Ritual
We believe we need a recovery of sorts.
Contemporary culture has pushed us to think that public life is mostly structured (show up on time, fill your obligations, do your job), but private life is mostly unstructured (free time to use as you see it). What happens then when spiritual life is relegated to the unstructured part of life, to our private “off work” world where there are few obligations? Well, it tends to exist in emotional spurts, through momentary impulses. It tends to lose focus. You know what I am talking about. And so the recovery we need is the wisdom of basic spiritual ritual. Grace is not only a gift; grace is also a way of being. Grace is the life we are called to enter, the life of form and formation.
We have talked about spiritual formation, how our spiritual identities are shaped through sustained commitments to gracious practices: practices of time like honoring sabbath, practices of stewardship like generous giving, practices of self-forgetfulness like service.
In this series we intend to focus on four specific areas of faith practice: singing, confession, prayer, and use of spiritual gifts.
Singing - Kevin Borst
In the act of creating, we are reflecting God's image and therefore we are giving glory to God. We were all meant to be creative - this is worship to God.
Prayer - Joel Braun
We are invited to pray because the one who invites us is inviting us to know the heights and depths of a character that is made from the deepest of all Love… and that God of all love wants so badly for us to find out how much we’re worth to him.
Confession - Jeremy Duncan
True confession leads to true community which means vulnerability and trust - none of which are easy, but all of which we are called to.
Gifts - Jeremy Duncan
There is so much to be said about gifts in the church and so many different ways to approach this conversation. There are the specific manifestations of worship we see in a church like Corinth, there are the practical contributions it takes to run a church like Commons… but the founding, grounding principle is that are no such things as spiritual gifts. Only that every thing is gift and every gift is spiritual.
