Spiritual Pathways

Message: May 19 2013 – Sacred Pathways // Series: Stuck

Brad: We’re in a teaching series called “stuck” where we are exploring barriers to relating to God.  Many of you talked in our survey about your spiritual life hitting a snag, your interactions with God becoming stale or dry. So today we wanted to change things up a little and dialogue together about something called Sacred Pathways to perhaps give you some fresh traction in prayer and worship.  What is a sacred pathway?  It is a historical and biblically rooted way of describing how we as unique individuals most naturally sense God and experience His presence. 

Meg: We are all created differently—this is God’s design.  Therefore we will all experience God differently.  The activities and practices that help us connect with Him will be different.  There is freedom on realizing that we can relate to God in the way we were made.  Identifying our natural bent also helps us to discover the pathways that we tend to avoid and where we need to stretch ourselves.

Brad: I think there are many great ways of describing this.  Today, we are going to draw heavily from Gary Thomas’ excellent book “Sacred Pathways” as well as looking together at Psalm 19 to see various temperaments & ways of approaching God reflected there.  Perhaps one way to think about a spiritual pathway is the sweet spot on a tennis racquet.  You can hit the ball anywhere on the racquet, but when you hit it in the sweet spot, it zings!  (Or so I’ve been told).  Sacred pathways are like that – for those who are stuck, its learning how you are uniquely wired up by God and moving deeper into that or trying something new you hear this morning.   

Meg: We’re going to move quickly through these pathways today and we want to hear people tell their stories but as we jump in, let us give you a few big picture thoughts around interacting with God & pathways:

• You can hear God through any number of these (the goal is not to find the ‘perfect’ pathway)
• Each have their own pro’s and con’s
• These nine pathways are tools; they are not meant to be prescriptive or legalistic

Brad

• Studying them can help us grow in grace as a body as we deepen our understanding and appreciation of ways that people around us connect with God
• Handout will be provided at the end  - sit back, don’t worry about taking notes.  Listen to the stories, look up the scriptures, hear the descriptions and try to locate yourself and those you know well in these pathways.

We’ve already covered three of them, so let’s do a quick review:

Naturalist - Loving God Out of Doors (I appreciate how Diane & Mike make intentional space and time for community in their lives)

Meg: Ruth Ellen described for us the Acts of Compassion pathway. 

These individuals Loving God by Loving Others.  The thing to note here is that “all Christians are called to care for others… there are different ways this obligation can be fulfilled… it is not for us to judge the validity of someone else’s worship.” (Thomas, 146).  This is simply to say that some people come alive when they are changing a diaper in the JRCC nursery or sitting with an older person and listening or serving a meal at the Gateway of Hope. 

The last one we approached before Coffee and Connection time was the Sensate pathway.  These are the people who Loving God through the five senses.  They love expressions of faith that involve their ears, eyes, sense of taste, touch, and smell.  Physical movement, beautiful music or art.  Again, this isn’t to suggest that if you don’t like to dance that you aren’t a sensate.  It’s merely to remind us that these people worship better when these senses are allowed to be engaged. 

Brad: So, our next pathway is the pathway of the intellect.  These people love God by engaging their minds.  They love deep study.  Delving into issues, texts, history, a contemporary theological issue… They often love to read and get fired up about study conferences and commentaries and all kinds of exciting stuff.  But again, for these people, this is not about knowledge for knowledge sake.  Look at Psalm 19:7-8:

The instructions of the Lord are perfect,   reviving the soul.

The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy,   making wise the simple.

The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart.

The commands of the Lord are clear,   giving insight for living.”

The purpose of their study isn’t to show how smart they are or to get into an argument.  They feel deeply connected with God in this process.  Their soul is revived.  They often love to teach this stuff.  They want to share the insights they gain with others.  Some blog or comment on blogs or write. 

As we progress through our morning, we want you to meet some of the people around JRCC who may have this as part of or their primary pathway.  So we’re going to start with Larry Schmidt.  So Larry, let me ask you “how does deep study assist your faith?”  (Possible follow up: “How does your intellectual understanding of the gospel assist or serve others?”

Thanks for sharing, Larry. I think one thing that sticks out to me about the intellectual pathway is their need to dig deeper isn’t always going to be met in a Sunday morning environment.  They are learners and readers and thinkers and they want to go deeper into the topics presented and so finding books or forums or other people that you can do that with is key for those of you who feel you might lean towards this pathway. 

Meg: The next pathway is the Traditionalist pathway.  These are people who Loving God through ritual and symbol.  One of the interesting thing to observe is the growth in this pathway in the 21^st century.  There are people who grew up with some form of a more structured worship experience and they miss it and long for it.  So churches like the Eastern Orthodox and other forms of ‘High Church’ are seeing and experiencing growth as a result of the longing to be rooted with the great history of the Christian faith.  There are those, however, who grew up with tradition and experienced it as stuffy or hollow or legalistic and so they have run away from this.  But for the traditionalist, it’s not about the ritual.  It’s about how that kind of structure brings life to them and prompts them to worship God.  So if this is a pathway you want to explore, you may want to consider some of the following Activities: 

• Read Scripture aloud
• Use the Book of Common Prayer
• Follow the church calendar (Advent; Lent; Pentecost)
• Set a regular time and place to meet God daily

Brad: In addition to the stories that you’ll hear this morning, we also want to provide you with the lived expression of some of these pathways.  So as we move into a time of communion together, we want to change the way we celebrate the Lord’s Table this morning and explore a more formal, structured and liturgical environment around remembering Christ’s death and resurrection and what it means for us.  Jared is going to lead us in one of the universal creeds of the church and a song of preparation and as we sing, the ushers will come and pass both the bread and the cups up the rows.  I would ask that you hold onto the elements until we are all served and we move into the responsive reading and we will partake all together.

