Disciplined Spirituality

Do you exercise? Ever? Today everybody is talking about necessity of physical exercise for fitness, health and longevity. But my concern is more than physical iron pumping, or aerobics, or running. I am concerned about other aspects of being human – things like soul and spirit.

Do you do mental exercise? This week’s Sabbath School was an interesting one. Especially the Wednesday lesson with all those questions “What says the Word of God?” Problematic situations were introduced and an answer from the Word of God was to be sought after. How did you score? How often do you exercise your mental ability? Nowadays even in schools kids rely more on gadgets, not trusting their mind power to do simple calculus. Many rely on computers, software and internet for answers. How’s your mental strength?

What about exercises for the soul, for your emotions, for your feelings, for your ability to interact with other people? Do you exercise your attitude? I’ve heard a new word from a church member this week “baditude” – meaning negative tune of the spirit…being out of shape spiritually.

Do you know spiritual exercises? I remember going to a chiropractor with my back problems and learning simple stretch exercises to relieve my pain. Has anyone taught you simple exercises that would tune-up your spirit and soul?

Christians over the years have learned that certain practices help them keep the spiritual channels open and help keep the heart turned toward God. These disciplines alone can't save you; they can't even make you a holy person. But they can heighten your desire, awareness, and love of God by stripping down the barriers that you put up within yourself and some that others put up for you. Exercises that take a specific part of your way of life and turn it toward God.

These exercises are often called “classic disciplines.” Classic – because Christian practiced them for two millennia; and Disciplines because they must be practiced faithfully and regularly, forming a habit or a regular pattern in your life that repeatedly brings you back to God and opens you up to what God is saying to you.

Similar practices may be found in other religions. The difference is that Christian disciplines are squarely centered on Jesus Christ. When Christ is not at the heart of it, it may still be beneficial in some way, but it is not being practiced in a Christian way. In the end, if it does not help you follow Christ, it is of no real worth.

So let me just mention some: Solitude, Silence, Fasting, Frugality, Chastity, Secrecy, Sacrifice, Study, Meditation, Worship, Celebration, Service, Prayer, Fellowship, Confession, Submission. These are just few. Your health is your responsibility. Your spiritual attitude is your job. As your pastor I will introduce you to more exercise and coach your training – but the work is yours. Start trying!

Loving Relationships – our goal at South London

For the past two years we had been focusing on one specific aspect of eight necessary values of church life – Loving Relationships. Everything else was put on the “backburner” – evangelism, leadership development, groups, ministries, worship, structures. We did not neglect things, we simply did not emphasize them as much as we talked about love. The Gospel of Love – Gospel of John was our focus for six month through preaching, then another three months – preaching about love. For almost two whole years we had been celebrating the Cultural diversity. Today we are taking third evaluation of our church family, for a snapshot of our current “health”. Are we balanced? Have we covered all there is to understand about love and loving relationships?

This week a provocative advertisement stunt in Chicago attracted media attention. A law firm placed a 20-feet-wide banner “Life’s to short. Get a divorce.” between two pictures – that of a sexy cleavage and a washboard “six-pack” abs. Some scandalous interviews were given revealing how shallow our society is becoming, where love is reduced to carnality. Turning on any TV shows one gets a direct illustration of Jesus’ prophetic words that “love of many will grow cold…” (Matthew 24:12)

What is love for you?

For Apostle Paul Love was completeness of perfection. That is how he expressed himself in a letter to Colossians (3:14). Just stop and think about the deep meaning of this.

Different translators labored to translate this passage:

“…crown above all is love which is the bond of perfectness

“…which binds together and completes the whole

“…the girdle which makes all complete

“…link of the perfect life

“….that which bind everything together in perfect harmony

“…golden chain of all virtues

And the list goes on, trying to express inexpressible… Love is a mystery. For God is Love. And God is Perfect, God, Eternal. We love because He loved us with His Everlasting Love. And that’s a mystery to us.

