I just finished reading an article in the June 30 edition of the The Christian Century, and it's got me thinking.
The cover article today focused on the way the church has become somewhat irrelevant (my word, not theirs) to the 30 and under crowd. Lenora Rand says, "For many, perhaps especially in the under-30 crowd, walking into a church on a Sunday morning is the equivalent of entering a foreign country in which you don't speak the language or know any customs. It may be a nice place to visit, but you really wouldn't want to live there."
It goes on to articulate that many have found F@cebook and Twitt3r to be a virtual community that does much of the same thing the church was intended to do - to encourage us to connect with one another, to know what's going on in each other's lives, and to commit to pray for one another. Tw33ts and News Feeds keep us up to date on what is happening in one another's lives in a way that even e-mail, and certainly not the phone or face-t0-face conversation, can do.
Churches are more and more relying on these and other social sites to help make connections with the under-30 crowd. Even Immanuel does it. We have a group for parents, for youth, for college kids. I send them messages about once a week to let them know what we're doing. I use my status line to promote events. Up to this point I've resisted tw33ting for the purpose of the church, but I've been considering how it might benefit the young community here.
The Christian Century argues that - for it's good and it's bad - we rely on the virtual community. We are busy. We are engaged in a thousand things. We are constantly in our cars. So what the virtual community offers is a chance to keep up in our fast-paced lives.
I'm not saying they're right, and I don't think the article is, either. But I do think it's important that we recognize the disconnect many of our church systems have for some people.
What do you think?
Is the church relevant?
What is the benefit of social networking in the life and work of the church?
What are the risks?
Chime in, I want to hear you!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, September 29, 2008
Prayer, communion, and intimacy with God
By Joe LaGuardia
In Eugene Peterson's version of the Bible, The Message, he writes in Proverbs that God doesn't care too much for pretense. Pretense is a sort of pretending--a deceptive way of being something you're not. Yet, when our souls have tinkered out or our spiritual life wanes, we approach God with enough pretense to make us forget who we even are and who God is in the first place. We ask a series of "why?" questions: "Why do I go to church and bother anymore? Why do I pray if all I get is silence in return? Why do I believe what I believe? Why do I even waste my time with prayer?"
Although these questions can lead to a deeper exploration of faith when they are asked in the proper time and place, these questions can often reflect a spiritual life that has sputtered out over time. Prayer, worship, and our relationship with God gets routine.
A relationship with God that falls into this pattern needs a kick-start. Communication, imagination, and passion can be the spice that enlivens our prayer life and worship. One way to chart this course is to consider Psalm 8, a creation psalm that gives us grand vistas of creation and points out the unique attributes and worth that we as humans have before a loving and intimate God.
Read Psalm 8 in full at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%208&version=49.
Notice in particular verse 4, which sits at the very heart--the epicenter--of the psalm. The Hebrew literally reads: "What is humanity that you remember them? Mortals, that you visit with them?"Despite the fact that God has created a vast and powerful universe in which earth is just one grain of sand, God chooses to visit with us in the cool, silent breeze and the starry night of revelation. In the red and orange peel of dawn and in the sweet song of birds in nest.
Communion with God is interconnected with intimacy with God. Communion requires all that comes from words related to it's root: community and communication. When we communicate with God in faith, not worrying about what to say and how to say it, the pretense fades into pure fascination. When we see ourselves as one who is in community with God, we quickly find that in community with our neighbors, our awareness of God takes center stage.
Getting back to basics in prayer and intimacy reminds me of when Jesus encouraged his disciples to come to him as a child. My daughter is such a curious and eager learner: she discovers new things and plays with all that she is given--from her toys old and new to the food on her plate. When we come to God as a child we remember that we are called to be earnest listeners and humble seekers, to "play" with the Spirit and sense the movements of the Spirit within our heart of hearts.
As "children," when we become comfortable enough to sit in God's lap and enjoy the warmth of God's presence, we find that God's heartbeat becomes our heartbeat. Intimacy is a sure next step.
