Teaching | How We Change: Key Thoughts on Practice | Practicing the Way Vision Series E06 (From the Archive)

Hello and welcome to the John Mark Coleman Teachings Podcast. My name is Yinka and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Mark or other voices in the formation space and it's great to have you with us. We're continuing to learn about how we change. This week, Jamar delves into the role the practices, also known as spiritual disciplines, play in our transformation.

These are often neglected in the post-Enlightenment West, but they are essential tools in the journey to become more like Jesus. Here's John Mark. We live in a fascinating cultural moment. I've been thinking about this a lot lately over the last year or so, in particular the last few months.

I grew up in the church. Some of you know that. My dad was a pastor. So I've been kind of behind the scenes of church leadership ever since I was a little boy. I remember sitting in the back of an elders meeting and, you know, drawing as my dad was there late at night. And I've been in some kind of church leadership myself.

since I was in high school. So now what is that? Upwards of two decades. And I feel like leading a church is harder now than it's ever been, at least in my lifetime. I think we're living in this perfect storm of at least four cross currents.

and here's kind of a visual representation. First, we're living in a post-Christian culture. We did a lot of work on this over the summer in the Creative Minority series, but we all know this in particular in a city like Portland, which we love, the gravitational pull.

to the city is just so dang strong. The pull to just, man, why go to church? Let's just like go out for beers and have fun and hang out. The pull to slide on what Jesus and the writers of the New Testament have to say about sexuality and marriage. The pull to just give in to rampant consumerism and buy jacket number 13 that you don't need and not even ask where it was made or whatever. Like that pull is just so easy to get sucked in. Then on top of that, we're living in...

in modern society. And there's pros and cons to modern society. I love that I did not ride a horse to church. I'm a fan. Some of you are more equestrian, not me. I like to smell nice, or at least not bad, okay? So, not my style. I'm really grateful that in a minute when I read from the NIV, I'm not going to get burned at the stake by the king. Like, that's great. I'm cool with that.

But there's a lot about modern society, and there's a lot of really smart people out there with letters after their name who are doing a great job of writing about just how toxic modern society has become. The digital age, the nonstop, constant digital distraction.

has become like an appendage, like a part of your humanity, the hyper individualism. And so we ache for community and loneliness is like this plague on our society. At the same time, we're hyper connected, but we don't really have community, but we don't really know how.

to stay in a relationship long-term and do community, and there's just the busyness. It used to be like, I'm old enough now that I remember back in the 90s when there were busy people. It's like, ooh, that person's an executive. He's busy, or she's busy, or that's a family with four.

teenagers. They are busy. Now everybody's busy. I haven't been bored since 1994. Like you remember? So most of you are too young to remember this thing called boredom. It was pre-Wi-Fi. All right. So it was a thing. It was a thing back in the day. It was like a plague on humanity. All right. Actually it was. It was great.

So there's a lot of great stuff about modern society, but man, just living and being a healthy, thriving human being, much less an apprentice of Jesus, in this kind of a cultural milieu is really a challenge. Then we're really the first adult generation.

That is the byproduct of divorce. So I think something like 60 plus percent of our church grew up in a broken home. Some of you are doing just fine for the most part. But I know as a pastor here in conversation after conversation, a lot of you are just reeling.

with emotional pain from your family of origin, with a father wound or a mother wound, the relational dysfunction of growing up in that kind of a home setting. One of the things we're seeing in particular with younger millennials, it's not a slam on anybody, but is a breakdown of... basic relational skills, a breakdown of an ability to do relational conflict in a healthy way. Our parents' generation, as a general rule, when a relationship got tough, would just

get a divorce, and move on, our generation has turned that into an art form. And so very few of us have long-term healthy relationships, know how to deal with conflict, know how to be in community over the long haul. The last kind of quadrant there, we're really the first adult generation that is the byproduct of the megachurch. So I know not all of you grew up in church, and that's great. A lot of you did, though. And in the 70s and 80s, we saw the rise of a brand new kind of, not new, but new.

in its popularity model of church called the megachurch that really did a lot to reshape the church in America. Even if you did not grow up in a church that was 2,000 people or more, if your church was more like Bridgetown size or a couple hundred people, the odds are that you grew up in a church that

It was at least shaped by that kind of a mentality. And this is a gross oversimplification. I know that some of you grew up in kind of a Sunday-centric church that was healthy and thriving. But a lot of that model of church where it was kind of come to church on Sunday, be a good person.

during the week, give money to the church, and just kind of have a few friends here when it's convenient. As a general rule, once again, this is a gross oversimplification, but as a general rule, that model of church did not do a great job raising up apprentices to Jesus.

but rather did a much better job raising up what the sociologist Christian Smith calls moralistic therapeutic deists. So he's a famous sociologist from Notre Dame, did a landmark study a decade ago on millennial Christianity, basically said,

thing, like what most millennials who check the box Christian on whatever survey in America are, are not actually Christian, but are what he called moralistic therapeutic deists. Moralistic, be a good person, therapeutic, God, Jesus, the Bible church is about self-help.

help. It's about kind of maximize your life, get ahead. And Dias, yes, there's a God. He's not really all that involved in my life unless if I need something. Other than that, I kind of just live how I live, like the people around me. That's actually where most millennial faith is across our nation, all right? Hopefully not for you and for me. So all that to say, here we are right in the middle of that, Bridgetown Church. Welcome. We're so happy you're here. It's great to see you.

with your father wound and your emotional pain and your iPhone addiction and your lack of the spiritual disciplines in your life and your pull to have way too many beers instead of go to church. Like, great to see you. Welcome. We're so happy. Now. Don't misread me. This is not a slam on anybody. It's not a slam on the church in America. It's not a slam on you. It's not a slam on me. This is just to call out the elephant in the room. This is our cultural moment.

that David Foster Wallace line at the beginning of his commencement address at Kenyon College. I don't know if you've read that. It's a short, easy read. It's really worth your time. But he opens with this story about two fish, and there's an older fish and a younger fish who are swimming in the water one day, and the older fish says to the younger fish, morning, how's the water? And the younger fish says, what the heck is water?

