Faithfully Creative

In Episode 65 of the Spirituality for Ordinary Podcast we revisit two old interviews with children's authors S.D. Smith and Laura Alary who speak about the importance of imagination, ritual, story, and how we need to inspire hope. Matt Brough also shares a bit about his own fiction writing for children, and reads from Laura Alary's new children's Bible, titled Read, Wonder, Listen.

Links

Matt Brough's Del Ryder Fantasy Adventure Series

S.D. Smith and his Green Ember Series

Read, Wonder, Listen by Laura Alara

 

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"Habits can be a tool, a means to an end, or they can become a distraction if we're not careful because they're not the point—God is the point—they're only there to help us pursue God."—Darryl Dash

Episode 64 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Darryl Dash. Darryl is a pastor and church planter in Toronto with over 25 years of ministry experience, and author of How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to All of Life. He serves as pastor of Liberty Grace Church and also helps equip church planters with FEB Central. Together with his wife, Charlene, he founded Gospel for Life, an online resource designed to help people grow.

Key Learnings

The gospel needs to be central to our daily living. "Self-help Christianity" (i.e. "just try harder) is the opposite of living with the gospel at the center of life.

It is possible that half of our life runs on "auto-pilot."

We will do better at connecting with God if we can develop habitual routines - things that we don't need to think about or figure out in the moment.

Darryl talks about 3 core practices to lead to deeper connection with God:

1. Reading or listening to Scripture


2. Prayer


3. Engage in Worship and Community in a Church

Look for the times in your lives when you have effectively built habits in order to know what you need to have in place to develop habits in the areas or prayer, reading scripture, and participation in Church.

In order to develop a habit, make your daily goal so ridiculously small that you are 85% sure you will do it. See B. J. Fogg's website, Tiny Habits, or Mini Habits by Stephen Guise.

 

Things to Think About

What would it look like for you to pray honestly and throughout your day?

How might God be calling you to share more deeply within your Church community?

What would a helpful habit be for you to connect more with God?

 

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

Reading or listening to Scripture

Prayer

Engage in Worship and Community in a Church

Having a regular morning routine

Having a Rule of Life

 

Links and Resources:

• Darryl Dash's website


• How to Grow by Darryl Dash


• Gospel for Life

 

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"It's not depth, it's not breadth, it's not knowledge... it's can you be consistent in your time spent with Jesus?"—Grant Vissers

Episode 63 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Grant Vissers. Grant is a pastor at St. Paul's Leaksdale Church, a writer, blogger, and host of the Young Church Leaders Podcast.

Key Learnings

When trying to figure out a calling, a vocation, or a next step, listen to the people around you, but make sure that the ones you are listening to have earned the right to speak into your life.

"Competency will only take you as far as character will allow." — Carey Neiuwhof

Being called into community is a spiritual practice!

There is no one who has the perfect/right spiritual guidebook or practice.

Physical health impacts emotional health and each impact spiritual health

Things to Think About

What is the place of desire and/or fear in discerning calling, vocation, or taking a next step?

What habits are you cultivating that will allow you to run the race well into the future?

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

Community and accountability to figure out what practices will lead to consistency

Physical Exercise as a core practice

Reading through individual books of the Bible, reading the Psalms

Journaling / writing

Praying through listening to or playing music

Links and Resources:

• Young Church Leaders Podcast

 

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"There is a part of discipleship that always leaves us in motion, even if we've lived in the same place our entire lives"—Michelle Van Loon

Episode 62 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Michelle Van Loon. Since coming to faith in Christ at the tail end of the Jesus Movement, Michelle’s Jewish heritage, spiritual hunger, and storyteller's sensibilities have shaped her faith journey and informed her writing. She is the author of five books and a regular contributor to Christianity Today's women's blog, In Touch magazine, and is the co-founder of www.ThePerennialGen.com, a website for midlife women and men.

Key Learnings

The vocational questions of early adulthood change as we move into the second half of life, moving more toward questions of character.

"A pilgrim is formed by the question 'do I trust God?'"

Every time there is an exile in Scripture it is meant to transform us. "Exile is never the destination, pilgrimage is."

"Moral pilgrimage" is the exterior way that we are living out our obedience to God, and it IS a journey.

We find ways to talk about ambition and comfort that sound "biblically acceptable."