This article was originally published as a part of a five-article series, "Getting Back to Basics," at www.baptistspirituality.com
In Eugene Peterson's version of the Bible, The Message, he writes in Proverbs that God doesn't care too much for pretense. Pretense is a sort of pretending--a deceptive way of being something you're not. Yet, when our souls have tinkered out or our spiritual life wanes, we approach God with enough pretense to make us forget who we even are and who God is in the first place. We ask a series of "why?" questions: "Why do I go to church and bother anymore? Why do I pray if all I get is silence in return? Why do I believe what I believe? Why do I even waste my time with prayer?"
Although these questions can lead to a deeper exploration of faith when they are asked in the proper time and place, these questions can often reflect a spiritual life that has sputtered out over time. Prayer, worship, and our relationship with God gets routine.
A relationship with God that falls into this pattern needs a kick-start. Communication, imagination, and passion can be the spice that enlivens our prayer life and worship. One way to chart this course is to consider Psalm 8, a creation psalm that gives us grand vistas of creation and points out the unique attributes and worth that we as humans have before a loving and intimate God.
Read Psalm 8 in full at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%208&version=49.
Notice in particular verse 4, which sits at the very heart--the epicenter--of the psalm. The Hebrew literally reads: "What is humanity that you remember them? Mortals, that you visit with them?"Despite the fact that God has created a vast and powerful universe in which earth is just one grain of sand, God chooses to visit with us in the cool, silent breeze and the starry night of revelation. In the red and orange peel of dawn and in the sweet song of birds in nest.
Communion with God is interconnected with intimacy with God. Communion requires all that comes from words related to it's root: community and communication. When we communicate with God in faith, not worrying about what to say and how to say it, the pretense fades into pure fascination. When we see ourselves as one who is in community with God, we quickly find that in community with our neighbors, our awareness of God takes center stage.
Getting back to basics in prayer and intimacy reminds me of when Jesus encouraged his disciples to come to him as a child. My daughter is such a curious and eager learner: she discovers new things and plays with all that she is given--from her toys old and new to the food on her plate. When we come to God as a child we remember that we are called to be earnest listeners and humble seekers, to "play" with the Spirit and sense the movements of the Spirit within our heart of hearts.
As "children," when we become comfortable enough to sit in God's lap and enjoy the warmth of God's presence, we find that God's heartbeat becomes our heartbeat. Intimacy is a sure next step.
This article was originally published as a part of a five-article series, "Getting Back to Basics," at www.baptistspirituality.com
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Willow Creek finds limits to its model
The Christian Century
This is somewhat old news, but a question (I think) all churches face. Please review the link for background.
Having read Diana Butler Bass's books on "practicing congregations," it was no surprise to me to hear of these findings from Willow Creek. Kudos to them for being flexible. Just a thought--how DO we get out of the mindset that if one checks off certain markers (such as program attendance) of institutional fidelity that spiritual growth will be the result? And how DO we establish the mindset that actually exploring and doing the spiritual disciplines individually and in community are instead the pathways for growth? In the words of Michael Foss's book, how do we shift from member to disciple?
Thoughts?
This is somewhat old news, but a question (I think) all churches face. Please review the link for background.
Having read Diana Butler Bass's books on "practicing congregations," it was no surprise to me to hear of these findings from Willow Creek. Kudos to them for being flexible. Just a thought--how DO we get out of the mindset that if one checks off certain markers (such as program attendance) of institutional fidelity that spiritual growth will be the result? And how DO we establish the mindset that actually exploring and doing the spiritual disciplines individually and in community are instead the pathways for growth? In the words of Michael Foss's book, how do we shift from member to disciple?
Thoughts?
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Lessons from Colossians (Part 2): The Sanctity of Family
"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion . . . And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col. 3:12, 14).
The Colossian community was one in which several different ideas, theologies, religions, and practices blurred any clear path for Christian virtue. The Colossians were bombarded by cultural forces that came from every direction, and Paul saw to it that they would set their eyes on Christ--the truth as represented in the Gospel. He encouraged the church: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God" (3:16).
As an example of how the Colossians felt during this time consider how you feel when you are facing a decision as to what to wear on any given day. Imagine going into your closet and looking at your entire wardrobe and wondering what you're to wear. How do you dree? For whom do you dree? Does this or that make you look too fat? Too thin? Too revealing? Too wrinkled? Each article of clothing represents a different part of your identity, and you choose based on how you feel that day.