This is the water that we're swimming in. This is our cultural moment. And the question is, how do we as a church, how do you and I as a follower of Jesus, how do we not only survive but thrive in this kind of a cultural milieu?

in the here and now. So we're in a series on practicing the way of Jesus. If you've missed any of the teachings, please go back and listen as each one builds on the last. I think we're on number six now. We've said that to be an apprentice of Jesus is to organize your life around three goals. And say this out loud with me. Goal one is be with Jesus. Goal two, become like Jesus. Goal three, do what he did. And if you wanted to summarize three goals into one, it is that

of transformation. Right now, we're working through our spiritual formation paradigm. This is our working model of how we change, how we are transformed to experience this kind of life that Jesus of Nazareth has on offer. Last week, we covered teaching and the role of practice in our transformation, but practice was kind of from 30,000 feet at a theory level, and feel free to go back and listen to that. This week, I want to take another run at practice and drill

down, and specifically I want to chat about the spiritual disciplines. Let's start off here in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. We have a Bible, 1 Corinthians chapter 9. This is from a master apprentice of Jesus by the name of Paul. If you've ever read the New Testament, he's the author of a good chunk of it. And he writes this in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Look down at the end of the passage to verse 24.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? You're like, not if you're a millennial. We all got a prize. This was written a long time ago. Back when there were winners and losers in the world. Run in such a way as to get the prize. I do not run like someone running aimlessly. I do not fight like a boxer beating.

the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. That dude is type A. Paul, just take a Xanax and a glass of red wine or something. But no, seriously, I love it. That's scripture. It was inspired by God through a man by the name of Paul. Paul's metaphor for what following Jesus is like is that of athletics. It's like running in a race or boxing in a fight. Now Corinth...

was home to the Isthmian Games in the first century. Every two years, tens of thousands of people from all over the Mediterranean would converge on Corinth to watch the Olympic kind of games unfold. And this metaphor... would have struck a chord if you were a first century Corinthian on the receiving end of Paul's letter. But Paul used this metaphor all over his writings. Here's a few samples. Acts 20.

and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me. In Galatians 5, a question. You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? Or here's one in his letter to a young protege by the name of Timothy. Fight the good fight of faith. In another letter, at the tail end of Paul's life, he writes this. There's that imagery again of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day.

he goes on. My point is that over and over again in all of his writings, Paul comes back to this metaphor. It's not a one-off. It's a central metaphor for Paul. Following Jesus is like being an athlete. And notice the central role that discipline plays in the metaphor. In fact, in the NIV, if you read that translation, the subheading kind of up at the top of the paragraph is, quote, the need for self-discipline. Verse 25.

in the NIV reads, everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training, but a number of more literal translations have, quote, all athletes are disciplined in their training. Verse 27, another way to translate that is, I discipline my body. For Paul to be a disciple is to be a disciplined one. That's the etymology of the word on the English side.

Now, what Paul is getting at here is what are usually called the spiritual disciplines, or what some of you know I prefer to call the practices of Jesus. And here's why. Because when people hear the word spiritual, for most people that word means like unembodied kind of. of Oprah-esque fuzzy out there in the universe. For Paul, the body is the focal point of your relationship with God. You interact with God in your body and even through your body. meaning your mind and your heart, all of that.

And your body is the battleground between two warring factions in Paul's framework that he calls the flesh and the spirit. We'll talk more about that in a few weeks. And for Paul, discipleship to Jesus is something that you do with your body.

with all that you are. And the other reason I'm a little uncomfortable with it is just because discipline is a great thing, but for a ton of people, in particular in a hedonistic city like Portland, it has negative connotations. So for clarity's sake, in this

This teaching, we'll call them the spiritual disciplines, but then going forward, I'll revert back to my kind of preference for the practices of Jesus. Is that okay? Yeah. Now, what are the spiritual disciplines? Here's a working definition. The spiritual disciplines. are practices based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create a time and space for us to access the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. And in doing so, be transformed. formed from the inside out.

There is no official list of the spiritual disciplines because pretty much anything based on the lifestyle of Jesus that you read about in the four gospels or really anything that you read about in the early church through the New Testament is a potential spiritual discipline. Here's a list of...

of, I don't know, the top 15 or 20, silence and solitude, prayer, fasting, anything to do with the Bible. So reading your Bible, Bible memorization, Bible meditation, where you read it really slow over a long period of time and open up your mind's eye to the...

The Voice of God or Bible Study or a podcast. Community, just living with a group of other people. The act of a meal with the same group of people every single week. That's all based on the life of Jesus and a huge part of our church rhythm. Sabbath, Sunday gathering and everything.

under that rubric so worship by singing and the bread and the cup and teaching what I'm doing right now and then all the stuff we do in the week serving out there justice all of that stuff simple living or simplicity or what in the secular age we call minimalism which is

actually an ancient Christian discipline that's core to the way of Jesus. Grieving, like learning how to do that. Process pain. And then confession, celebration, learning how to throw a really great party. Secrecy, where you do really awesome Jesus-y stuff. Don't Instagram it. And then, of course, last but not least is gratitude, living from a posture of wonder and awe and gratitude, being a thankful person. Now, before we talk about the spiritual disciplines,

think about the whole point of discipline in general. A discipline is any activity Here's kind of a psychological definition. It's a bit dense, so just pay attention. A discipline is any activity I can do by direct effort that will eventually enable me to do that which currently I cannot do by... direct effort. Now that language is a bit tricky. Once again, I think athletics is the best metaphor. Jacob, are you down here somewhere? Would you? You're a soccer player, right?

