Meant to Grow

We are meant to grow. We are called to change. This all happens in Christ. This process is the true journey. It is an inner movement towards Christlikeness. It is God's goal for our lives. St. Paul wrote in his letter to the assembly in Rome, "For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..." (Romans 8:29a RSV) As I wrote in the previous post, it is a deepening of a walk of responsiveness to God. It is not fragmented between the sacred and secular. It is our whole life. It is not an addition to our personalities. It is our whole life, our whole being in the very embrace of Christ. It is the image of Christ continually birthing in us. In his letter to the Galatian churches, St. Paul pleaded with the wavering assemblies, "...I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ be formed in you..." Again, "until Christ be birthed in you." Spiritual transformation/ formation, development/ growth is the process of being comformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. What has been your idea of spiritual growth? How does it happen? What are your current ideas or practices of how it occurs in your life?

The Forming of a Group

During the last year, particularly following my first graduate class in Spiritual Formation, I began imagining a small group of diverse people meeting in my home. From the start I have envisioned a natural, open, and communal atmosphere to be the setting. I am speaking of a kitchen environment where food is shared, dialogue is rich, casual and authentic, and hearts are centered simply in a desire to grow in Christ.
I believe that God desires in this a deepening of responsiveness to Him in each life that joins us. I desire to see this simple meeting time to be a further blessing within the local assembly where most of us serve (OSBC).
I agree with M. Robert Mulholland when he says that "superficial pop spiritualities abound, promising heaven on earth but producing only failure and frustration for those genuinely hungering and thirsting after God." I know from personal experience over the last decade that much of Christian spirituality is at times understood as only having a "static possession" of right beliefs; where information transmission and acquisition so often appears to be the highest good of spiritual growth. However, Christian spirituality is an ever-growing, deep and relational journey toward wholeness in Christ. I am praying that the "Journey" group will discover more of Christ's fullness in our lives as we take this road together.