The Colossians had a lot of "clothes" from which to choose: pagan practices, Jewish practices, Gnostic and Mystery religious practices. Every day, the church had to ask, "Who are we going to be today?" They had to ask, "What were they to wear today?"
In Colossians 3:1-21, Paul tells the church to "strip off" their old selves, selves saturated with lies, envy, idolatry, and coveting; and to put on the new clothes of Christ: compassion, forgiveness, and peace. Paul understood that when Christians come into the family of God, then they come under the lordship of Christ--a united idea that transcends any local identities, nationalities, socio-economic realities (Col. 3:11).
Interestingly, Paul knew that cultural confusion hits the hardest among families (Col. 3:18-21). There are so many different individuals that make up a family, and each individual has an idea for how to act, behave, think, and speak. Paul knew that the family was the first "line of defense" in the midst of Christianity's cultural war. Families are so confused about who they are in Christ that chaos has become the rule rather than the exception: divorce rates continue to hover around 60%; live-in couples feel more safe than traditional marriages; children are being exposed to domestic violence and parental neglect.
Fundamentalists point out that homosexuals are to blame, but they only fail to realize that entire families are under attack by a tempest of cultural forces that go beyond the bounds of any one scapegoat. We must resist the temptation to scapegoat any one reason for the breakdown in families (taking prayer out of school, the feminist movement, Brown v. Board of Education, and the like). Rather, author Tilden Edwards articulates the complex types of pressures that families face:
"New visions of the old beast seem to rise from the murky, tempestuous sea of our time with relentless steadiness, with vast armaments, wars, famine, and disease, earthquake and flood, with political and social oppression, bad jobs and no jobs, unresponsive and entrenched bureaucracies, brutality and callousness, family and social disintegration, with environmental rape, with trivial, mind-numbing consumer diversion. Inside us, driving, competing, confused desires and fears bounce us from fleeting pain to fleeting pleasure, making us ever more and other there, rarely content with enough here. That is man becoming without being, adrift without compass, revolting in revolt, falling though in blindness calling it rising, or in darkness, calling it damned." [1]
A breakdown of families in society and the disruption of the very fabric of our Christian mores in the Family of the Church reveal that we are not much different than the Colossians. We are confused about what we are to do, individually and corporately. Paul was indeed on to something when he brought families into a conversation in which he told the church to "seek things that are above where Christ is" (3:1, RSV).
When I go into a Walmart and walk down the picture-frame aisle, I see happy faces: couples, children, senior citizens holding hands. Those pictures are merely snapshots of dreamy love scenes; they don't reveal the hurt and frustration, the conflict and the resentment that course through families, marriages, and relationships. In church, we look like those snapshots, we are well dressed, happy, and pleasant. But we don't see the hurt and conflict of our own families because we lack the intimacy and trust to allow our church Family to uphold our marriages, child-rearing, unreconciled relationships, and frustrations.
We must hear Paul in our own time: "Families, put on Christ! Wear the clothes of compassion, the fabrics of peace, and the wardrobe of forgiveness."Echoing this sentiment, Baptist ethicist, David Gushee, once wrote that families must,
"Establish and maintain the kind of faith community in which relationships of intimacy, trust, and accountability can grow. One of the most elusive commodities in contemporary church life is accountability and honest intimacy within the church family. Far too frequently church is experienced as a place that individuals or families attend once or twice a week or less. Here individuals rub shoulders with other individuals for a brief time. But when it comes to honest communication concerning heartfelt needs, hurts, trials, and temptations, it is nowhere to be found. When churches get past this superficiality and reach more authentic corporate intimacy, it is a wondrous thing to behold." [2]
This is Paul's challenge for the Colossian Christians; and it's God's challenge for us--our families and our churches--today.
Sources:
[1] Tilden Edwards, Spiritual Friendship: Reclaiming the Gift of Spiritual Direction (New York: Paulist Press, 1980): 13-14.
[2] David Gushee, Getting Marriage Right: Realistic Counsel for Saving and Strengthening Relationships (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004): 199.
