The Spiritual Disciplines

Practical Tools for Personal Transformation

Source: Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, Harper and Row, 1988

What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

“Going to heaven when we die?”

“Your sins are forgiven?”

“Once you’re in, you can never get kicked out?”

No!

“Life in the kingdom of heaven is available now (and forever) through trust in Jesus Christ.”

• Trust = Following

The Thesis

True transformation is possible in our lives

We can experience an “eternal (kind of) life” while living here on earth

“If you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Romans 8:13

How?

What did Jesus do?

He arranged his life around certain activities and practices

Such as …? (list)

What did these activities bring?

1. Detachment.

These activities kept him separated from the grip of agendas people would superimpose on him.

What did these activities do?

2. Engagement.

They enabled him to commune with God and the agenda of the Kingdom.

The Spiritual Disciplines

Rearranging my life around the activities around which Jesus lived his gives me the opportunity to experience true transformation

Disciplines of Abstinence enable detachment from the world’s entanglements on us

Disciplines of Engagement enable us to connect with the Kingdom realm

Disciplines of Abstinence

Solitude Silence Fasting Frugality Sacrifice Chastity Secrecy

To refrain voluntarily and temporarily from normal human needs so as to disentangle ourselves from their claims on us.

Solitude

To refrain for our normal need for conversation and human interaction so as to make room for relationship with God

Foundational to practice of all spiritual disciplines

Goal: to do nothing

Silence To refrain from our

normal need for conversation

Getting away from most non-human noise

Frees us from the constant attempt to manipulate our world through our words

Fasting To do without food (in

some way) in order to feast on God

Occasional and routine

Historically and biblically demonstrates to God and ourselves how intent we are about something

Frugality and Sacrifice

To do with less of or none of what we normally want or need

Frees us from bondage to pleasure, luxury, and appearances

Chastity To refrain from human

union in order to experience heightened intimacy with God

Within marriage, partners need times when they are valued for non-sexual reasons

Outside of marriage, to demonstrate that our primary union is with God

Secrecy To refrain from letting

our good deeds be known to others

Disentangles us from the needs for getting credit and recognition

Matthew 6 – prayer, alms, fasting

Disciplines of Engagement

Study Worship Celebration Fellowship Service Prayer Confession Submission

The practices which enable our now-disentangled souls to participate in the life and activities of the Kingdom of heaven.

Study

Submission of your mind to the truth and being of God

• The Word, history, people, ideas, etc.

Done via absorption and memorization

Worship and Celebration We ascribe “worth” to

God as the standard by which all is measured

• Remembering and recognizing

Worship: what God has done for us

Celebration: what God has done for me

Fellowship

Connecting with God by imitating the Trinitarian community

Finding our complements in the gifts found in the body of Christ

Service

Laying down the burden of preserving ourselves

Not putting yourself down but pulling another up

A means of exaltation through humility

Philippians 2

Prayer

Focused moments in our ongoing conversation with God

Acknowledging God’s presence to me and being present to God

Speaking must be accompanied by listening

• Solitude, silence, etc. heighten

Confession and Submission Making ourselves

accountable for growth via the faith community

Considering others as better than ourselves

• Log and speck, blind spot

Bearing one another’s burdens

• Galatians 6:2

Dangers of the Disciplines

Pride!– Can be works-

righteous

Can cause us to neglect appropriate responsibilities and disdain normal needs

But …

Faith is “bodily”

Grace is opposed to works, not effort

We can cooperate (or not) with God

• Power steering• Rocket leaving pad

Elijah Disciplines

Solitude and Silence

Brief, playful experiments

A Starting Place One discipline of abstinence

with which I could experiment:

Aspiring to one discipline of engagement:

What might these look like one afternoon?– How can we help each other

practice these in our household?

Starting Points ….

Solitude Silence Fasting Frugality Sacrifice Chastity Secrecy

Study Worship Celebration Fellowship Service Prayer Confession Submission

The Spiritual Disciplines

Practical Tools for Personal Transformation

Dr. John P. Chandler

The Ray and Ann Spence Network

for Congregational Leadership

www.rasnet.org Copy Right John P. Chandler, 2003