Yeah. Would you come up here for a minute? I won't embarrass. Well, I guess I will embarrass you. But come on up. Would you? Do you mind really fast? Jacob. Bro. I got a soccer ball. Let's do this. I'm not an athlete. There you go. How are you? Great to see you. This is Jacob. He is the leader of our prayer team for the 7 p.m. So I know you're a soccer player.

Would you show us some kind of a drill that you do on a regular basis to warm up for a game or like during the week to just like keep up on your soccer thing? Soccer is the one with the foot, the feet. Right. Whoa, a pass. Whoa, I stopped it. Okay, you ready for this? Right there, right there. Whoa, man, you're just getting crazy. You get crazy. So my eight-year-old...

for Halloween on Monday. He went as, this is all of his own idea, he went as David Beckham. So he wore like a tie and he had his hair all slicked back and he had this soccer ball, sorry it's a kid's soccer ball, in his hand and then he had underwear in his other hand. I'm like, how do you even know about that commercial? David Beckham's so hot that even an eight-year-old is like, oh, I remember that commercial. I wasn't even alive then. Okay, so.

What's the one, there's one that I can't do because it's really hard, where like you, you do like a crossover thing. Will you do that? Like, yeah, where you like, yeah, that. And then you like roll it down. Whoa. Even in Birkenstocks. Great. So here's what I'm looking for, Jacob. Sorry, I'll get you off the stage. You hate me right now. But why do you do drills?

Practice makes perfect. Yeah, boom. What would happen if you were to never do any drills at all? You were just to show up for a game on Saturday and just try really hard to be Beckham-esque. Oh man, I'd be slacking a lot. It's like, if I wasn't practicing...

I mean, you just wouldn't be able to do it. You'd just be like lazy and you would like kind of, especially in a position where you've already been doing something, you'd kind of like, oh yeah, I know how to do that. I can just like kind of, it's like if you went bouldering or rock climbing a lot and then you tried to like do it. like three months of not doing it and you like get on like one of the harder levels like I can do this and you grab and you just can't even

Hang on anymore? So now we're doing multiple sports. You're just making the rest of us look bad, all right? I played in a band. Is that okay? Whatever. That's great. So, thank you. Thank you for being here. We love you. So obviously, you know where I'm going with this. What... what drills spiritual disciplines are to the way of Jesus. What drills are to soccer? What scales, if you're a musician, are to learning how to play the piano or the guitar? What if you play the drums are to that?

There's a word for that. I'm forgetting. There's a... paradiddle that's right thank you Sean paradiddle like is to learning how to play a drum set what a flash card is to learning vocabulary for French as a second language what a track workout is to running a marathon, you get the idea. A discipline is a way to access power. Now, a spiritual discipline

is any activity that will help you access the power of the Holy Spirit. So a power that is way past your capacity, current, present, and future. A power that is beyond yourself. that is rooted in the reality of God. It would not be a teaching on the spiritual disciplines without a quote from Dallas Willard. I had somebody come up to me, true story a few days ago, and be like, dude, you are such a fanboy for Dallas Willard. Yep, here we go. Quote,

purposefully undertaken to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is, strictly speaking, beyond. us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself as we, quote, yield ourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead and are members, meaning the parts of your body, as instruments of righteousness.

unto God, as Romans 6.13 puts it. Meaning the disciplines are how we partner with God to change. Willard's, that's right. Willard's famous line is that grace isn't opposed to effort, but to earning. And I need to say this, there is a place, a central place, for self-effort in your discipleship to Jesus. I know that makes a lot of you nervous. We are still, in my humble opinion, living in the wake of the Protestant Reformation and in an overreaction to, quote, works-based righteousness.

Early church was marked by a practice. based approach to discipleship it was called the way or the followers of the way but after the fourth century Constantine legalization of the way of Jesus when it became a religion in the Roman Empire then by the height of its kind of corruption in the Middle Ages

the spiritual disciplines were used and abused. I mean, you have the horror story of like the monk in the middle of the night, naked on the roof, whipping himself or whatever in the name of Jesus. Like, yeah, that's not, that's not, it was a metaphor. Like that was reading this passage. not

as a metaphor, but as a literal command. And so you have all the disciplines were used and abused. And after the Reformation a few hundred years ago, if you know your church history, in my opinion, the pendulum swung way over to the other side. Now here we are, even hundreds of years later, on the other side of the world. And it's like there is still a deep fear to the point of paranoia in the church in the U.S. of people earning their salvation. And it's not that...

isn't a dangerous thing. It is. It's just that this is not an issue for 99.9% of the people I know, at least in Portland. I don't know anybody out there that's earning their salvation. That's like, oh, I just like fast three days a week to earn God. That's just, maybe that is, and not to make light, maybe that is a legit issue for some of you here. But I'm guessing it's a very small number of people.

For most of us, the issues are way more like hedonism, so easy to get sucked into the city, digital distraction, we're all way too busy, there's an inbred kind of entitlement, and God, you owe me, and like lack of... Like for most of us, we're dealing with a whole other set, guilt, shame. We're dealing with a whole other set of issues. My point is that even if it makes you nervous to talk about this, and I want to validate that emotion, absolutely.

have to come to grips with the fact that you have a part to play in your discipleship, not in earning the father's love. You already have the father's love. You're a son. You're a daughter. You're a beloved son. You're a beloved daughter. But it takes effort to live into any kind of relationship in your life, and especially your relationship to God. And in your transformation, you have a part, and God has a part.

You have a role to play. God has a role to play. You have a responsibility, not just God. Now, just to clarify, in this partnership, God does all of the heavy lifting. So it's a partnership, but it's not like 50-50. It's more like you have 5% or 10%, God has 90% or 95%. But man, that five or 10% or whatever the number is, that's arbitrary, but it matters. It matters to God and it matters to you. As the saying goes, without him, we can't, but without us, he won't.

The spiritual disciplines are our part in transformation, our responsibility in our discipleship to Jesus. But all they do is open up your mind. and your body and all of your life to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to do the deep, real work of transformation in you and through you.