The Colossian community was one in which several different ideas, theologies, religions, and practices blurred any clear path for Christian virtue. The Colossians were bombarded by cultural forces that came from every direction, and Paul saw to it that they would set their eyes on Christ--the truth as represented in the Gospel. He encouraged the church: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God" (3:16).
As an example of how the Colossians felt during this time consider how you feel when you are facing a decision as to what to wear on any given day. Imagine going into your closet and looking at your entire wardrobe and wondering what you're to wear. How do you dree? For whom do you dree? Does this or that make you look too fat? Too thin? Too revealing? Too wrinkled? Each article of clothing represents a different part of your identity, and you choose based on how you feel that day.
The Colossians had a lot of "clothes" from which to choose: pagan practices, Jewish practices, Gnostic and Mystery religious practices. Every day, the church had to ask, "Who are we going to be today?" They had to ask, "What were they to wear today?"
In Colossians 3:1-21, Paul tells the church to "strip off" their old selves, selves saturated with lies, envy, idolatry, and coveting; and to put on the new clothes of Christ: compassion, forgiveness, and peace. Paul understood that when Christians come into the family of God, then they come under the lordship of Christ--a united idea that transcends any local identities, nationalities, socio-economic realities (Col. 3:11).
Interestingly, Paul knew that cultural confusion hits the hardest among families (Col. 3:18-21). There are so many different individuals that make up a family, and each individual has an idea for how to act, behave, think, and speak. Paul knew that the family was the first "line of defense" in the midst of Christianity's cultural war. Families are so confused about who they are in Christ that chaos has become the rule rather than the exception: divorce rates continue to hover around 60%; live-in couples feel more safe than traditional marriages; children are being exposed to domestic violence and parental neglect.
Fundamentalists point out that homosexuals are to blame, but they only fail to realize that entire families are under attack by a tempest of cultural forces that go beyond the bounds of any one scapegoat. We must resist the temptation to scapegoat any one reason for the breakdown in families (taking prayer out of school, the feminist movement, Brown v. Board of Education, and the like). Rather, author Tilden Edwards articulates the complex types of pressures that families face:
"New visions of the old beast seem to rise from the murky, tempestuous sea of our time with relentless steadiness, with vast armaments, wars, famine, and disease, earthquake and flood, with political and social oppression, bad jobs and no jobs, unresponsive and entrenched bureaucracies, brutality and callousness, family and social disintegration, with environmental rape, with trivial, mind-numbing consumer diversion. Inside us, driving, competing, confused desires and fears bounce us from fleeting pain to fleeting pleasure, making us ever more and other there, rarely content with enough here. That is man becoming without being, adrift without compass, revolting in revolt, falling though in blindness calling it rising, or in darkness, calling it damned." [1]
A breakdown of families in society and the disruption of the very fabric of our Christian mores in the Family of the Church reveal that we are not much different than the Colossians. We are confused about what we are to do, individually and corporately. Paul was indeed on to something when he brought families into a conversation in which he told the church to "seek things that are above where Christ is" (3:1, RSV).
When I go into a Walmart and walk down the picture-frame aisle, I see happy faces: couples, children, senior citizens holding hands. Those pictures are merely snapshots of dreamy love scenes; they don't reveal the hurt and frustration, the conflict and the resentment that course through families, marriages, and relationships. In church, we look like those snapshots, we are well dressed, happy, and pleasant. But we don't see the hurt and conflict of our own families because we lack the intimacy and trust to allow our church Family to uphold our marriages, child-rearing, unreconciled relationships, and frustrations.
We must hear Paul in our own time: "Families, put on Christ! Wear the clothes of compassion, the fabrics of peace, and the wardrobe of forgiveness."Echoing this sentiment, Baptist ethicist, David Gushee, once wrote that families must,
"Establish and maintain the kind of faith community in which relationships of intimacy, trust, and accountability can grow. One of the most elusive commodities in contemporary church life is accountability and honest intimacy within the church family. Far too frequently church is experienced as a place that individuals or families attend once or twice a week or less. Here individuals rub shoulders with other individuals for a brief time. But when it comes to honest communication concerning heartfelt needs, hurts, trials, and temptations, it is nowhere to be found. When churches get past this superficiality and reach more authentic corporate intimacy, it is a wondrous thing to behold." [2]
This is Paul's challenge for the Colossian Christians; and it's God's challenge for us--our families and our churches--today.
