Seminary PM5: There are spiritual disciplines we do in community.

The featured resource of the day is Keith Drury's, Soul Shaper: Becoming the Person God Wants You to Be. It is a synthesis of two previous works he did: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People and With Unveiled Faces.

The Seminary in a Nutshell series so far:

Chapter 1: The Calling of a Minister

Chapter 2: The Person of a Minister
Introduction
Ministers have different personalities and strengths
We each experience God best in different ways.
There are certain classic spiritual disciplines for individuals.

Today: There are spiritual disciplines we do in community.
1. In the West we have come to focus on the kinds of spiritual disciplines that we do as individuals. But the biblical world was not a world of individuals. Indeed, in most times and places, human beings have thought of themselves in terms of groups rather than as lone individualists.

What are the kinds of activities that we believers do in community to help form us?

2. Worship and fellowship rank high on the list. We worship together and God forms us. Fellowship is also part of God's plan for the church, and while we may not always sense that God is changing us when we fellowship, he is. He is making us more loving toward each other. He is helping us learn to endure conflict and become better in the process.

In worship of course is regular communion. The Lord's Supper is a reminder of the grace of God toward us and a chance for us to renew our relationship with him publicly. The Lord's Supper was meant to emphasize the oneness of the body of Christ. "Though we are many, we are one body, because we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor. 10:17).

Baptism is also a corporately formative discipline. Although we have a tendency to lean toward its individual dimensions, baptism is also a heavily corporate event. The community of faith makes a covenant with the individual or child to bathe them in prayer, to surround them with a communion of faith that will help protect them from temptation and sin.

Confession also is often a regular part of public worship. It very much relates to an important function that the body of Christ can play in our spiritual walk, namely, accountability. Our brothers and sisters in Christ help keep us from falling into temptation. They can also play a positive role of encouragement and mutual edification.

3. Finally, we should not underestimate the spiritual good it does us to participate in the mission of the Church and in service to others. These are tasks that we might naturally think are for others and not ourselves, but we do as much or more good to our own walk with Christ as we do for others. The mission after all is God's and we serve because God loves others. We participate in God's mission, and we benefit from it ourselves.

4. Ministers, like all Christian individuals need to participate in these disciplines of Christian community. The pastor is not exempt or in some way apart from the worship, fellowship, means of grace, confession, accountability, mission, or service of the community of faith.

Sometimes it can be more difficult for ministers to participate in some of these disciplines. When you are responsible for the worship service, it can be more difficult to relax and experience worship. Being in the role of the leader can make fellowship awkward or more difficult with individuals in the church. The same goes for accountability.

So ministers need to get away and worship somewhere else occasionally. Every once and a while, they should experience another community of faith. Denominations can create systems where there are pastors for pastors. A pastor should be part of an accountability group that, more likely than not, is made up of individuals from outside the church at which they minister.

The pastor and his/her family also need friends and fellowship. Sometimes the pastoral situation can be isolating within a congregation. This is then another area in which denominations can facilitate fellowship among pastors in an area.

5. There are spiritual disciplines that we do in community, and pastors are not exempt from the need and benefit.

Next Week: Seminary Pastor as Minister 6: Some spiritual reading

5. Innovation requires some trial and error. (2)

Previously on Seminary take-aways:
1. There are key moments of opportunity.
2. You need the right people.
3. Good leaders collaborate and navigate.
4. Innovation requires some trial and error. (1)

1. Yesterday I talked about both the joy and the struggles of putting an innovative dream into concrete curricular form, a dream for a different kind of seminary into its first course, the Missional Church course.

The first class of MDIV students began on Monday, August 3, 2009. I might mention that I consider the MA students that graduated that August 8th to be the first graduates of Wesley Seminary. Technically, the seminary did not have its name until the board meeting in October 2009. There was some concern about confusion with other seminaries that have "Wesley" in their name, which led to a little delay. Just to make sure everyone knows, the official name ended up, "Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University." :-)

I might add that since my contract as Dean began July 1, 2009 (the day that Chip's contract began and Bob's was renewed), I personally consider that the day the Seminary was technically founded. :-)

I mentioned the first convocation service, Sunday, August 9, 2009. The first cohorts of MDIV students, one online and one onsite, came to take two one week intensives before the Fall Missional Church course began. The first class was Pastor, Church, and World, and it was taught by Russ Gunsalus, who for that first semester was the Chief Operating Officer of the seminary.