Every time you read your Bible, every time you pray, every time you fast, every time you come to church, every time you share a meal with your community, all you're doing is saying, God, life is crazy, especially with an iPhone and in the city, but... Here's a moment. I'm here. You're here. We're together. And you tap in.

to the power and the presence. You have access to a power that is far beyond you. That's why all of the spiritual disciplines are a means to an end. The end isn't, I read my Bible today. I pray. I fast every Wednesday. Fantastic. The point is, God, here I am. Have your way in my life. Work in me, work through me, to be with you, to become like you, and to do all the things that you do. The end is transformation. Now what I'm getting at is this one key idea.

That following Jesus isn't about trying really hard, but training really hard. I want to say that again. Following Jesus isn't about trying really hard, but training really hard. I said that a few weeks ago, and somebody's like, that's semantics. I don't really get it. What's the difference?

Let me parse it out. Think of it this way. Let's say you want to experience the kind of life that you see in Jesus. You read one of the four Gospels. You read, say, the Gospel of Matthew. Does anybody else here find Jesus really compelling? I'm guessing that's why you're here. So I'm just going to say, hopefully. You're like, it's not you, bro. Yes, okay. I find Jesus mesmerizing. And you read one of the Gospels, and you just say, man, I want... I want to be human like Jesus was human.

the way that Jesus was never in a rush and he was in the moment and he was in tune with the father. I mean, he could go for hours. He could go for days, just abiding, just in prayer with life. And he was angry, but at the right things. the right time and in the right way. And then he was so marked by love and just absolutely marked by mercy toward people that everybody else was angry with. And he wasn't afraid to stand up and do the hard thing and stand against the tidal wave of God.

culture so much just courage to go after that and a power and authority. And like, you just, let's say you read the life of Jesus and you just find Jesus compelling and you want that. How do you experience that kind of life in the coming week? Through trying really hard or training really hard? Through trying really hard, you wake up tomorrow morning.

alarm off, you're like, oh, and you rush out the door, you grab your coffee on the way, you have your phone, NPR is on, or you're on the bike or whatever, you get to work, you get to class, you go about your day, and you're just sucked into the rat race that is life in the modern age, and you just try really hard to be Jesus-y. And awesome.

You're like, I'm just going to try really hard not to get stressed out. And I'm going to be patient, be patient, be patient with my coworker, boss, employee, whatever. And you just try really, really hard to like think about God in the back of your mind as you're on email and Twitter and everything.

How does that work for you? Some of you are like, yeah, that's not how you're supposed to do it. No, that's not how you're supposed to do it. Compare and contrast that with, say, training really hard. You wake up tomorrow morning, maybe 30 minutes before you have to get up. And no phone, no internet, no whatever. You just, you don't check your email. You don't like, see if anybody liked your photo. You just, you wake up, take your Bible.

Maybe you make a cup of coffee and you just carve out a little time to start your day abiding. Just, God, I'm here. You're here. Maybe it doesn't have to be fancy. Maybe you read a psalm. Maybe you set aside a minute or two just to say, God, is there anything you want to say to me? You just do a few minutes of listening prayer. Maybe you think about what's on the docket for the day ahead of you, and you just ask for help for God to...

give you grace for what's ahead. You center yourself, you take a few deep breaths, and then you go about your day and you let the rest of the day kind of take care of itself. And then let's say you get to the end of the week and you practice Sabbath.

You set aside a 24-hour time period. It's not a legalistic thing. It's a freedom thing. And you... maybe get rid of your phone for a bit or whatever, and you just set aside a whole day for rest, worship, you be with your friends or family if that's your thing, or you take a long walk in the woods all by yourself, whatever it is for you to reconnect with God.

to kind of restore your soul, and then you let the rest of the week take care of itself. Now, neither are easy, but which one's easier? Trying really hard or training really hard? Training really hard. Like that's, it's not easy, but it's a lot easier to work discipline into your life and let what Jesus called the life.

to the full flow out of that rather than to shrug and ignore and cast off discipline and just try really hard to be Jesus-y and awesome. It just does not work. We need way less trying really hard and way more. We're training really hard. We need a life that is built around the disciplines, built around the practices of Jesus, that is based on the lifestyle of Jesus. That's what it means to follow Jesus. It means to live like Jesus, not just in the moment, like, oh.

you have an enemy. I'm going to live like Jesus and love my enemy. But all the time where you adopt the lifestyle of Jesus, the second that followed Jesus is emptied of any practical meaning, it becomes nothing more than a shallow cliche. Following Jesus is not a sentimental cliche. It is a...

clear, concise way of saying you are living like Jesus. Now, it doesn't mean you're perfect. It doesn't mean you have your act together. It just means you're doing your best to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus and let that lead and guide.

your day and your life. And the beauty of the spiritual disciplines, if you think back to last week's teaching, is not only do they train us to live really well, but they train us to love really well. So we use Jamie K. Smith's language of you are what you love, but you might not love what you think. Meaning if you want to know what you actually

love. We did this last week. We said take a liturgical audit, meaning take an inventory, that's Smith's language, take an inventory of all the rhythms and rituals and routines that make up your day, your week, your month, your life, and see if you can connect the dots between the things that you are doing and what those things are doing to you.

I hope you did that this last week. If not, no guilt, no shame, but do it this coming week. Like just set aside a little bit of time. Jamie K. Smith was actually at church this morning and I was like, bro, you wrote that. That was your idea. We all need to do it. It's a beautiful thing. Like what are the things that you are doing to you? The spiritual disciplines are how we train our heart to love God and the things of God. How we curate our heart.

