Spirituality

SPIRITUALITY - WHAT'S THAT?

There's a hidden part of you. I can't see it on the outside of you. Possibly you can't even work it out on the inside of yourself. It's your spirituality.

Everybody has it, and we use it to help guide us through life. Some people call this our "heart", "soul", "mind", "inner self". Somebody wrote, "It is here we stand before God and our conscience." It's also where you and I stand before our family and friends: it's what makes us uniquely what we are. It's what our friends know they can rely on us for - or not!

Jesus said, "God is Spirit," and I think he meant this: you know how at the centre of us humans lies our spirituality? In a similar way, right at the centre of all creation there is God - the creative will, or Spirit, which makes and sustains the universe. The spirituality in me and you is that same creative force in us: what Genesis means when it says we are "made in the image of God". We're a bit Godly. All of us.

People today call this spirituality our "will". The Bible calls it our "heart".

Traditionally, religious communities have offered a process known as "spiritual formation" to those who want to "grow" their spirituality in God. Spiritual Formation is the process by which the human spirit [or "will"] is given a definite form, or character.

More recently, people have turned away from the Christian Church for this, and have relied on other means to be spiritually formed - most of us picking and choosing the influences which will mould us, spiritually. But let's not fool ourselves: all of us are being formed, or given a definite form or character by everything that influences us - be those influences good or evil or somewhere in between. You probably know what I mean.

Christian Spiritual Formation is the redemptive process of forming the inner human world so that it takes on the character of the inner being of Christ himself.

So simply, Christian Spirituality involves becoming more like Jesus. Like many people, I am beginning to realise that this takes more than human effort. But I am finding that the ancient spiritual directors were on to something when they prescribed:

solitude for uninterrupted prayer
private Bible reading
study of spiritual writers old and new
memorising the words of Jesus
confessing my failures to love and to be loved
fasting, sacrificial giving, volunteerism
regular journaling of prayers and thoughts in a Godward direction
attendance at places where people are honestly worshipping God
meeting with a spiritual friend on a regular basis to share how I'm going.

I'm convinced that these ancient spiritual disciplines are forming me [and others I know] in the long, long task of becoming more like Jesus. I'm not there yet, but I'm also not alone.

I don't think we're expected to go it alone. Aloneness is the first thing in the Bible which God saw and said, "Now... THAT'S not good."

Nativity Church's patterns of regular worship, small groups, prayer ministry, and counseling services offer a connection with tried-and-tested, 2000-year-old ways to be with others who want the invisible, spiritual part of ourselves to be formed, spiritually, in the image of Christ.

Peter Minson, July 29, 2009