M3-S1: MODULE INTRODUCTION

SUMMARY

  • The “life to the full” that Jesus offers is one where we keep in step with the Spirit.
  • No one drifts into the abundant life—it requires our surrender, participation, and effort.
  • Our goal for module 3 is to walk away with a framework for spiritual formation.
  • A framework sits above the actual practices and rhythms, helping us to implement the right ones and to make adjustments with God’s help to keep us in step with the Spirit.

SCRIPTURE FOCUS

Matthew 6:19-21

We started our Regnare journey together with the idea that Jesus is inviting us into an abundant life far more rich and glorious than anything we could manage on our own power or by our own wisdom. Living life to the full in the kingdom of God is a strange dance on the very edge of what’s possible in our world.

Here’s a very Easter-appropriate way of looking at this. On what day of the week did the early Christians gather (Here’s a hint: I’m not looking for the name of the day, I’m looking for the number).

The early Christians called Sunday “the eighth day”, something new that has come as a gift from God in the same way as the resurrection of Jesus—we aren’t just repeating the same pattern of Monday through Sunday every week, something new keeps breaking in and taking us in a new direction that wasn’t possible before. Every Sunday we celebrate the fact that something new has broken into our world and we are moving toward a new future that God is making possible for us.

This idea of the “eighth day” speaks a profound truth about what is happening in the midst of our ordinary days as we follow Jesus. When we sign on for baptism and the seal of the Spirit, laying aside our old life and taking up the new life Jesus offers us, the next day doesn’t often seem all that different than the one before it.

But remember the parable of the mustard seed. The presence of the kingdom (especially at first) is usually not very remarkable. The same is true of every faithful step that we take to follow Jesus. If you’re on a thousand mile journey, small adjustments to your course that you make today add up to very significant differences in where you end up. For us, every step with Jesus is a step off of the track of the old world, and a step into a new creation made possible by the Holy Spirit of God (which, you might remember, raised Jesus from the dead).

So what does all this have to do with the Regnare Project? This last module has some particular goals related to this idea of staying with the flow of this new world, of setting our minds on things above, of keeping in step with the Spirit. One of the truths we’ve been working with is the fact that no one drifts accidentally into the life of the kingdom. It requires our attention and effort, even if it’s just one little step at a time.

So the goal for this final module is to put together for ourselves a framework for Spiritual Formation that can keep us moving deeper into the life of the kingdom. We’ve said often that this is a workshop, and this last component will lean the most into that idea. What are we building together with God in this workshop? It’s a set of attitudes, rhythms, and practices that we can take with us that keep us moving toward the life of the kingdom for the rest of our lives.

FRAMEWORK FOR SPIRITUAL FORMATION

This is where we want to make a bit of a distinction. Most of us already have a set of regular practices and rhythms that constitute the anchors that keep us in step with the Spirit of God. Some examples might be the habit of regularly attending church, a morning devotion, prayer over meals, or various other spiritual disciplines or habits that we’ve managed to implement with God’s help. This collection of habits isn’t the goal. We aren’t trying to hand you a fixed set of practices and rhythms that we think are the ideal ones.

Rather our goal is to further develop the skills and habits that support the ongoing maintenance of these practices and rhythms. We want you to walk away from Module 3 with the skills to maintain, modify, and thrive within the right set of rhythms and practices that fit your season of life. We will focus on awareness of our season of life, the key relationships and responsibilities that make up our calling in life right now, discernment of which practices and rhythms can most help us right now, and practices around habit change and regular reflection to keep us in the flow of where God is leading us each day.

You can think of a framework for spiritual formation as something that sits “above” the actual practices and rhythms you have in place now, helping you to get the most out of them, to stay on track with them, to determine which ones are helping, and how to make changes to this set of practices as we move through the changes in our week to week, month to month life with God.