How we push and point it into and pull it into the right direction. That's why the more you practice the spiritual disciplines, the more you want to practice the spiritual disciplines. The more you read your Bible and pray and practice Sabbath and come. church the more you want that and you want God and the things of God but sadly the inverse is also true the less you practice the spiritual disciplines the less you

Want to practice the spiritual disciplines. The more you'd rather just smoke pot and look at porn and slack off or work 90 hours a week and just go, go, go and get sucked into stress and chaos and anger and impatience and annoyance and frustration or whatever your thing is, the less you practice.

the less you want to, the more you practice, the more you want to. The less you practice, the more your heart is moved in the wrong direction with the wrong kind of loves and the wrong kind of longings. The more you practice the way of Jesus, at a psychological, at a behavioral level, behavioral science level, nine times out of 10, your behavior is what comes before your attitudes and your affections.

This is so counterintuitive in our be true to yourself, high, high, high, high value of authenticity. Like, I don't want to do anything if it doesn't feel authentic to who I am. I do who you are like needs a little help. Like you don't want to be all authentic to who you are. Like be like part authentic to you are and be part like inauthentic to who you are. If you're anything like me. Like the reality is if I only like was like reading my Bible when it feels authentic to me, wow.

There's a whole other way where you lead with the practices of Jesus and you curate your heart as an act of discipleship and you watch your loves and your longings change, transformed. by your partnership with the Holy Spirit because our practices, our habits, give shape to our loves and our longings. Mark had to go home for the day, but I had my friend Mark come up the last couple of gatherings and just tell a quick story about gratitude.

What the spiritual discipline of gratitude has done to his heart. And, you know, he travels a lot for work. He's on a plane every single week down to Southern California. And he just a few months ago started writing thank you cards to people. He would do listening prayer.

asked God, who should I write a card to? And he would write these thank you cards. And so he's now is like 150. He writes like six a week or something like that. So he's like 150 thank you cards or something. And he just has story after story of how God's used it and so-and-so's life.

But the coolest part of the story was he was just saying how he's not a grateful person. He's pretty impatient. And if you don't work, he's just a type A kind of driver, successful dude. But he was saying, man, this has changed my heart. And I'll be there like sitting on the plane. And I used to be like. the jerk guy in first class. And now I'm like writing this card and weeping like right there. And it has changed my heart. It has made me a more grateful person.

It's a beautiful story. Like that's what the disciplines, that's what practice does to your loves and your longings. So we have this collection of time-tested practices based on the lifestyle of Jesus that are a surefire way. way to tap into what Jesus called life to the full. And before we wrap up,

Just here's six thoughts on how to use the spiritual disciplines well. Don't worry, it won't take a long time, but we'll move on now to kind of some nuts and bolts stuff as we think about the future. First off is this. If you're taking notes, go ahead and write this down. First off, smart training. or if you prefer, practice or discipline, takes a balanced approach. You can plot the spiritual disciplines on four axis points. Disciplines you do alone, then disciplines you do in community,

Then there are disciplines, and this is language out of the spiritual formation literature, but disciplines of abstinence, meaning where you abstain from sound or people or food or whatever. And then disciplines of engagement where you do the exact opposite. You engage, you go.

out and you do something. When I say spiritual disciplines, most people automatically think of the top left-hand corner, things you do alone and things of abstinence. So silence and solitude, listening in prayer, you know, reading the Bible, whatever.

fasting, stuff like that. And that's great. But it's just as important to practice stuff in the bottom right-hand corner, disciplines of community and engagement. Things like church, what you're doing right now. Well done. This is church. Sunday gathering is one of the core spiritual spiritual disciplines.

Jesus was in the synagogue, as far as we can tell, based on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, every single week. Not like, you know, every other, every single. He was a non-traditionalist. Well, kind of. He was at synagogue, though, every single. He's a core discipline to the way.

of Jesus, core discipline in the early church and done through church history. That's something that we all do together. It's a discipline of engagement. You're here. You worship God with your body. You engage. You pray. You reach out to people around you. So all that to say, we need a better

balanced approach to the disciplines. The odds are that our practice for most of us is a little out of balance based on our personality. So I think in the Myers-Briggs, if you're an ES, if you're an extroverted sensor on that test, right? then the odds are you gravitate down to the bottom of my hand corner. You're like, yes, let's hang out and share a meal with my community and open a bottle of wine and go do justice in the city or whatever. If you are like me and you're an IA,

N, so you're an introverted and you're like, and you're an N. You're in your head all the time and you're weird and you're nerdy and you have social problems. Then you're just like, I just want to get up early and be alone and fast. Yes. It's awesome. We're only 1.3% of the population. So a couple of you out there, you feel the love. My point is we need a balanced... approach.

to how we practice the disciplines. On that note, secondly, write this down, smart training takes into account your personality. So we need a balanced approach to the disciplines, but some of us need way more of one kind of discipline than another. If you're like me and you're an introvert, I need copious amounts of time alone. I need a ton, like silence and solitude is my top.

spiritual discipline. It's my top practice. Every single day, I need time. I'm like at the top on the Myers-Briggs thing. I'm like as high introvert as they go. I need a ton of time, just me alone. I need space to think, process with. God, listening in prayer, read the Bible really slow, like not in a rush. That's just how I'm wired. Now, as introverted as I am, do I still need community? Even though I'm a pastor? Even though I would rather just hang out with a sci-fi novel.

Do I still need it? Yes, which is why every Tuesday night I am there in my living room with 12 other people who live in my neighborhood practicing the way of Jesus, doing life together. It's why I have a few, not... 20, but I have a few close friendships that we stay in touch and we FaceTime if they're out of town and we keep up because I need community. Now, if you're on the other side, I think my wife who went home after the last hour, but if you're extroverted, life of the party.

charismatic yeah whatever you know that's you do you still need silence and solitude yes But you need way more time with your community. You need to go out. You need to share a meal. Maybe not once a week, but like four times a week or whatever. And you're exhausting. You people, you know that, right? You're just...

You're awesome and you're funny and you're exhausting. Oh my goodness. And you're just fantastic. So my point is, yes, we need a balanced approach, but at the same time, there's freedom. to be who God made you to be. God created you. You are not a glorious accident. You are an intentional miracle from the hand of God. And if he wanted you extroverted, he would have made you extroverted.