The second week was a one week course called Cultural Contexts of Ministry, which Norm Wilson taught. BTW, in keeping with the trial and error theme, we no longer have new students take two courses when they begin the program. We just made this change last year. Now students just begin with one week on campus. Contexts is now scheduled in the third year, alongside church history. More on that later.

2. I should mention that Nate Lamb was our first admissions person. He and Julie also led the music in the first convocations. He was such an inviting personality to prospective students, and the team had a great synergy with him. It was hard when he left to go plant a church in Colorado. We wondered how we would ever replace him. But Aaron Wilkinson is just as much a force to reckon with. Aaron's unstoppable.

It embodies a principle that I feel keenly as I leave the Seminary. I hope people will miss me as Dean. But I'm also quite aware that whoever becomes the new Dean will have gifts I don't. It relates to Monday's installment: "New leaders bring new gifts."

3. Another piece of the puzzle I should mention is the Spiritual Formation sequence. These are six one hour courses taken alongside the six praxis courses (missional, leadership, worship, proclamation, congregational formation, and congregational relationships). Keith spun these out in less than 60 seconds at one of the MDIV curriculum committee meetings in the summer of 2007. I remember that three of us were sitting downstairs in Noggle at desks in the northwest classroom (Dave Smith I think was the third person).

Some of the Christian Ministry faculty at that time felt like spiritual formation in many contexts was often "too heavenly minded to be any earthly good," as if all there was to being formed spiritually was going into some room to pray and read your Bible. Like it or not, human psychology plays a role--a HUGE one. God is not a Gnostic. (Some of us also had a similar sense of spiritual gifts tests, which are often based on shallow readings of certain biblical texts, taking informal lists and making them into fixed roles God has designed for all time.)

Keith whipped off the top of his head what I considered a much more profound series of courses, one that is meant to lead a person through the actual process of change (not dissimilar to AA). The first course asks about how change happens (Change and Transformation). The second assesses where you are (Self-Awareness and Appraisal). Next you need to know where you are going (Goal Setting and Accountability). The fourth course is Mentoring and Spiritual Direction, because you won't get there alone. The fifth course is then what for some programs is the ONLY sense of spiritual formation (Personal and Corporate Spiritual Disciplines). Finally, the sixth course was intended to cross a finish line (Recovery and Deliverance), to reach at least some goals.

Other key features unfolded. The ideal would be a single professor to go with a cohort through the entire sequence together. Every other week they would do some act of worship, so that these courses were not merely cognitive but affective and spiritual.

Keith Drury wrote the first course. Someone else tried to write the second. I ended up doing a lot of gap filling when the material generated didn't match the new thing we were trying to do. Halee Scott wrote the third and fourth spiritual formation courses. Jeremy Summers the fifth, and Dave Ward wrote the final one.

Of course when Colleen Derr became the point person for the spiritual formation sequence at the end of our third year, she took it to the next level. She eventually added spiritual classics to the courses (I think in the fifth year), then after our ATS visit added a mentor component to all the spiritual formation classes...

Does your church hit all spiritual styles?

Looking at Gary Thomas' Sacred Pathways in spiritual formation at the seminary. He reminds us that we don't all experience God as naturally the same way. It only makes sense that God would speak to each of us differently depending on our personalities and dominant intelligence.

It is not an excuse to relate to God in only one way--we should expand our experiences of God. And some congregations will almost inevitably minister more to one set of styles than another. But it is worth asking the question. Does your church unthinkingly minister more or less to only one type of person?  Here is my modified version of Thomas' list of styles:

1. The Idea Person
So is your church just about ideas, just hitting one type of person? Is your church just about hearing some nifty ideas on Sunday morning?

2. The Ritual Person
Is your church just a place for the person who likes things like liturgy, saying creeds, taking communion?

3. The Activist
Is your church just about politics and what is going on in the world that needs to be stopped? Is your church just about doing things in the community?

4. The Emotionalist
Is your church just about excitement and getting an emotional rush, miracles, tongues, the public exercise of spiritual gifts?

5. The Caregiver
Is your church just about helping people who are suffering or in need in the congregation?  Is it about fellowship and being with one another?

6. The Contemplative
Is church primarily about prayer and waiting for God? Is it about mystery and deeply personal experiences of the divine?

7. The Monk
There is a kind of person who most experiences God by self-denial and retreat. Fasting and silence are the kinds of things that are tickets to divine encounter.

8. The Senses Person
There is a type of person that encounters God most easily through the senses--the eyes, the ears, the smell, the taste, the touch. Maybe this person can build something for the church as an offering to God.

9. The Nature Person
There is a person who most easily encounters God on a lake, in the woods, or climbing a mountain.

So we shouldn't say that one way of encountering God is better than another, although there are some that aren't optional. Coming together in worship is not optional for the nature person. And the idea person is impoverished if s/he doesn't take communion. The activist needs some ideas to be active about. Etc...

But is your church a one stop shop?  Do you just give ideas with no plan of action? Do you lack actions that are repeated and have a common story behind them? Do you have retreats? Do you have something for the person who needs to do something with his or her hands?

Small Group Models based on personality

Skimmed through Reg Johnson's Your Personality and the Spiritual Life. I found it of some value, although it didn't totally hit the spot for me. Johnson orients the book around the Myers-Briggs personality types, which I have found very helpful as a help to analyze interpersonal relationships. My understanding is very amateurish, but even a basic sense of differences in personality can improve interrelationships by vast amounts (marital, church, business...).

The most helpful part of the book to me was on pages 150-51. Here Johnson suggests how a person might modify small discipleship groups to fit particular personalities:

"Sensing" types
(individuals who are primarily oriented around the concrete and details rather than the abstract or big picture; nurse types, engineer types, etc...)

• He suggests a "covenant-discipleship" small group that focuses on accountability and concrete goals and accomplishments

"Thinking" types
(individuals who are primarily oriented around the logical course of action rather than how people are going to react or experience; accountants, administrators, executive pastors)

• He suggests a Bible study oriented around Bible study skills, background, content, comprehension, etc.

"Feeling" types
(individuals who are primarily oriented around the feelings of others rather than the logical course of action; counselors, encouragers)

• He suggests a "Prayer and Share" group where the members share their experiences and bring their lives and those of others to God.

"Intuitive" types
(individuals who are primarily oriented around the big picture and the theoretical rather than the concrete or the details)

• He suggests a "Great Christian Books" group, reading through classics. I must confess that as a person whose only really imbalanced characteristic in Myers Briggs is the N that this type of small group holds no interest to me.

Book Review: Sacred Pathways

This week the Change and Transformation spiritual formation class of the seminary is discussing the ideas in Gary Thomas' Sacred Pathways. What a breath of fresh air! Keith Drury was the writer of the assignment.

What Thomas does is do for spiritual formation what personality inventories do for personality. Now mind you, there are some people who take personality inventories like LaHaye's temperament types or Myers-Briggs letters too seriously. That's bad too. But it's a step above most people, who simply assume that everyone should think and act just like them.

So if we were to make an ad hoc developmental chart in understanding personality, we might have something like:

1. Those who don't know that other people think differently than they do and that their personality is not the "right" personality.

2. Those who realize there is significant diversity in people's personality, but overly fixate on their own as if it is something unchanging and perhaps even predestined by God.

3. Those who realize that personality is complex and that personality tests are simply meant to give a general description of people, general categories to help us process personality.

Anyway, I just made that up. The genius of Sacred Pathways is that it rightly recognizes that personality affects the way one interacts with God and that the spiritual formation snobs out there who insist you can only have a close relationship with God if you get up at 4am and pray for an hour are just as unaware as #1 above.

Certainly Thomas' 9 pathways are not absolute (avoiding #2 above too), but they are a helpful way to look at the most obvious pathways each of us most easily interact with God. I'm not sure exactly how he correlates them to Myers-Briggs and haven't taken the time to guess thoroughly. But here are his types:

naturalists: love God out of doors
sensates: love God with their senses
traditionalists: loving God through ritual and symbol
ascetics: loving God in solitude and simplicity
activists: loving God through confrontation
caregivers: loving God by loving others
enthusiasts: loving God with mystery and celebration
contemplatives: loving God through adoration
intellectuals: loving God with the mind

He has chapters on all of these. I suppose I'm somewhere between a traditionalist and an intellectual. What are you. You can see much of the book on Google books.