Things to Think About

What are the key questions you are dealing with at this time in your life?

How might you be wandering? What is the possibility for transformation at this time?

There is a map for life, but the map is like a blank page that we discover by taking steps.

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

Daily Bible Reading using the St. James Daily Devotional

Writing as prayer and worship

Intentional conversation with others

Links and Resources:

• Michelle Van Loon's website


• www.ThePerennialGen.com - A Space for Christian women and men in the second half of life


• Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity by Michelle Van Loon

 

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"The Celtic Christian tradition is not what I would call 'I need a hug theology.' It's deeply grounded in the revelation of Father, Son, and Spirit..."—Ross Lockhart

Episode 61 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Dr. Ross Lockhart. Ross is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Missional Leadership at St. Andrew’s Hall.  Ross serves as the Presbyterian Director of Denominational Formation at Vancouver School of Theology as well as an Adjunct Professor of Homiletics at St. Mark’s College, UBC. He also teaches regularly at Regent College.

Key Learnings

Looking at how faithful witness happened in a pre-Christian culture might help us understand how to witness today in a post-Christian culture.

Things to Think About

Lockhart quotes Maggie Dawn stating, "The hardest pilgrimage is sitting still and going inside yourself." How do you respond?

How might we be courageous in our proclamation understanding that sometimes "no" might be the answer?

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

Pilgrimage as Adult Catechesis/learning opportunity

Links and Resources:

• Beyond Snakes and Shamrocks: St. Patrick’s Missional Leadership Lessons for Today by Ross Lockhart


• Ross Lockhart’s official bio - http://vst.edu/people/rev-dr-ross-lockhart


• Vancouver School of Theology - http://vst.edu/


• St. Andrew’s Hall - http://standrews.edu/


• The Accidental Pilgrim by Maggie Dawn

 

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"Only about 13% of Christians 'speak God' about once a week... that's shocking! Because we say we love God, we say we love faith, but we don't talk about faith..."—Jonathan Merritt

Episode 60 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Jonathan Merritt. Jonathan Merritt is an award-winning writer on religion, culture, and politics. He currently serves as a contributing writer for The Atlantic and contributing editor for The Week.  Jonathan has published more than 3500 articles in respected outlets such as The New York Times, USA Today, Buzzfeed, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. As a respected voice, he regularly contributes commentary to television, print, and radio news outlets and has been interviewed by ABC World News, NPR, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, Fox News, and CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Jonathan's latest book is Learning to Speak God From Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing--and How We Can Revive Them. In it, he argues that Spiritual or Religious Language is fading from use. He went to the field of linguistics and studied "come-back languages" - languages that had faded from use and had been recovered (e.g. Yiddish, Celtic). He argues for a re-imagining of spiritual words in order to revive sacred speech.

The book is really in two parts. The first is the argument about language fading and the need for imaginative recovery. The second is a series of essays focussed on individual words that provide a model for re-imagining around that word.

This interview is also in two parts, where we talk about the overall argument of the book, but also spend time exploring a few of the words that Jonathan includes in his book.

Key Learnings

Religious and spiritual language is fading from use in general society, and this is a major loss. We are losing the ability to express the deep realities of our lives.

Only 13% of practicing Christians say they have spiritual conversations on a regular basis.

God loves language. Of the ten commandments, two of them are about the use of words. As we look at Scripture, words and language are central.

The "word" in John 1 (logos in Greek) is dynamic rather than static. An early translation of John 1, uses "conversation" rather than "word."

Languages make a come back not through a simple "re-use" but through reimagining their meaning in their re-use.

Finding the "original meaning" of words (particularly from ancient languages) is near impossible. The meaning of words is often fluid.

Things to Think About

What spiritual words do you avoid using? (perhaps sin, judgment, hell, mystery, brokenness?) Reflect on why you avoid particular words. How might you re-imagine one of these words for you to be able to use it more regularly?

What holds you back from regularly talking about God, or having spiritual conversations?

Links and Resources:

• Jonathan Merritt's website


• Learning to Speak God From Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing--and How We Can Revive Them.