If he wanted you more of a thinker, intellectual, he would have made you that way. If he wanted you more, whatever, you compare and contrast and feel like you should be more of this, you should be more of that. God made you just the way he wanted you. And there's a freedom there. No two of us are the same.

We all connect with God in our own way. Gary Thomas writes about the nine sacred pathways, almost like a personality test for how people connect with God. Naturalists loving God outdoors, like you connect with God on a hike in Forest Park or you go out to the gorge. or whatever. Sensates, loving God with the senses, you just really connect with God over craft beer. That's like your thing, or french fries, or you're just like, yes, Jesus is here in this moment, or whatever.

Traditionalists, loving God through ritual and symbol. Ascetics, loving God in solitude and simplicity. You just like have the zen, you know, Japanese minimalism, modern thing. You're just like white walls and Jesus. That's your thing.

Activists loving God through confrontation. You're like a young Martin Luther King Jr. You just want to go out and like fight for social justice. And in that moment, as you're, you know, wrestling with the foster care system in our city or sex trafficking or whatever, you're like, you connect with God. It's beautiful.

Caregivers, loving God by loving others. Like you connect, just, hey, let's get coffee. I want to love you. I want to pray for you. And I've been praying for you all week long. You want to go visit your elderly grandmother and just sit next to her. And you come alive in that moment.

Ecclesiastes, loving God with mystery and celebration. You just want to... party all the time it's great contemplatives loving God through adoration you just want to practice the spiritual disciplines all day intellectuals loving God with the mind you just want to read and podcast and think and theology and philosophy and the humanities Like that's how you connect with God. That's beautiful.

The key idea here is to tap into the disciplines that make you come alive and you are abiding in Jesus. I see this every Sunday night. I'm going to watch out, and I see some of you really connect with the time of worship by singing and the prayer response at the end.

I'm like, that's it. For you, you're like, I don't really care who's teaching or whatever. That's the moment. It's just all about worship. You just love it. You just wish we could go on and on and on, like song after song. And then others of you are like, I watch you. You're like... You're not there. You're struggling with it.

But then we get to the teaching and you're like, okay, I have my Evernote file and I have this and I highlight and boom, boom, boom, boom. And I like hyperlink to that book you just quoted. I'm like, I'll have that read by Wednesday. And you're like, you're just there. And you're like, oh yeah, I remember that. And I podcast Sam. And I podcast Sam. And he's better. You're just going for it. That's beautiful. Is one better or worse? No, they're both. And no matter how you're wired, you need both.

Right? You need both. You need that balance. But there's a freedom there for you to be who God made you to be. We're going to start in on the practices in January, second week in January. I can't wait. And if you've been around last month, you know we're kind of going to...

rebuild our communities around this idea of practice-based discipleship. So every two months, we'll take on a new practice of Jesus. I'll teach on it, or we'll teach on it for a few weeks here on a Sunday, and then we'll go practice it in a community, in a living room, in an apartment, or whatever.

All spiritual disciplines, but that will be a good chunk of what we do, at least in the beginning. And it's interesting, you'll do some disciplines and you'll just come alive. You'll be like, oh my gosh, silence and solitude. I never really knew how to do it before. I'm always distracted and this is life-changing. And you'll do other disciplines. You'd be like, that was really good for me. But it's not like...

Whatever. It's cool, but it's not like my thing. And that's beautiful. There's a healthy discipline in doing things in community, even if you don't really want to do it. There's something really healthy about that. But there's a freedom there for you to find what makes you come alive.

Third, if you're taking notes, is this. Smart training takes into account your season of life. There are seasons of life. If you're in college, that's a season. If you have little kids, I'm guessing you don't because you're here, but that's a season. Oh, there's one. Ryan's back there somewhere. That's a season of life.

you're an empty nester, that's a season of life. If you're at the height of your career and you're just working your tail off, this is a season of life. And there are seasons of discipleship to Jesus. Eventually, as you grow and mature in the way, you will face what the ancients called the darkness.

night of the soul, a time when the spiritual disciplines just break down and don't do what they're supposed to do. You read your Bible, you pray, you go to church, you live in community, and you just feel a massive disconnect between you and God, like just a concrete wall between earth and heaven. And guess what?

That's part of the story. That's part of the journey. It's a whole other teaching I don't have time for. The key is to know your season of life and of apprenticeship and to adjust your practice accordingly.

Four, if you're taking notes. Smart training takes into account the need of the hour. The best teachers of the way, I know.

all utilize the spiritual disciplines the way that a doctor would utilize a prescription or a medicine or a surgery or a diet or some form of therapy. As a general rule, like, oh, you're struggling with this? You need that. Oh, you're struggling with that? You need this. As a general rule, rule, if you're struggling with the sin of commission, you will need a discipline of abstinence.

So, for example, to overcome a porn addiction, work fasting into your practice. Whenever I sit down with men or women who are dealing with any kind of sexual addiction or any kind of addiction or sin that is based on the body and on... body appetite. So gluttony or sexual addiction or oversleeping or laziness or whatever. I will always say work fasting into your practice. That is one of the most powerful practices to break the hold of addiction over your body and over your bodily drive.

And then on the other side, if you're struggling with the sin of omission, you will need a discipline of engagement. So if say you're dealing with like the sin of lukewarmness, like you grew up in the church, you've kind of been there, done that, everything I say, you're like, yep, I remember hearing.

that when I was 14, and you just have this spiritual lukewarmness, you just have this flat, numb, apathetic, kind of cynical take on Jesus and church and life and all of that, then the odds are you need a discipline of engagement.

You need to get off your butt and you need to go risk and you need to step out in faith. You need to do justice. You need to like sell a bunch of your possessions and give it to the poor. You need to like start living in community. You need to like get out there and do something to break through the apathy in your life. Does that make sense? So sins of commission usually need disciplines of abstinence. Sins of omission usually need disciplines of engagement.

