Spiritual Formation

Telling Your God-stories

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

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 [...]

Solitude and Sabbath

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

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 [...]

Being People of Mercy and Compassion [Audio]

2019-05-17T00:11:54+00:00By Joel|Audio, Jesus Shaped Community, Kingdom of God, Missional Living, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation|

"God's love is what we are created for and living lives of compassion are what He invites us to." From my sermon Everyone Gets To Play: Being People of Mercy and Compassion What does it look like to live lives of mercy and compassion? Recently, I shared the following message at my home worship community, during which I looked at: what compassion is, how mercy and compassion is at the heart of God, His invitation to us to us, and how we can cultivate it in our lives.

Prayer of Surrender and Grace [audio]

2019-05-17T00:02:44+00:00By Joel|Audio, Kingdom of God, Missional Living, Prayers and Blessings, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation|

What are the words that have formed you? That's what I had the opportunity to contemplate and meditate on as I prepared to preach last Sunday - as I focused on a prayer that is a part of my life.