Watch Sermon

A trellis for the vine.

Teaching Summary

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.” John 15:5

Read and meditate on all of Jesus’ words on the vine and the branches in John 15:1-11. Our desire is to be so connected to the vine that is Jesus so closely that it’s difficult to discern where the vine ends and the branch begins. This is Jesus’ desire too. He desires our joy.

A Rule of Life is like a trellis on which this vine-branch can grow. It is a scheduled set of practices that create space for us to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus does. Some have argued that the latin word for rule, regula, from which we get words like regular, has etymological connections to the word trellis. The image of a trellis for a vine is strong. When St. Benedict wrote up his first Rule of Life for his monastic community over 1500 years ago, his desire was that an intentional structured schedule would result in a balanced life of abiding in Jesus.

While rule can be a dirty word in 21st century PNW, the Biblical narrative shows us that on the other side of a disciplined life under Jesus is great freedom. Vines without trellises are vulnerable. A trellis is a tool designed to enable a grapevine to get off the ground and grow upward, to become more fruitful. It’s been said that we achieve inner peace when our schedules are aligned with our values. A rule of life happily restricts us to become more who Jesus would have us be.

Definitions

• Scheduled rhythms, ordered around our desire to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.
• “A scaffold of disciplines, or rhythms, that support your heart’s desire to grow in loving God and others” (Adele Calhoun).
• “A set of practices to guard our habits and guide our lives” (Andy Crouch)

Suggested Practices

The Right Vision

Make sure you have the right vision for spiritual practices. Read through John 15:1-11. Our desire for a rule of life is Jesus’ desire for us and that is that we would abide in him; find our home in him; be connected to him as a branch is to a vine. Verse 8 spells out the goal specifically: that the Father would be glorified (↑worship), that we would bear much fruit (↓discipleship), that people would know we are his disciples (→mission.) Ultimately the goal is his and our joy (verse 11.) Why do you want a rule of life?

Liturgical Audit

You already have a rule of life. There is already a liturgy to your life. Are you aware of it? Pay attention to your schedule. Not the one that you planned out and put on your calendar, but the real one you lived last week. What patterns are you engaged in already?

Follow your desires to a discipline

Jesus loved hanging out with people who had desires. Mat 20:21, 32, Mark 10:36, Jn 5:6. Even the wrong desires. Pay attention to your desires. Let them lead you to a discipline. Read through Calhouns’ list of disciplines and corresponding desires and “star” the descriptions of desires that resonate. Or ask your MC to help you follow “the breadcrumbs” of lesser desires to a truer and better desire.

Identify “downstream” and “upstream” practices

Downstream practices are practices that come naturally because of personality, experience, or season of life. Encourage people to work through a list and draw corresponding arrows identifying downstream and upstream practices. Discuss.

Pay attention to “monastic bells”

Most practices by their nature are proactive, scheduled. However, some practices are best engaged in as a response to our circumstances, especially the unexpected and unwanted ones. Remember the metaphor of “monastic bells” calling monks to respond in prayer. For a stay-at-home mom, the meltdown of a child might be a monastic bell. Finding yourself in the slow lane might be a monastic bell. How can we prepare to practice the presence of God in the unexpected? What are the circumstances that you might allow to call you to prayer, and how will you respond specifically? (Look at Calhoun’s types of prayer.)

Engage in practices and create a rule of life with your missional community or DNA.

Discuss with your MC how you want to engage in these practices together. Ideas:

• Individual practices: Have each person decide on one or two individual practices. Make space for sharing during an MC gathering what everyone is learning and noticing.
• Together-but-scattered: Pick a practice for your whole MC to engage in separately over a period of time. (ie Every family engages in taking a 24 hour Sabbath weekly over a month.) Then share together what you are learning, comparing notes, sharing best practices, and learnings that the Spirit is highlighting.
• Together practices: Pick a practice to engage together at the same time when together (whether as an MC or in DNAs.) Some practices are better suited for this than others. Maybe start with one of the following:
  Prayer walking, Breath prayers, Listening prayer, Blessing others, Care of the Earth, Hospitality, Gratitude…

Write a rule of life

Write a rule of life. Give yourself permission for it just to be for a short season. Rules of Life need to be seasonally revisited. Submit it to your MC or DNA. Also, consider writing one for your whole MC to engage in together.

Watch Sermon

The spiritual practice of entering His rest

Teaching Summary

“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” Genesis 3:1-3

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Throughout the story of the Bible the Father regularly calls His people to rest. One day a week the Israelites were called to cease working. One year of every seven the Israelites were called to let the land rest from the work of producing agriculture. And every seventh seven year the Israelites were called to cease holding economic bonds to each other and the land and allow them to be restored. While man was created in the garden and quickly given a job to do, God does not let His people go very long before He reminds them and invites them back to a place of rest.

