Spirituality & Discipleship
This page is my storehouse for both my research about spirituality and discipleship AND the resources I’ve created to help leaders and seekers to grow spiritually.
Missional Spiritual Formation leaders are called to cultivate growing disciples of Jesus who are equipped to discern God’s action in the world and empowered to participate in it.
CLICK HERE for a curated list of other spiritual formation sites that I recommend
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Spiritual Formation Posts
The Family that Weeps Together…
How does your family deal with loss? 2006 was a difficult year for my family. We call it the year of death. I had a good friend who took his own life. Both of my wife's grandmothers died, the church we had started fours years earlier died. To top it all off, during...
Practicing Lent as a Family
Ash Wednesday is next week. This is the day that kicks off the forty-day journey toward Easter. It is a season when we, in the northern hemisphere, hunker down in the last weeks of winter and anticipate the coming of Spring and the celebration of new life in the...
Family Tables and Holy Huddles
Family Dinner is an important time of connection. It has always been a big part of my family's life. Even today, my young adult children live with us and we still gather around the dinner table at 6:00pm. It is a physical space and family ritual that feeds both our...
I’ve Never Met a Perfect Family
I’ve never met a perfect family. My family is at the head of the line for imperfection. Don’t get me wrong. We’ve tried to be the perfect family. We’ve tried to present ourselves as having it all together. After all, I am a pastor. And now I am the “Pastor of Family...
Taking Visual Notes for the eFormation18 Conference at Virginia Theological Seminary #eform
Yesterday was lots of fun. I was hired by Virginia Theological Seminary to take visual notes for the eFormation18 Conference. I got this gig because Lisa Kimball “happened” to sit next to me at the plenary session of the Religious Educators Association in 2016 and...
Interfaith Dialogue
I experienced my second visit to Temple Israel in Minneapolis last night. This morning it is still Sabbath. Shabbat Shalom my friends. These visits were part of our ninth grade confirmation program at Easter. Last month we visited the Burnsville Mosque. Each small...
Recommended Reading
Journeying in the Wilderness by Terri Elton
The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr
Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster
Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
Belonging by Karoline Lewis
The Corner of Fourth and Nondual by Cynthia Bourgeault
The Critical Journey by Janet O. Hagberg
Renew Your Life by Kai Nilsen
Invitation to a Journey by M. Robert Mullholland Jr.
Acts of Faith: Meditations For People of Color by Iyanla Vanzant
Earth Crammed with Heaven: A Spirituality of Everyday Life by Elizabeth Dreyer
Thirsty for God by Bradley Holt
Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian McLaren
We Make the Road by Walking by Brian McLaren
Cultivating Sent Communities edited by Dwight Zscheile
Power Surge by Michael Foss
I have two favorite metaphors to discuss spiritual formation.
The first is a journey. Jesus called to his first disciples, “Follow me!” and they traveled with him as he demonstrated what it looks like to live in fellowship with God.
The first disciples in John 1:38 asked Jesus, “Where do you dwell?”
Jesus replied, “Come and See,” so they followed him.
To be a disciple of Jesus is to move, to explore, to grow.
But what is the destination?
That leads me to my second favorite metaphor. The Vine and the Branches.
Jesus said in John 15:1-5, “I am the vine and you are the branches…remain/dwell in me and I will remain in you, and you will bear much fruit.”
The destination of this journey is not a physical time or place. The destination is the love of God.
God’s love is infinite, therefore we will never arrive. We simply keep growing.
We go and grow in two directions.
First, we grow deeper roots to be grounded in the love of God.
Second, we grow taller and wider branches to spread the fruit of God’s love wider.
Cultivating A Spiritual Formation Plan for the Local Congregation
The local church is the ideal place to grow spiritually. However, it is often difficult to do so. One of my ongoing projects is to experiment with how to cultivate spaces for people to grow spiritually. This article gives some basic outlines for how to think about this.
Check Out My Spiritual Formation Resources
Mindful Sketching
Learn how to connect your breath to your body and use the process of mark-making to become present with God.
Other Spiritual Formation Sites
Journeying in the Wilderness