Sources:
[1] Tilden Edwards, Spiritual Friendship: Reclaiming the Gift of Spiritual Direction (New York: Paulist Press, 1980): 13-14.
[2] David Gushee, Getting Marriage Right: Realistic Counsel for Saving and Strengthening Relationships (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004): 199.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Lessons from Colossians (Part 1): The Fruit of Hope
Recently, I've been studying Paul's epistle to the Colossians (I'll be preaching on chapter 3 this Sunday at Trinity Baptist). The church at Colossae came under the erroneous influence of various forces that threatened to tear the congregation apart. A myriad of philosophies, teachings, and religious rituals confused the community and distracted the Colossian church from following the truth of the Gospel. In their most disparate hour, the Colossian Christians needed a word of hope.
Paul responded to this need by using a "fruit tree" metaphor. He implied that the church had been investing in its relationship with God for so long (being "rooted in Christ" (2:6), that the "fruit" of that relationship was finally ripening in its midst. The fruit of a deeply intimate relationship with God is that of hope. In fact, according to Paul, God is in the business of providing the church with the fruit of hope on a regular basis.
So too with us: if we are deeply rooted in Christ as a result of a profound relationship with Him, we are able to enjoy the fruit of hope even in our most disparate hour. We are not condemned because of our flaws; nor are we disqualified from the fullness of God's love because of the things we might do or say. Rather, we are simply called to reach out to God, eat of the fruit of His hope, and respond to Him by offering thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is an important theme in Colossians. Paul wrote, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving" (Col. 2:6-7). Writing about this passage in the Broadman Bible Commentary, R. E. O. White commented, "The only appropriate response to grace is gratitude."
This week, as you gear up for "back-to-school," wrestle with any hardships, or are just get downright frustrated with the economy, remember that you too must cultivate the soil of your relationship with God through the daily disciplines of prayer and scripture reading. And then, when your hour of trial comes upon you, God will produce a bountiful harvest of hope in your midst. But the hope is only possible when we take the time to tend to our spiritual lives and allow Christ to take root in the deepest crevices of our heart and mind.
Paul responded to this need by using a "fruit tree" metaphor. He implied that the church had been investing in its relationship with God for so long (being "rooted in Christ" (2:6), that the "fruit" of that relationship was finally ripening in its midst. The fruit of a deeply intimate relationship with God is that of hope. In fact, according to Paul, God is in the business of providing the church with the fruit of hope on a regular basis.
So too with us: if we are deeply rooted in Christ as a result of a profound relationship with Him, we are able to enjoy the fruit of hope even in our most disparate hour. We are not condemned because of our flaws; nor are we disqualified from the fullness of God's love because of the things we might do or say. Rather, we are simply called to reach out to God, eat of the fruit of His hope, and respond to Him by offering thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is an important theme in Colossians. Paul wrote, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving" (Col. 2:6-7). Writing about this passage in the Broadman Bible Commentary, R. E. O. White commented, "The only appropriate response to grace is gratitude."
This week, as you gear up for "back-to-school," wrestle with any hardships, or are just get downright frustrated with the economy, remember that you too must cultivate the soil of your relationship with God through the daily disciplines of prayer and scripture reading. And then, when your hour of trial comes upon you, God will produce a bountiful harvest of hope in your midst. But the hope is only possible when we take the time to tend to our spiritual lives and allow Christ to take root in the deepest crevices of our heart and mind.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Christianity: practice or belief system?
Christianity: practice or belief system
Brian McLaren was featured in an interesting interview on the FERMI Project podcast discussing his new book, Finding Our Way: The Return of the Ancient Practices
“Well, Brian, you’re right. I don’t normally speak to pastors. Actually, I was thinking about that very question yesterday when I was in a large bookstore. I asked the bookstore manager what the most popular books are these days. Most popular, he said, were books about how to get rich in the new information economy, which didn’t surprise me. …Second most popular, the manager said were books about spirituality, and in particular, books about Buddhism. And so when I thought about speaking to five hundred Christian pastors today, I thought I’d begin by asking you all a question: why are books on Buddhism so popular, and not books on Christianity?” (McLaren, Finding Our Way, p.3)
McLaren returned the question to Senge, “How would you answer that question?” Senge’s answer was, I believe, profound and very intriguing:
“I think it’s because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.”
