideas on how to get going and is very "user friendly". However, I will be posting regularly about how to make the most of your experience with your group.
5) After the 8 weeks are over you can decide if you want to continue as a group. Don't worry about what will happen after the 8 weeks. You can make that decision when the time comes.
While I want to see as many of you as possible starting a group during Lent I don't want you to feel pressure to get through all the material by Easter. It is better to go slow and get the most out of the material and your time with one another. Enjoy the process.
We will have some books available by the 25th for you to purchase at our Sat Night Worship Gathering. (They will cost $8-$9)
Got questions? Call me. I'll be glad to help you get a group started and work through some of the details.
posted by The Wheatland Mission @ 7:32 AM
3 Comments:
This has nothing to do with yor article or does it?
Church as Mall: Days 5-10 in Emerging Churches Class
I realize I posted about the first few days of the Emerging Churches class and then just stopped. The last six days went well. The class was really engaged with the material and was filled with discussions. We had several who were from Europe and others from Asia, so that added more perspective to our topics.
One of our best conversations was regarding church and consumer culture. Donald McGavran, the founder of our school, wrote that a person should not have to change cultures to find God. Each and every subculture ought to have a community that bears witness to God, within the world of that same subculture. This witness embraces those things in the culture that bring life and refuses those things that bring death.
This student said, "Fifteen years ago, I took a church growth class, and you said I needed to create a church that looks like the culture, and that culture was the shopping mall. Now you are saying we need to create churches that are unlike the shopping mall, as these are too consumeristic -- what gives?"
I don' t know how our answer came out, but it was something like this (or should have been!):
It was okay that your church looked like the mall in the 1990s -- mall-like consumers were the people who were part of your community, and that was their world, and they shouldn't have to cross cultures to find God. However (and here is the critique), the gospel is always 'gift' and operates in a different sort of economy. While the church 'mall' could be built, the 'stores' could not continue to operate within the producer-consumer dialectic. Unbridled consumerism, where artificial needs are repeatedly created and then satisfied in a process of self-interested exchange, with scant attention to gospel, violates the gift economy of the kingdom. In contrast to the anonymous meeting of spiritual needs, the benefits of the kingdom are freely given as they are shared in a Christ-following relational community.
The other thing that changed in the last fifteen years has been the growing understanding of the missional church. The church growth movement, as most other movements within Christendom, advocated an attractional (come-to-us) as opposed to a missional engagement with the culture (go-to-them). For that reason, in the 1990s, we said build the best mall you can...
Today, for missional reasons and for the critiques listed above, we no longer advocate mall-building. Unless, of course, it has a cine-plex :)
Very good Steve, very good! Wouldn't it be great if a missional body, living, breathing and working within their own culture (community) through all these relationships were able to do both - reach out and attract!!!!!!!!! Of course it wouldn't be us but Christ in us and the Holy Spirit making use of "spiritually formated" believers! (probably after completing the workbook) (grin)
Is that you, Boo Radley?
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