 

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"Fearing one another, hating one another, not welcoming one another... We have to somehow overcome and see what Christ has done when Jesus walked on earth. He didn't build walls, he broke them down..."—Grace Ji-Sun Kim

Episode 59 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim. Grace is Associate Professor of Theology at Earlham School of Religion and is the author of over 15 books. Her latest include...  Healing Our Broken Humanity, co-written with Graham Hill, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the Holy Spirit.

Key Learnings

Community, society, family is so important when looking at our brokenness, sin, and need for repentance and change.

The initial steps toward healing a broken humanity are for local communities of faith, to begin with being convicted of, acknowledging, and lamenting our own sin and our participation in sin.

There are four stages to repentance (it is a process!): conviction, contrition, commitment, and change.

Things to Think About

What community are you a part of? How can your community better reflect the new humanity in Christ?

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

Communal lament.

Repentance as a practice

Links and Resources:

• Grace's Website and books


• Earlham School of Theology


• The Global Church Project (Graham Hill)

 

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Click here and Enter for a chance to win a copy of Amos Smith's latest book, Be Still and Listen

"Augustine said that people try to fill that God-shaped hole in the brothel, in the bar, with their spouse, but nothing really satisfies, gives a deep sense of fulfillment and purpose, like a direct experience of God's presence.  "—Amos Smith

Episode 58 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview Amos Smith. Amos writes at his website about Recovering Christianity's Mystic Roots and is the author of Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity’s Mystic Roots and BE STILL AND LISTEN: Experience the Presence of God in Your Life.

Key Learnings

Having 40 minutes a day for silence and centering prayer, though counter-cultural, ought not be unusual for Christians. Indeed, it is not unusual for the Eastern Church.

Mystics can sometimes be branded as either "deranged" or dangerous to the establishment.

Time away for silence is vital for a deepening relationship with God in Christ.

Spending regular and extended time with God provides the possibility for personal transformation and this has the potential to have a major impact on the lives of the people around you.

Things to Think About

Would you consider "jumping into the deep end" and doing a 10-day silent retreat?

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

Centering Prayer - See the episode with Rich Lewis for a more detailed description of Centering Prayer

Silent Retreats

Links and Resources:

• Amos Smith's Website


• Healing The Divide: Recovering Christianity’s Mystic Roots


• BE STILL AND LISTEN: Experience the Presence of God in Your Life

 

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"It was amazing to me that in this hard part of scriputre, there were things we could immediately apply."—Rachel Schmoyer

Episode 57 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features Rachel Schmoyer. Rachel has a website called "Read the Hard Parts" which focusses on looking at some of the most difficult passages in Scripture and looks to discover what truth we might glean.

Rather than the usual interview format, Rachel and I do an essentially unplanned Bible Study on Malachi 1:1-5:

1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob; 3 but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” 4 Though Edom says, “We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins”; thus says the Lord of hosts, “They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever.” 5 Your eyes will see this and you will say, “The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel!”

Key Learnings

Some amazing things come from reading, thinking about, and discussing difficult passages of scripture, especially when we keep an open mind about various ways of looking at a text.

Things to Think About

Who might you read and discuss the Bible with?

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

• Reading hard parts of the Bible

Links and Resources:

• Read the Hard Parts by Rachel Schmoyer


• Rachel's Bible Reading Chart


• The Finishing Touches: Preparing for Christmas with the Book of Malachi: An Eight Day Devotional


• Let's Eat! Giving Thanks with Jesus at Mealtimes: A 5 Day Devotional

 

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"When I look beyond my own circumstances and catch these other glimmers of how God is moving and acting in the world and in other peoples' lives, then I realize He is here with me..."—Alicia Brummeler

Episode 56 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Alicia Brummeler. In it, we focus on her book, Everywhere God: Exploring the Ordinary Places. We discuss encountering God in when spiritually adrift, having or not having tangible experiences of God, encountering God in rituals, encountering God in literature.

Key Learnings

Having friends who sit with, pray with, or are present with you are so important.

Universalizing spiritual experience, particularly for others, in times of dryness, is not helpful.

Things to Think About

Do we trust that God is, in fact, at work even when we don't seem to experience God?

Spiritual Practices Discussed in this Episode

• Journaling


• Reading through the Psalms


• Being Outside


• Eating together with family


• Reading

Links and Resources:

• Alicia Brummeler's website


• Everywhere God: Exploring the Ordinary Places

 

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