This process of becoming loving, of learning to love will never end, will never come to a halt or arrive, just as our growing in Christ. And for this we come together, to provoke each other into love (Hebrews 10:24, KJV) Call it whatever you want – incite, stimulate, encourage – the bottom line I get from Paul, do whatever it takes to get Love going among you, if you want to be healthy, as a church and as individuals.

Worship – our goal at North London

Last Sabbath many of you received the green inventory sheets – some 90+ questions, probing deep into our lives, spirituality, relationships, volunteering, willingness to serve. We do this so often to check our corporate health.

For the past year we had been tweaking our worship services in response to the need of improving our corporate worship. A lot was done – seminars, evaluations, committees, preparation, praise team practices, equipment updates. More we wok at it more we are coming to understand that the adjective “inspiring” before word “worship” means more than technical adjustments to worship.

Recent sermon by Dr. Errol Lawrence led us to acknowledge that service begins when a personal revelation and vision of God on the Throne is seen. Last Sabbath I made a statement “Mission exists because Worship doesn’t” implying that the Ultimate Worship takes place in heaven and here we work to restore humanity to the place and stance of worship. Are we there yet? Far from it. The final war described in the Bible is all about worship. Revelation 12-14, the climax of the book deals with contrasting worship: draconian demands for false worship and God’s call to righteous worship.

“Inspiring” in worship stands opposite to “formality.” Personal spirituality matters here. The corporate worship flows from and within each individual experience with God. The only natural step for all of us is to move from “tweaking” styles, forms and formats of worship to develop a personal spirituality and a corporate environment of being in the Presence of God constantly and continuously.

For the past year we had been focusing on this one specific aspect often forgetting the rest of eight necessary values of church life. Seems that everything else was put on the “backburner” – evangelism, leadership development, groups, ministries, loving relationships… The natural principle of interdependence suggest that these elements also have a direct effect on our worship. Our strategic quest for the coming year will be about how do we bring worship into every aspects of our life, and how do we bring essential elements of healthy church (2^nd Peter 1:5-9) into worship, meaning – evangelism in worship, group life – in worship, ministries participation – in worship.

As you return your surveys for processing and as we wait for results and directions – spend time in prayer, and spiritual disciplines.

Checking the pulse of church health

Once a year we stop and reflect on three simple questions:

1) Where have we as a church come from?

2) Why are we here?

3) Where are we going?

A church that is going somewhere knows how to answer these questions.

The first should be relatively easy to answer by reflecting on the church’s history and its roots. Although our church history is not well known, especially to many newcomers. That is why the Church History project is so needed. The work of collecting history data began more than a year ago. The general church history data is assembled and the mural will be presented to the church by the end of the summer, paving the way for the local history mural.

The second question should be even easier to answer. Just a look at the Scripture reveals the reason for being, is to ‘make disciples’. It is to be working under the guidance and direction of our Lord Jesus, aiming to fulfill His mandate – the Great Commission as given in Matthew 28:18-20. This is how we bring Him glory, by being obedient to His Word.

The third question then must, in looking to the future, be based around this mandate. Whatever the future, the local church must not deviate from the ‘making of disciples’. It is also true to say that where we are currently is a place where we surely don’t want to be – because we want to see our churches packed with new Christians and everyone being discipled. No one can be at peace, be happy and comfortable seeing multitudes of people who do not know Jesus. So how do we get from where we are currently to where we believe God would have us be? George Barna has said, the “things that got us where we are today will not get us where we need to be tomorrow.”

In seeking to begin to answer this third question, it is essential that our church first understands our current ‘reality’. It is important for our church to see our current position and be fully united in order to be able to begin to move forward together. To achieve this we take a ‘health check’ by looking at its ‘vital signs’, those areas that are essential to its health and vitality and potential for growth:

· Empowering leadership

· Gift-oriented Ministry

· Functional Structures

· Passionate Spirituality

· Inspiring Worship service

· Holistic Small Groups

· Need oriented Evangelism

· Loving Relationships

This Sabbath we simply collect the data – your answers to a set of questions. May 26^th we will present the results and consider the strategy for moving into the future. Pray for our church leaders as they seek God’s guidance and direction for serving our church.