I had somebody ask me just a few days ago, hey, I'm really struggling with the sin of pride. I'm like, yeah, I don't know what that's like, but I hear... I hear it's a problem for a lot of people, a lot of my friends. And she said, what should I do? I said, well, I don't really know you, but here are three practices that in my fight with pride and for humility have been over the top helpful. First is the practice of community. So if you live in community, it's really hard to be arrogant.

Like it just really is because people call you out on your crap and they see you for who you really are and they love you. and they're not impressed with you. They're really not. Even if you work for a church and you look like me, like they're just not impressed with you, right? So live in community. Seriously, like that is like step one to most of the people I know that are arrogant.

are not living in community. Friends, sure, but not living with a group of people that actually call them out. Secondly is the discipline of secrecy based on the life of Jesus, and in particular in Matthew chapter 5. It's basically where you go do awesome Jesus-y stuff, and you don't tell anybody. blog about it. It's not on your Instagram story. You don't like share a testimony of how God used you this week. You just do awesome Jesus-y stuff and you shut up about it.

That's awesome. So good and so bad for your ego. It's just like starving your ego. And then third is the discipline of serving. Based on, say, Jesus washing the disciples' feet, go meet a tangible, unglamorous, non-sexy need. Go down and volunteer at the Portland Rescue Mission. Come here to First Baptist any morning. Go downstairs. There's a kitchen. Smells really bad. And volunteer to make food for people that don't have a home.

much less money to buy lunch tomorrow afternoon. Don't tell anybody about it. Don't leverage all of your education and your experience and your gift set. Don't leverage your gift set. Leave your gift set at the office. Just come serve and watch what that does to your heart. Does that make sense? So that's just an illustration. I'm not saying you need to do all that this week. I'm just saying.

That's how you need to think about the disciplines. And remember, there are disciplines that you kind of do every day or every week for a life. And then there are more like short-term experiment disciplines where you just, I want to experiment in living with less. I want to... Experiment and just wearing the same outfit five days a week and just like

Just living with less. It's a great idea, by the way. Like, they're just short-term, I want to experience, experiment. I talked to a guy this morning who's getting married next weekend, and he said, you know, all this cool stuff's happened in my life. He's starting a new business. He's getting married. He's like, it actually all started a year ago when I said, I'm going to take this year off TV.

It's like I just stopped watching TV. Not because I think it's bad, just for the year. And God's done all this cool stuff. So there are short-term experiments and there are lifelong commitments. The point is to tap into each where it makes sense. Five, I'm running out of time. Smart training isn't afraid.

to do the hard work. I hate to say this, but the disciplines that are the hardest for you and for me are more than likely the ones that we need the most. It's just like exercise. Follow the pain. So my friend Mike was here last hour. He's a CrossFitter. I'm more of a runner, but twice a week I go to the gym with this guy in my community. We work out. I hate it. I hate weightlifting. It's just the lamest thing ever.

And, yeah, shut up. Just shut up, all right? Whatever. And so recently I was complaining to Mike, and Mike is this CrossFitter. He looks like a demigod. He's just amazing. And I was complaining to him. It's like so hard and whatever. And I used to play in a band and like whatever. Like the goal was just to look like you haven't eaten in a month. That was the goal. It's the late 90s. It was a thing.

All right. And then you wear like an XXL t-shirt and you're like, I'm playing guitar. Like that was the thing. So it was not like I wasn't in Creed. I didn't work out. That's not what you do. Okay. You starve yourself. That's how, that's how I grew up. Anyway. So, and Mike just goes, dude, you just need to go to the cave, to the dark, and sit in the chair of pain. Like, bro, I don't want to.

I don't want to go to the cave in the dark and sit in the chair of pain. I want to, like, have an almond latte. I don't want... I don't want that. It's not my thing. But the reality is, any kind of exercise, any kind of athletic, you follow the pain. If there's an area where you step into something, oh, that's way too hard.

Like that's actually an area of growth in your practice. Now, for those of you thinking like you have your Evernote file, you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. A minute ago you said, follow what makes you come alive. I said, follow what makes you come alive or follow the pain. Yes!

It's both. Both are true. Follow what makes you come alive. Tap into life. And at the same time, follow your pain. What I'm saying is if you try discipline and it's way too hard, it might mean that it's not a great fit for your personality or season of life, but it's more likely to mean...

That's a real area of growth for you. So say you try practice. This happens a lot in our church because we chat about it on a regular basis. I really feel like it's a core discipline for the modern age and the digital age.

And so, like, I see this a lot. People will try it for like a week or two or three. Sabbath is amazing. It's the best day of my week. It's really hard to do. Once you get it down, it's not. It's easy. But at least for that first chunk of time, it's really an art form. And it is so.

counterintuitive to our like digital addiction go go go busy stress buy sell so it takes a while to figure it out and so I'll see people do it two three four times and they'll be like man this is just so hard it could mean That you're just don't really need Sabbath. Pretty sure that's not what it means, but it could mean that, like benefit of the doubt. It's more likely to mean that actually, like you're just addicted to the drug of accomplishment and accumulation.

And your phone has become like an appendage. And you don't know how to be and not just do. And your mind is like all over the place and restless. And it's going to take you a while to figure it out. It's a weak spot in your discipleship to Jesus.

So how do you do anything? Like where you're weak? Well, you just start really small. Just in a theoretical story, you're there at LA Fitness Wednesday this coming week, and you look over and there's Matt, your workout partner from your community who looks like Daniel Craig. but stronger. And then you played in a band and you're like, he's got like 80 pounds and he's like, and you got 10 pounds. You're like, ah.

So much heavier than my Les Paul was. You just start small. You start right where you're at, and you work your way forward. Finally, and we'll be done.

