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.

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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.

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Spiritual Formation Posts

Sketch from the Synod Assembly

I spent the day as a visitor to the Minneapolis Area Synod Assembly. It was a special Assembly to elect a new bishop. I was a visitor because I am not yet rostered and I am not a voting member from the congregation. I'm still in no man's land. It's nice here in my...

Great quote about the church in culture

When any Christian community becomes preoccupied with self-existence (rather than missional existence) and with power (rather than self-emptying), the Christian identity wanes. Christian history, like the history of Israel, is both the tale of God's cruciform and...

Catching breath and assessing

J-Term has come to an end. It has been an interesting month. This past week has been an especially interesting juxtaposition of experiences. Last weekend I spent 48 hours with 20 high school students at a Winter retreat. We had some God moments, and some great fun...

Catechism Illustrations

These are a couple quick illustrations I did for our Catechism lesson tonight. Can you guess the topic?

The Overflow Prayer: Kill Me, Fill Me, Spill Me

Last night I taught our catechism students about the Sacrament of Baptism. It was a fun night full of "baptized cucumbers" and water flying everywhere (middle school, remember). I pieced together two clips from one of my favorite movies---The Abyss--to give a visual...

the Missional Church: Simple

I like this style of communication and that which it communicates.

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Unpack this Image

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.

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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.

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