Personal Disciplines and Communal Practice (Video)

Recently, I had the chance to speak to some of the leadership of the church I serve about moving from a deciding body to a discerning body. In an effort to guide the group toward discernment, there are both personal disciplines and communal practices. This video was an effort to teach different disciplines and practices.

You may not care to watch this entire video, I do not blame you - I don’t like to listen to me, too. However, if you are interested in some of the disciplines and practices, I have put minute marks below for your reference.

• Description of the soul - 1:00

• Discipline vs. Practice - 3:00

• Difference between prayer, contemplation, meditation - 4:00

• Why we would rather choose to decide than discern - 9:00

• The discipline of breath prayer - 11:00

• The discipline of centering prayer - 12:30

• The discipline of the Jesus Prayer - 16:00

• The disciplines of contemplation 23:40

• The Examen - 24:45

• Lectio Divina - 27:00

• The disciplines of meditation - 29:00

• Parable of The Useless Tree 30:30

• Prayer for indifference - 35:40

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I hope this teaching is helpful for you to either participate in these disciplines and practices or at the very least give you something to push against and discover your own Lenten disciplines and practices. (These minute marks and links are also in the comments of the video on Youtube.)

Learning From Observation Over Conversation

The Lives of the Desert Fathers by Norman Russell opens with this little story expressing why people would seek out holy men and women in the deserts of Egypt in order to learn from them:

We have come from Jerusalem for the good of our souls, so that what we have heard with our ears we may perceive with our eyes - for the ears are naturally less reliable than the eyes - and because very often forgetfulness follows what we hear, whereas the memory of what we have seen is not easily erased but remains imprinted on our minds like a picture.

Russell adds, that these pilgrims desired to learn from conversation with these desert sages, but more so pilgrims desired to learn from observation.

It is not deeply profound to be reminded that actions speak louder than words. It is not new that we best learn from doing rather than listening. And yet we continue in the Church to lean very heavily on the spoken word to teach others.

Preachers are important, but not in the ways that preachers think we are. Preachers are important not just for the words they say (the conversation) but through the lives we live. People listen to preachers who live lives that are compelling, interesting, different and authentic. For all the sermon classes and preaching tips I have taken, I have yet to be in such a training that elevates the life of the preacher over the words of the preacher.

That is, we preachers still elevate conversation over observation.

The truth is that conversation is easier than observation. Teaching by conversation does not require one to be open to the Spirit of resurrection. Teaching by observation does.

So take a look at the Church we serve. Many people are learning from us not by what we say in sermons or doctrine, but by observing our lives. Maybe God was onto something when it was proclaimed that God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6, also echoed by Jesus in Matthew a few times). God desires mercy and compassion over the dogmatic and orthodox sacrifices that our religion demands.

Oddly enough, one does not have to know anything about religious practices to be merciful but you need to know a lot of religion to practice the proper sacrifices.

Learning through conversation is good. Observation is better.

Doctrine. I have been doing it wrong.

Doctrine in the Church is important. I am a fan. The doctrines of the Church have helped me better understand the nature of sin, the salvific work of Jesus Christ, the function of the Holy Spirit and how the Church is to be in relationship with the world. I am going back to school in fact to study doctrine, specifically the doctrines come out of the late antiquity period.

In my studies thus far I have discovered something about doctrine that has deeply affected how I understand that conversations around doctrine. I am embarrassed that I had not seen this before, and in many ways am disappointed in myself for not seeing it sooner.

So what is the discovery? Here it is:

Doctrine is the point of entry.

That is it. Doctrine is the point of entry into the conversation and understanding of the Christian faith. So why is this “discovery” worth noting? It is because I the primary problem I have had with theologians who cite doctrine is doctrine is used as a point of arrival.

It is like when you have a math book in school and all the answers are in the back of the book. There are many ways to get to the solution that is provided in the back of the book, but what is important is that you get the correct answer. Doctrines are often treated as an answer in the back of the book, and you can have many ways to get there, but ultimately you have to come to already stated position.

For example, Christians have a doctrine of the virgin birth. There are many people who will work to prove this doctrine, because the doctrine is the point of arrival - not the point of entry. When doctrines are points of arrival, then we have to defend and prove them. When doctrines are points of entry then we discover more than the doctrine teaches.

If the virgin birth is not the point of arrival, but the point of entry then the questions change. Rather than asking “how did the virgin birth happen?”, we get to ask “what sort of claim is being made about Jesus through the doctrine of the virgin birth?” Oddly enough when I ask the second question, I come to a deeper understanding of God in Jesus than I do when I just search for reasons to justify the virgin birth.

Doctrines are important, because they invite the disciple to enter into the transforming story of God. The irony is when we insist doctrines are the point of arrival, many discover those same doctrines as their point of exit.

God tells Isaiah to preach until the destruction of the city. Wait, what?!

In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the prophet asked asked God how long should he preach this message to the people:

“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.” 
10 Make the mind of this people dull,
   and stop their ears,
   and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
   and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds,
   and turn and be healed.’ 

In response God said Isaiah should preach until:

Photo by Oisin Conolly on Unsplash

"Until cities lie waste
   without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
   and the land is utterly desolate; 
12 until the Lord sends everyone far away,
   and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. 
13 Even if a tenth part remains in it,
   it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak
   whose stump remains standing
   when it is felled.’
The holy seed is its stump. 

Growing up this was taught to me that God would make the people deaf and dumb and then because of their deafness and dumbness God would destroy the city. 

I would offer up that the deafness, dumbness and destruction is not from God but from the people. Here is what I mean.

God tells the prophet to listen but do not comprehend, look but do not understand. What is God asking them to listen and look at? God is asking them to listen and look at the way the people are acting toward one another. The land lacked justice and compassion and as a result the people were full of bitterness and hatred toward one another. It was taught by the culture of this time that the only person that mattered was their little tribe. It was taught that to give handouts was a waste of time and enabling freeloading. It was taught that foreigners were dangerous and that you cannot trust anyone. 

As such, God desired for the people of Israel to look and listen to these cultural messages but to not understand, comprehend or embody them. For the cultural values of "self first" were destructive. God desired the people to turn from these selfish ways and be healed.

Isaiah was to preach this message of looking but not understanding until the city lay in ruin. God does not cause the city to fall and people to be homeless, but this desolation was the direct result of their selfish behavior. So keep preaching the message of see but do not embody until the selfish behavior has cannibalized itself. Do not fall prey to this selfish way of life for it leads to destruction. Even is just a little bit of self serving behavior is left in the culture, it will continue to cause destruction. Selfishness, greed and inhospitable are powerful forces for destruction and must be allowed to burn themselves out.

Thus those who remain, those who do not burn themselves out from greed and fear, this group will be the stump by which God's grace and mercy will grow from.