Blog – Page 8 – Joel Bidderman

Prayer Drawing

Recently, I've been doing a meaningful practice with my family that I've been calling "Prayer Drawing." It originally came from a conversation that I had with Steve Macchia (the author of Crafting a Rule of Life) at a conference. The first time we tried it we did it to the song "Good Shepherd" by Fernando Ortega, and our girls loved it. Lately, we've had the opportunity to experiment with this on a regular basis. In a sense, what we do is kind of Lectio Divina-esque. Lectio Divina (from the Latin: divine reading) is a prayer practice where you are reading Scripture for the purpose of transformation (as opposed to information), and from the place of prayer you are [...]

2019-05-17T00:37:17+00:00By Joel|prayer, Prayers and Blessings, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation|

Living Deeply

"My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn or deserve it." Brennan Manning It is once again the end of a year, and as we get ready for the next, there always seems to be the inherent introspection. There may be anticipation, maybe regret, anxiety, or hopefully, gratitude, as many are looking back, as well as forward. At best, there is a sense of hope. One thing I do every November/December is listen for what the Lord might be saying to me as I enter into the New Year. While it is often just a whisper, and often unclear, it's a starting point [...]

2019-05-17T00:30:19+00:00By Joel|Missional Living, Prayers and Blessings, Simplicity, Spiritual Formation|

Telling Your God-stories

At bed time our daughters love hearing stories, and not necessarily those read from a book either. They ask for made up stories by mom and dad, which make things interesting for mom and dad sometimes! After flying by the seat of my pants a few times, recently Jack, the lead pastor of the worship community that I'm a part of, gave a sermon on telling God-stories, and how testimonies of/about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy - there is a declaration of Who God is and what He wants to do in the lives of people. You can listen to it here. It got me thinking, though, of my Story. A benefit of living by [...]

2019-05-17T00:24:03+00:00By Joel|Spiritual Formation, Story|

Solitude and Sabbath

Your Sabbath, Lord, this keeps us by Your will, not ours. And it is fit Our only choice should be to die Into that rest, or out of it Wendell Berry Lately, I have been noticing an increased need to engage in solitude. My personality type (type 9 on the Enneagram) gets to a point in the week where (as I tell my kids) my battery is empty and I have to recharge. Ignoring this need produces unpleasant results. And the thing is rest is something that we see God not only do in the creation story (Genesis 2:1-3), but He also placed it as a priority for Israel in their early history as His people [...]

2019-05-17T00:17:24+00:00By Joel|Solitude, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation|