Categories
Christian Living

What’s More Important: Spiritual Introspection or Spiritual Community?

A Vibrant Spiritual Faith Looks Inward and Shares Outward

I have a Sunday morning routine. This gives me structure to how I start my day, and it provides me with the best opportunity to make it be a great one. Aside from attending to the normal needs of life, there are two parts to my Sunday morning practice.

Between waking and heading off to church, I spend an hour or two each Sunday morning writing. But this isn’t just any writing. It’s writing about God, the Bible, and church. And that writing ends up as a post on this blog.

For the past several years, I wrote ninety-five percent of everything you’ve read here on Sunday morning.

Some days this writing time feels a bit too much like work, but most times it flows with effortless joy. But every Sunday, the effort draws me closer to God. It’s great preparation for what happens next.

Then I segue into the second part of my Sunday morning routine. I go to church. Unlike writing, however, sometimes I enjoy this experience and other times I don’t.

Sometimes it draws me to God and other times not so much. The biggest value of church for me, however, is in connecting with other people before and after the service. Church is about community.

In simple terms, the two aspects of my Sunday morning routine are spiritual introspection and spiritual community.

Spiritual Introspection

When I write about God, the Bible, and church, it’s a time of deep contemplation about these three topics, what they mean to me, and how they might connect with others.

Spiritually and intellectually this is a time when insights develop, hopefully with Holy Spirit guidance. It’s a time when God helps me take raw thoughts and move them toward clarity. And I get to share it with you here.

I relish this time of introspection. It’s personally rewarding, both comforting and confronting. Often this stands as the spiritual highlight of my week.

As an introvert, it’s tempting to stay in this place, just God and me, with no one else to distract us or pierce my time of connection with the Almighty.

But spiritual introspection is also an isolating experience. It can be lonely.

This isn’t to imply that a relationship with God isn’t enough, but he created us for community. And this isn’t just community with him; it’s also community with the other people he created.

That’s why it’s important I then move into the next phase of my Sunday morning routine. I go to church.

Spiritual Community

Church means different things to different people: an obligation, a habit that they’d feel guilty breaking, a chance to partake in Holy Communion, an opportunity to praise God and worship him, and a time to learn more about God, the Bible, and faith.

It’s been all these things to me at one time or another.

However, the one thing missing from this list is community. I wonder if community isn’t the real point of going to church—the ultimate reason to be there.

The music and message have value, but I think they stand in second place behind community.

Our Sunday morning community should look up to God and look out to others.

He created us for this: to be in relationship with him and in relationship with others. He never intended for us to pursue life alone but with others: with him and with other people at our side.

Spiritual Introspection Can Fuel Spiritual Community

Though my time a spiritual introspection occurs in isolation, it’s not meant for me alone.

Yes, I share the insights God gives me with you on this website, but I feel it’s even more important that I appropriately share it with others in person.

When is the time to share it with other people?

It’s when I’m in community with them. This is where we can enjoy meaningful, spiritual interaction, such as before and after church on Sunday morning.

Of course, it can happen other times as well, but we must be intentional in forming these times and open to opportunities as they present themselves.

This, however, doesn’t mean I need to spew forth by blog post to everyone I see. But this doesn’t mean that the words God gives me are just for me alone.

Instead, I need to be alert for appropriate opportunities to share what he reveals to me to others who might benefit from it.

Fortunately, this is not for me to determine alone. All I need to do is listen and obey the gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit. When I do this, it makes the time of community with others more meaningful and deeper.

When this happens, it enhances the community we all need. My Sunday morning routine starts with a focus on God, which helps me to better share with others.

Of course, we shouldn’t just look for times to share our insights with other people.

We should seek to connect with them in other ways, too. We can pray for one another, we can share our joys and burdens, and we can simply enjoy each other’s presence.

This is the community God created us to crave and that we need to move into.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Categories
Christian Living

3 Ways to Worship God

Worship Means Different Things, but What’s Important is That We Do It

Some churches call their Sunday meeting a worship service. This has always troubled me. Yes, I knew that singing to God was a form of worship, or at least it should be.

I understood the part about “worshiping God with our tithes and offerings,” even though I didn’t see God getting too much of what we dropped into the offering plate. But the sermon?

How could listening to a lecture, often a boring one, be a form of worshiping God? In truth, aside from a few songs and the collection, the bulk of most church services are either education or entertainment. Is that worship? I don’t think so. I hope not.

Here are three ways we can worship God. (And like a good three-point sermon, they all begin with the same letter.)

Singing

As I said, singing to God is a way to worship him. More broadly, music is a path to worship. That means we can sing or listen to music.

Music can also involve movement, rather it be clapping our hands, raising our arms in praise, or dance (from rhythmic swaying to getting down like David, 2 Samuel 6:14).

Yes, singing can have a physical component. It can also involve senses.

Sight: seeing others sing and dance (or watching a light show).

Hearing: listening to those around us sing and hearing the instruments.

Smell: incense or a smoke machine.

Touch: holding hands with fellow worshipers as we sing.

Taste: singing while we take communion.

For the record, I’ve experienced each of these sensory elements in worship at various church services, though not often.

Unfortunately, I’m musically and rhythmically challenged, so I struggle to worship God through music and movement. But give me a strong beat with catchy lyrics behind it, and I can engage in song as a means of worship.

Serving

Helping others, both with our time and through our money, is a tangible form of worship. I enjoy the action of doing something for others, offering it as an act of service to them and as a form of worship to God.

Similarly I like being able to give money to causes I’m passionate about or to people in need as the Holy Spirit directs me. Both are ways to serve and both offer a path for worship. I relish the opportunity to worship God through these forms of service. 

Silence

In our multitasking, always-on society, the hush of stillness is an anachronism to most, one that causes many people to squirm. Few people can tolerate silence for more than a few seconds.

Yet in our silence—along with its partner, solitude—we can quiet our racing minds and still our thumping hearts in order to connect with God. Psalm 46:10 says to “be still and know that I am God.”

Yet, setting time aside to be still presents challenges. For most of us, meeting with God in silence doesn’t just happen; we must be intentional.

In my times of silence I connect more fully with God in worship, get deeper glimpses into his heart, and am best able to hear his gentle words of encouragement, correction, and mostly love. So good!

Just as I make it my practice to attend church, I have a parallel practice of giving to my community each week. I also (usually) block out one day out of seven to fast, and part of that time includes worshiping God through silence.

All three are forms of worship, though for me, helping others is more practical and resting in God’s presence is more meaningful.

God has uniquely made us and gives us different ways to worship him. When it comes to worship, one size does not fit all. Find the one that fits you.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Categories
Christian Living

What is a Spiritual Community?

As a writer, I write alone; it’s a solitary activity.

So it’s good for me to periodically emerge from my self-imposed cocoon and spend time with other people—and other writers are the people who understand me best, those with who I am most comfortable to be around.

I just returned from a Christian Writers conference. It was a great time, full of information, encouragement, and rejuvenation. While writing was the focus, God was the foundation; it was a spiritual time.

As my buddy, Gerald the Writer, and I headed home, we processed out loud what we had experienced. It was a community, a spiritual community. The only problem is that it only occurs once a year.

However, the writing critique group we started happens every month. It’s also a spiritual community. We’re with kindred spirits and God is in our midst.

Our group’s focus is writing and helping each other hone our craft. Sometimes what we write is about God and other times, not, but regardless, it is all done for God.

Though we may sometimes pray, it’s not an obligation to do so according to schedule.

Though we may sometimes talk about the Bible, it’s not a preplanned activity. And if the subject of theology comes up, we quickly push it aside—it is not our goal to critique that.

Those who advocate a formula for spiritual community would dismiss us as missing out because we break all their rules.

But for us it is our spiritual community and our most significant one.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

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Categories
Bible Insights

Can You Be Quiet?

Silence Is Golden

We live in a world where it’s hard to sit still and even more challenging to be silent.

We are conditioned to be moving, active and physically engaged. And as we do so, we expect to be surrounded with sound, to be constantly exposed to an auditory stimulus.

To be still can be a stretch for us and to be quiet, quite unattainable. Many would ask, “What’s the purpose of being still?” “Why should I be quiet?” There’s nothing to be gained by doing so.

But God has a different idea. He says “Be still and I know that I am God.” And upon reflection, King David adds, “Silence is praise to you.”

Being still connects us with God and being quiet praises him.

Be still…be quiet…

[Psalm 46:10 and Psalm 65:1]

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Bogged Down Reading the Bible?

10 Essential Bible Reading Tips, from Peter DeHaan

Get the Bible Reading Tip Sheet: “10 Tips to Turn Bible Reading from Drudgery to Delight.”

​Enter your info and receive the free Bible Reading Tip Sheet and be added to Peter’s email list.