Smart training takes into account the need for repetition. There is no formation without repetition. Let me say it again. There is no formation without repetition. The thing about the disciplines is, in the moment, you don't feel like they're... time you don't feel like they're doing much to you but over time they have a cumulative effect they change you but it takes a while the best analogy i can think of if you grew up in the 90s is the karate kid like it's

It's like the spiritual equivalent of wax on, wax off. You know, like in the moment you feel like you're waxing Mr. Miyagi's car and you're like bitter and you're like not into it and you're like, I want to be awesome. Actually, what's really going on is you're becoming the Karate Kid. In the moment you feel like you're just reading your Bible. You're just praying. You just set aside one day a week or one day a month or whatever to fast. You're just at church. You're just at...

Tuesday night dinner with your Bridgetown community. actually you're becoming a master apprentice of Jesus. You might not notice it because change, real true deep change, there are times of like, we'll talk about this in a few weeks, of just massive overhaul, dramatic change in a moment. But those are rare. They're beautiful, but they're rare.

Most of the time, change is this long, slow, incremental process. All of a sudden, you wake up one day and you're like, whoa, I'm not the person I was a year ago. Or people around you start to notice it before you do. Wow, do you realize you have changed? You ever hear people say that to you? You are not who you used to be. Yeah, it's called discipleship to Jesus.

That usually doesn't happen in a matter of weeks or a matter of months, or for some of us, if it's really something that's a gaping hole in our character. In a matter of years, it happens over a lifetime of discipleship to Jesus. This is so hard in our quick fix, instant gratification, text message, I am culture. We want it all. We want it all now. But discipleship is a long, slow...

journey to transformation. We need to be patient, patient with the Holy Spirit, patient with the discipline and learning how to practice that discipline. And above all, patient with yourself. Especially if you're on the type A, you just need to be patient with yourself. You will change. But it will be harder than you think, and it will take longer than you think. But you can and will change as you follow Jesus forward.

And in the meantime, remember that joy is found more in the ordinary than the extraordinary. Yeah, we have those just gaping moments of wonder and awe where we're just blown away by joy. But those are really few and far between. Most of the time, joy is found in just the mundane, ordinary routine and ritual of life in the way of Jesus.

I want to close with this quote from G.K. Chesterton out of his famous book, Orthodoxy. If you're a reader, this is quoted all the time, but I've never quoted it live, and so I just feel like it's really fitting. He writes this. Because children have a bounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, do it again.

And the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, do it again to the sun, and every evening, do it again to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.

It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than me. Wow, that's old school. That's how you write back in the day. So to wrap up, I'm way over time. I'm sorry for that. But as I continue to talk. I just want to say it again. I know I'm a broken record here, but I want to say it again. If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus.

If you want to experience the life of Jesus, the love, the joy, the peace, the freedom, inside freedom, outside, the power, the authority, the sense of identity and calling and meaning and purpose, great. You have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus. Meaning you have to base you. life on practicing the way of Jesus. The spiritual disciplines, the practices of Jesus.

are non-negotiable. If you want to experience transformation and you want what Jesus called life to the full, awesome. It's not optional. Like you have to, it's key core component to your discipleship to Jesus. I don't know anybody, any master of the way, male, female, Jesus and Paul in the New Testament, to the early church, to the fathers, to literature down through the ages, to any mentor in my life, anybody in our church that is a master apprentice of Jesus.

Jesus who has been changed, who has been transformed, who is living a compelling humanity that does not practice the spiritual disciplines with rigor and commitment and faithfulness and patience. It's non-negotiable. No guilt trip, no shame. Oh my gosh, not here. Invitation. Why do we so admire Olympic athletes, to borrow from Paul's metaphor? Because that level of discipline...

And intentionality is so not ordinary, so not normal. What if we were to approach our discipleship to Jesus like an athlete at the Olympics? so much more is at stake. So my dream for Bridgetown Church as we move forward is that this is a really safe place to be who you are and to be in process. We're all, some of you are brand new to Jesus.

Some of you have been following Jesus for decades. For some of you, the idea of more than 10 minutes every morning is overwhelming. Great. Just wherever you're at. It's a safe place. My dream that this would be a place to be honest and open and transparent. Practice, not performance. A culture of practice, not performance. Not like, oh, how many spiritual disciplines do you practice? Only five.

You must be new around here. Yeah, no, that's not what we're going for. A really safe place for the mess and openness and transparency of life. And if you don't believe me, I really think we are that and I want to be that more. This is a safe place right where you're at. I'm safe. The people around you are safe. But at the same time, we want to be a church that isn't just an event on Sunday. It's just a feel-good spirituality pep talk with Jesus in it.

but a church that is built around practicing the way of Jesus together in Portland. Let's stand and pray.

John Locke had a great line near the end. What if we were to approach our discipleship to Jesus like an athlete at the Olympics? So much more is at stake. Whether that feels inspiring, overwhelming, or a little bit of both, the next step is always to start where we are. Even those Olympic athletes were beginners once. So if you like...

Let's just take a moment to listen to God for his invitation to us today. Maybe there's a practice that John Mark mentioned that stuck out to you. Or maybe you're trying to overcome a sin of omission in your life. and you need to discern an engagement practice in your life to address it. Whatever it is, let the Holy Spirit bring it to your awareness, and then just have a conversation with Him about it.

So if you can, let's reposture ourselves to hear from God. Maybe take a few deep breaths and bring your attention to his presence. And then ask, Holy Spirit. What are you inviting me into through this teaching? I'll leave 30 seconds here and close with Amen. Amen. This podcast is from Practice in the Way. We develop resources to help churches and small groups apprentice in the way of Jesus. Thanks to little thoughts for our show music.

We're a crowdfunded nonprofit, so everything we make is completely free because it's already been paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks today goes to Sid from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Josh. from Oxford, Oxfordshire. Margaret from Woodland Hills, California. Ashley from Dallas, Texas. And Erin from Centralia, Washington. Thank you all very much.

To join this Friends in the Circle or learn more about our resources, visit practiceintheway.org. Until next time, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. be with you all.