Apostles CREED + Song (Before the Throne of God Above) + Reading

Brad: Psalm 19:9-10 continues…

Reverence for the Lord is pure, lasting forever.

The laws of the Lord are true;  each one is fair.

They are more desirable than gold,  even the finest gold.

They are sweeter than honey, even   honey dripping from the comb

These are the kinds of images that the next pathway loves to explore.  The contemplative pathway describes a person who loves to sit and soak in God’s presence and meditate on His ways and His goodness to them.  The love God through adoration.  Scriptures like Psalm 63 and 116 and John 14-17 are places that this person likes to explore.  It’s a kind of introverted experience of God’s presence and His love that is perhaps closely related to another pathway, the Ascetic.  Meg, these pathways describe you a bit more.  Can you describe what this looks like for you?

Meg:

• Loving God in solitude and simplicity
• I love to explore by myself (quiet background music isn’t helpful)
• Don’t rush me
• Challenge: Life-stage or chosen pace of life doesn’t always allow for the unhurried, quiet times that an ascetic listens and prays best in.

Brad: As an extrovert, these two pathways are the most stretching for me, but also perhaps the most enriching to learn from.  I would have a tendency to move over my inner world quickly but these two pathways slow me down with a level of intentionality to ask the questions of what is going on in my soul.  Psalm 19 continues by asking more interior questions

How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? 

Cleanse me from these hidden faults.

Keep your servant from deliberate sins!  Don’t let them control me.

Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.”  Time spent seeking God in solitude helps to get at these kinds of questions. 

I want to ask another person from our community to share their story as to how these pathways live themselves out for him.  Danny, what does this look like for you?

Meg: The counterbalance to these two is the Enthusiast pathway.  When it comes to biblical characters who embody this, I think of King David.  The enthusiasts are people who love God with excitement and celebration.  They are the cheerleaders of the church and the Christian life.

They don’t want to just know concepts, but to experience them, to feel them, and to be moved by them” (Thomas, 28). 

This is not empty or unguided emotionalism… It’s the way that God has wired them up.  They come alive when those around them are excited about God, who He is and what He is doing.  These people are often open to the supernatural and God speaking to them in dreams and pictures and they thrive on being in a community that encourages this.  When I think of the enthusiasts, I think of the Paskos and so I want to ask Jackie if you would share a story of what this pathway looks like for you.

Brad: One thing I love about exploring spiritual pathways is that it highlights the uniqueness of the body of Christ here at Jericho.  Meg and I hope you are getting a picture of how we complement each other and how we can challenge each other to grow.  Our final pathway is one that challenges us to lift up our eyes and look beyond the immediacy of our circumstances and think about what is on God’s heart for the world.  This is the Activist pathway. 

Meg: These are people who Loving God through confrontation & justice.  People from the scriptures like the prophet Elijah, or Peter, or Habakkuk.  From history there are people like William Wilberforce, John Wesley, Martin Luther King Jr., Elizabeth Fry and so many others.   These are people whom God births a passion in their hearts for a people group or a cause and as they engage in this, it is a form of worship.

Brad: I know this pathway has been growing in our hearts as we work toward heading to East Africa this summer but this is also something that works itself out in daily life.  I want you to meet Nigel Chuah and listen to his story.  So Nigel, how do you live this out in daily life?

Q2 - How do you feel God's pleasure in these actions?

Q3 - How has this wiring influenced your relationship with others (both positively and negatively).  

Nigel, I love that emphasis on putting your treasure in the right place and how your choices become acts of wise stewardship.  And how that speaks to our witness in the world.  How we allocate our resources, our time, our energy and our money really does broadcast our values and our priorities to a watching world.  And so I’m going to invite the ushers to come forward at this time and we will receive the offering this morning.  I want to highlight for you that on Communion Sundays, we encourage you to give above and beyond your usual giving and designate it for the Benevolence fund.  Over the past month, we’ve engaged with several individuals in our community with significant needs and the money that is designated on your envelope “benevolence fund” is how we resource those needs.  As Jared & the team lead us in this closing song, I want you to see how many of the various pathways you can pick up that are highlighted in this SONG.

Meg: As we wrap up our time this morning, we want to leave you with some closing thoughts:

• Keep growing! Push beyond your ‘favorite’ way
• Extend grace to others
• Help those around you hear from God in ways that are consistent with their temperaments

We all have at least some involvement in all of them.  This is not a copout for disliking worship or small groups or solitude, rather it is freeing to discover that we are all wired to experience God differently and that it is OK to connect with God in the way that you were made.

Brad: I want to thank all those who shared.  You may want to link up with them to either ask questions or to explore and develop your pathway more.

• Remember: the goal is to meet God, NOT to find the ‘right’ way to do prayer or Scripture intake.   
• Pick up HANDOUT from ushers on your way out

If you do want to pray or talk with someone about anything you heard today or if you have something going on in your life you would like someone to pray with you about, then Meg and I will be over on this side and Spence and Ali will be over on the far side and we would love to chat with you.  If you would like to explore this further, we have posted a link to an online assessment on Facebook & twitter so join us there to continue to conversation. 

May God give you the grace to live with Him and with others in ways that consistent with your wiring so that the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Go in God’s grace and peace.