This was a wonderful statement for me personally because it speaks very pointedly to my own faith context at this particular time of my life. (I alluded to this in a blog post a couple of months ago). I have found my received Christianity-as-belief-system increasingly problematic as I move through my life. The fact that this belief system began 44 years ago as an extremely fundamentalist and literal form of Christianity has had much to do with my discontent. It simply could not bare the weight of life and circumstances and I found I could no longer ignore the empirical evidence of life lived outside the bubble of Christendom. And yet, I couldn’t leave “the church” or faith or Jesus.
Several weeks ago, I attended a 5 Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. To be perfectly honest, I began the experience extremely cynical and with very low expectations. I left that experience with a profound new understanding of my own faith journey and of my practice of faith from that point forward. Specifically, my new understanding revolves around this tension between practice and system of belief. I would love to hear some of your thoughts on this.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Book Review: "Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening"
Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, foreward by Thomas Keating (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 2004). 178 pp.
Although centering prayer has caught on in many Christian circles, seminaries, and churches since the 1970s, there is much confusion as to how one goes about doing centering prayer and how it is grounded in Christian theology and history. So when my spiritual director recommended Cynthia Bourgeault's, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, I thought that it was just going to be another lofty and esoteric book on prayer in general. I had read Nouwen, Merton, and several other masters on prayer; why read another one?
As I started reading Bourgeault's very accessible and user-friendly book during a silent retreat, I discovered just how important this book really is. For one, Bourgeault does not allow readers to get bogged down in either the history or the theology of centering prayer. Rather, she thrusts her readers right into the practice of centering prayer. She makes no apologies: to get the hang of centering prayer, you must make the effort to do it on a regular basis!
The first section (of four) is appropriately titled, "The Method of Centering Prayer." She instructs readers as the practice and nuances of centering prayer by defining centering prayer and then declaring what it is not. This is important because many Christians (Baptists especially) assume that centering prayer is simply New Age or Buddhist meditation in disguise. Christian centering prayer is not rooted in the east, but is rooted in Jewish rabbinic and mystic tradition. Even Jesus declares in Matthew that when one prays, one should go into a prayer closet to pray to God in "secret." Also, Jesus time and again sought solitude as a forum for building and maintaining his relationship with the Father. Prayer of a similar fashion has also been popularized by such Protestant authors as Henry Blackeby in Experiencing God, although his prescription of prayer is far removed than the intent of centering prayer.
Bourgeault insists that true centering prayer is uniquely Christian and grounded in historic Christian theology because it is a type of prayer that aims at reaching into the very heart of God not to get a word from God or a spiritual insight, but to simply rest in quality intimacy with God. Whereas eastern religions seek to empty the soul/mind or to push thoughts that erupt during meditation aside, centering prayer provides space for thoughts and the imagination to work, but recognizes that one must surrender these thoughts before God. The mind is not occupied by these thoughts or distractions. Instead, the pray-er surrenders thoughts to God and refocuses the heart on spending quality time with the Lord. In this way, true centering prayer allows the believer to "take every thought captive before the Lord," but to practice "dying to self" in the process.
She writes: "As a method of meditation, Centering Prayer is founded upon the gesture of surrendering, or letting go . . . During the prayer time itself, surrender is practiced through the letting go of thoughts as they arise. Unlike other forms of meditation, neither focused awareness nor a steady witnessing presence is required. There is no need to 'follow' the thought as they arise; merely to let them go promptly as soon as you realize you're engaged in thinking [is the goal]" (162).
Bourgeault tells one story, originally told by Thomas Keating, of a nun that attempted centering prayer for the first time. The nun was frustrated that she could not concentrate on spending time with the Lord in silence. In the midst of her solitude, she was bombarded by her many concerns and worries. She told Keating that in twenty minutes, she had ten thousand thoughts. Keating was overjoyed, for he believed that she had ten thousand opportunities to return to the Lord!
