Do You Feel the Need to Go Further?

Spiritual formation is something that needs a more robust understanding. Is it possible that people are leaving churches because they find the spiritual maturity of that community to be lacking? Of course. If people will not find the spiritual formation they need in their faith journey to navigate life today, they will obviously look elsewhere.

Like many of you, I have felt at times that the local church wasn’t feeding me, or helping me to grow anymore. Sometimes to make such a statement is shamed or denounced rather than met with empathy. Spiritual formation is hard to do when you are a part of a community that does not emphasize it or have a robust understanding of how to do it after pre-teen years.

People are looking for depth, nuance, mystery, profundity, etc. Rather than taking a person looking for more depth and looking elsewhere as feedback, a church COULD examine the maturity of its own teaching and raise the bar on itself!

So What Now?

All that goes to say, rather than getting frustrated and walking away from the faith I simply decided to take ownership for myself of my own spiritual journey. And so, over the years I have developed a number of themes or principles for myself.

In my own faith journey I have simply decided to pursue things for myself. I encourage you to do the same. Of course, it helps to be connected to a community but sometimes a community’s teaching is not what you need at that point and time.

So here is a “list of lists.” I have been cultivating these insights since college and even now that I teach at the college level. Feel free to take what helps you and discard the rest.

5 Words to iOS Update Your Faith

1. Metanoeo – Commonly translated as “repent.” A more accurate translation is “I reconsider.” ALWAYS stay open to reconsidering everything. Do not become hard set in your opinions or definitions, and instead hold them loosely, so that you are always able to do an “upgrade” to a better perspective once new information comes along. In fact, get addicted to finding the next “upgrade” or new insight that changes everything for you.
   
2. Telos – Commonly translated as “perfect.” An equally viable translation is “mature, goal, end, purpose.” Give up any notion that Christianity is about perfection. It is about grace and the full flourishing of a human being. Reframe your faith away from being about moral perfection or following a code to fit in with any group, and move it toward the faith being something that helps you become the most fully developed version of yourself in a healthy and holy way.
   
3. Perisseuo – Translated as “abundant, overflowing, exceeding beyond the limit, without boundaries.” To be holy is not to be serious, or stingy, or without joy or excitement. To be holy means to be deeply present to the goodness, beauty, truth and love around us, and to work towards whatever obstructs goodness, beauty, truth and love in the world.
   
4. Integrate – Integrity comes from “putting all things back together that have been separated, to integrate.” Do a deep examine of your own life and see if any parts of your life are actively working against other parts of your own life. Look at all the darkness and shadow within yourself, to heal and integrate those areas. Rather than being a fractured human being that denies, represses, ignores or justifies your own self-destructive (and other-destructive) habits, let your faith pull every part of you back together.
   
5. Restore – God is more interested in pruning than punishing, in healing rather than harming, in restoring rather than destroying. The only desire within God is to restore, renew, reconcile, redeem, recover and rescue “all things.” Allow that reality to settle deep within your heart, mind and soul and you will find that it will literally affect everything else you do in life.

4 Tasks of Spirituality

1. Clean Up – There are vices you know you need to drop. Is it time to finally give them up?
   
2. Grow Up – There are things that you are responsible for that need your attention. Are you abdicating responsibility to other people?
   
3. Wake Up – The reality is that everything is already spiritual, are you asleep, waking or awake to that reality?
   
4. Show Up – Most people live more than 80% of their life on unconscious autopilot. How long do you want to live like that?

3 Distractions to Run Away From (and 3 Solutions to Run Toward)

1. From Hurry (to Stillness) – Rather than finishing one task and immediately beginning another, or rather than thinking about the next event while currently at another event simply sit and be still. Savor for a few minutes the completion of a task, or focus your attention at the event you are attending rather than thinking about what is next.
   
2. From Noise (to Silence) – We often fill our lives with different forms of noise, whether it be television in the background, netflix, music in the car, podcasts while walking, mindless facebook or tiktok scrolling. Instead, turn those things off and allow yourself to get to the point of being bored. Yes, BORED. Boredom is actually when creativity begins. Constant input gives no room for the eventual output that you are here to create.
   
3. From Crowds (to Solitude) – Loneliness and solitude are not the same thing. It is entirely possible to be in a crowd of people and feel lonely. This is because loneliness is a matter of not feeling known. And, what can help you eventually feel known is if you sit in solitude and first come to know yourself, that you might then enter a community of people and enable them to know who you truly are as you know yourself.

2 People Who You Can Talk Talk about These Things

1. Someone Older – Find someone who is further along on the life path that you can ask questions to and glean wisdom from. This person does not need to be learned, but it is important that you honestly respect this person for their humble integrity.
   
2. Someone Younger – Stay open to when people perhaps ask you a question for your insight. Don’t go looking for someone to be a “student” of yours. Instead, live your own life with humble integrity and do not turn someone away that perhaps looks up to you.

1 Last Piece of Advice

1. Take It All One Day at a Time – Do not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, do today what you need to in order to get a little closer to the person you are here to be.

Extra Links for You

I sincerely hope you found this helpful! If you are at all interested… Here are some extra resources…

Click here if you are a parent…

Click here if you feel you have outgrown your faith community…

Click here if you want to join a weekly email list of these kinds of things…