Returning to the Lord in solitude and silence is the key to centering prayer. To help one "return to the Lord", Bourgeault recommends having a "prayer word" that one uses to remind oneself that they are spending time with God, not being distracted. A prayer word, be it "love" or "God" or "Abba," acts like a red string tied around your finger. Whenever you find yourself wandering in your thoughts during prayer, reciting silently your prayer word will help refocus your heart upon God.
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening has been one of the most user-friendly guides I have read concerning centering prayer. For all of the questions that I had about prayer, Bourgeault has managed to answer almost every one of them. I highly recommend that you invest in this book if you are interested in truly seeking God in both solitude and silence.
Although centering prayer has caught on in many Christian circles, seminaries, and churches since the 1970s, there is much confusion as to how one goes about doing centering prayer and how it is grounded in Christian theology and history. So when my spiritual director recommended Cynthia Bourgeault's, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, I thought that it was just going to be another lofty and esoteric book on prayer in general. I had read Nouwen, Merton, and several other masters on prayer; why read another one?
As I started reading Bourgeault's very accessible and user-friendly book during a silent retreat, I discovered just how important this book really is. For one, Bourgeault does not allow readers to get bogged down in either the history or the theology of centering prayer. Rather, she thrusts her readers right into the practice of centering prayer. She makes no apologies: to get the hang of centering prayer, you must make the effort to do it on a regular basis!
The first section (of four) is appropriately titled, "The Method of Centering Prayer." She instructs readers as the practice and nuances of centering prayer by defining centering prayer and then declaring what it is not. This is important because many Christians (Baptists especially) assume that centering prayer is simply New Age or Buddhist meditation in disguise. Christian centering prayer is not rooted in the east, but is rooted in Jewish rabbinic and mystic tradition. Even Jesus declares in Matthew that when one prays, one should go into a prayer closet to pray to God in "secret." Also, Jesus time and again sought solitude as a forum for building and maintaining his relationship with the Father. Prayer of a similar fashion has also been popularized by such Protestant authors as Henry Blackeby in Experiencing God, although his prescription of prayer is far removed than the intent of centering prayer.
Bourgeault insists that true centering prayer is uniquely Christian and grounded in historic Christian theology because it is a type of prayer that aims at reaching into the very heart of God not to get a word from God or a spiritual insight, but to simply rest in quality intimacy with God. Whereas eastern religions seek to empty the soul/mind or to push thoughts that erupt during meditation aside, centering prayer provides space for thoughts and the imagination to work, but recognizes that one must surrender these thoughts before God. The mind is not occupied by these thoughts or distractions. Instead, the pray-er surrenders thoughts to God and refocuses the heart on spending quality time with the Lord. In this way, true centering prayer allows the believer to "take every thought captive before the Lord," but to practice "dying to self" in the process.
She writes: "As a method of meditation, Centering Prayer is founded upon the gesture of surrendering, or letting go . . . During the prayer time itself, surrender is practiced through the letting go of thoughts as they arise. Unlike other forms of meditation, neither focused awareness nor a steady witnessing presence is required. There is no need to 'follow' the thought as they arise; merely to let them go promptly as soon as you realize you're engaged in thinking [is the goal]" (162).
Bourgeault tells one story, originally told by Thomas Keating, of a nun that attempted centering prayer for the first time. The nun was frustrated that she could not concentrate on spending time with the Lord in silence. In the midst of her solitude, she was bombarded by her many concerns and worries. She told Keating that in twenty minutes, she had ten thousand thoughts. Keating was overjoyed, for he believed that she had ten thousand opportunities to return to the Lord!
Returning to the Lord in solitude and silence is the key to centering prayer. To help one "return to the Lord", Bourgeault recommends having a "prayer word" that one uses to remind oneself that they are spending time with God, not being distracted. A prayer word, be it "love" or "God" or "Abba," acts like a red string tied around your finger. Whenever you find yourself wandering in your thoughts during prayer, reciting silently your prayer word will help refocus your heart upon God.
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening has been one of the most user-friendly guides I have read concerning centering prayer. For all of the questions that I had about prayer, Bourgeault has managed to answer almost every one of them. I highly recommend that you invest in this book if you are interested in truly seeking God in both solitude and silence.
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