But how can we rest? Unlike God resting on the seventh day of creation, our work is never truly finished. Rather, our unfinished work nags at us and says that until it is finished our provision, security, and ultimately our identity are at stake. To this God makes clear that His invitation to rest is not one rooted in our finished work but rather in His. It is His proclamation over creation that “it is good” that allows Adam and Eve to rest in His finished good work. Likewise it is Jesus’s proclamation at the birthing of a new creation (“it is finished!”) that allows us to rest in His saving grace. It is in the rest that our God gives that we find true provision, security, and an unshakeable identity.

Reflection & Discussion Questions

• Do you find yourself weary and heavy laden?
• Do you find yourself in a never ending pursuit of provision?
• Do you find yourself battling the nagging fear of your security in the world?

To all these questions the Creator and Sustainer responds with an invitation into His rest. The invitation which was purchased through His blood on the cross.

Suggested Practices

A Helpful Framework for Sabbath

If you feel led to observe a Sabbath and are not sure where to start a helpful framework is to focus on doing that which fits into the following criteria:

• Is this causing me to Stop?
• Is this bringing me to a place of Rest?
• Is this something that is leading me to Worship God?
• Is this something that causes my soul to Delight in God?

Mark the Beginning and End of Sabbath

Practice marking the beginning and end of the Sabbath with prayer, song, the lighting of candles, or other act that directs your soul’s gaze to the one that is providing you rest.

Enjoy the presence of others

Practice enjoying the presence of others on the Sabbath. The invitation to rest in His finished work is an open invitation to any who would follow Jesus. You may be surprised at how much your family, friends, and neighbors crave this kind of rest.

Food, drink and holiday

Practice celebrating the Sabbath with good food and drink. God made the seventh day holy and we are invited to celebrate this holiday often.

Listen to the Spirit

Practice prayerful contemplation on what the Spirit may be speaking to you and through you as you slow down and cease working. You may find that the awareness of His voice and His pace on the Sabbath will slowly begin to inform and shape how you live the other six days of the week.

Watch Sermon

The spiritual disciple of saying “no”.

Teaching Summary

“seek first the kingdom of God” - Jesus, Matthew 6:33

“Teach me your way, Lord,, that I may rely on your faithfulness, give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” - King David, Ps 86:11

“...give my son Solomon an uncluttered and focused heart so that he can obey what you command, live by your directions and counsel, and carry through with the building of the temple…” - King David, 1 Chronicles 29:19 (The Message paraphrase)

“I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!” - King David, Ps 119:32

The word enlarge in Psalm 119:32 literally means to "make room" or to "open wide" or "increase capacity/territory." It’s used several times for territory and borders being increased by removing enemies. David is praying for God to remove the enemies of his heart to make space for what really matters; pursuing Him wholly. David desires an uncluttered, undivided heart. He wants to be a one-thing-man.

Historically, the practice of simplicity is most directly tied to living simply, or living frugally. We are broadening this practice beyond just the scope of material clutter, and including in it the practice of ridding ourselves of any clutter or distractions that are keeping us from being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing what Jesus does.

Definitions

• The spiritual practice of saying “no” to lesser things, so I can say “yes” to the essential.
• “Intentionally arranging our life around God” (Jan Johnson).
• “To uncomplicate and untangle my life so I can focus on what really matters” (Adele Calhoun)

Reflection & Discussion Questions

1. Where do I see my heart most cluttered?
2. In which areas is the Spirit leading me to simplicity?
3. Last week, when were you most aware of God’s presence? When were you closed to it?

Suggested Practices

Letting Go

Catalog the things you do own and see if there are items you could get rid of or offer to share with your community. Clean out an area of your house and give things away. What is letting go like for you?

Limiting Choices

An abundance of choices creates choice anxiety. Look at areas of your life, perhaps food, media, or your wardrobe where you can limit choices and see what this does to your attention, focus, and worship.

Daily or Weekly Examen

At the end of the day or week reflect on when and where you were most present and least present to God. Are there patterns of life that continue to distract you from practicing the presence of God?

Creating Margin

Margin has been called the space between our load and our limits. Practice slowing down and unhurrying. Drive in the slow lane. Pick a shopping line and stay in it. Create gaps between appointments and stay off your phone. Get bored and notice things around you and what God might be drawing your attention to.

Watch Sermon

The spiritual disciple of agreeing with God about our sin and receiving his lavish forgiveness.

Teaching Summary

Why Confess?

“Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.” Psalm 32

1) Because it is a gateway to undeserved grace

In confession, our shame is covered and our sins are forgiven and not counted against us. Not arbitrarily, because sin is too deep and dark and destructive for arbirtrary forgiveness. It demands blood. We are forgiven because our sins have been transferred to and counted against Jesus, who gladly accepted our punishment and in his resurrection shouted loud and clear, “Paid in full!”

2) Because it is a gateway to wholeness and deep delight

To be “blessed” is to be happy in God because we are experiencing wholeness in God. The heart of the gospel is actually not forgiveness, pardon, and justification. The heart of the gospel is God wants us to be near him, enjoying him, spiritually well and whole (vv. 10-11). Confession is not just about sin. It’s about leaving lesser joys to pursue delight in God himself. Behind every sin is a longing for God and confession is acknowledging that we are thirsty, but that we are trying to quench our thirst in something or someone other than God himself (Jeremiah 2:12-13).

Confession never merits or earns forgiveness. It’s simply a gateway to experiencing more grace we didn’t know we needed and more joy we didn’t know we could have.

What Is Healthy Confession?

1) Agree with God about your sin

To confess or acknolwedge is to “say the same thing”, to agree with God about the earth-shaking, soul-wounding, law-breaking, blood-demanding nature of sin. Agreeing with God about our sin saves us from two pitfalls: minimizing sin and owning false shame. Because God is at the center of confession, we fully own and call sin what it is and we also don’t own false shame and guilt put on us by failing our own expectations or the expectations of others.

2) Receive his lavish forgiveness

As we agree with God about sin, we also agree with him about forgiveness. Don’t put a question mark where God puts a period. Sit long enough in God’s presence to hear and deeply receive his forgiveness. This practice keeps us from Eeoyre-ism (unhealthy introspection) and frees us from saying, “I can’t forgive myself.”

3) Lock eyes (and steps) with your lover

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on [or, face to face with] you” (Psalm 32:8).

The goal of confession is to get back to intimacy with God, that face-to-face life with him. Confession is not just about hating our sin, it’s about getting back to the God we love. Confession is not about responding to the pain and consequences of sin, it’s about saying, “I missed you, God. My sin kept me from you, and you’re the one I truly want.”

Reflection & Discussion Questions

1. Why is confession difficult?
2. How does Jeremiah 2:13 and the idea of locking eyes and steps with God change your perspective on the practice of confession?
3. In your practice of confessing in community, do you feel safe? Do you curate transparency or are you co-dependent?

Suggested Practices

Listen for Monastic Bells

• Set an alarm on your phone for intervals during the day to practice confession.
• Identify everyday moments as triggers for confession (e.g., taking a shower, changing diapers, etc.).

Open Yourself to Spirit-Examination

• Connect confession with other practices. E.g., as you engage in Sabbath and simplicity, God will expose addictions to stuff, people, and media. Let those exposure moments become triggers for confession. As you practice Scripture reading, ask the question, ’What sins does this passage encourage me to confess?’ To avoid unhealthy introspection, also ask questions as you read like, “How does this passage help me celebrate?”

• Journal through examination practices. E.g., Psalm 32, 51, 139; Ten Commandments, Sermon on the Mount. As you journal remember not only to lament your sin, but also to receive God’s lavish forgiveness. For every one look at yourself, take ten looks at Jesus. Some suggest burning or ripping the journal pages of confession as a symbolic act of receiving Jesus’ forgiveness.

Confess in Community

Confession is primarily a practice in the presence of God, but should lead to honesty and vulnerability in community. Make sure those you confess to are safe (i.e., they themselves practice confession in a healthy way and understand the holistic nature of brokenness). When you confess to trusted friends, make sure you don’t curate your transparency (being partially honest to save face or revealing some things to cover up other things). Also, avoid the danger of co-dependency, receiving your affirmation from other people instead of Jesus himself.

Engage in Detachment

The practice of detachment is simply recognizing that we are attached to things, people, behaviors, substances that need intensive work. If confession is daily spiritual cleansing, then detachment is recognizing that some sinful habits or tendencies are parasitic and need special attention.

Detachment practices include sobriety (detachment from substances), secrecy (detachment from co-dependency, approval), and silence (detachment from noise and busyness).

Watch Sermon

The spiritual discipline of delighting in and drinking from God’s word.

Teaching Summary

I (Dawson) remember making the remarkable discovery that after drinking two glasses of water in the morning after getting up, I felt quite amazing. It took me thirty years to make this discovery. A funny thing, discovering water. But perhaps it isn’t water I discovered, but instead the discovery was that I’d been living dehydrated without knowing it.

Many of us committed to following the way of Jesus might be trudging through unknowingly dehydrated in our relationship with the Giver of life. Picture for a moment the word of God as a glass of water for our parched souls, and read the following:

The Law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul. Psalm 19:7
  “Mmmm… a glass of water.”

The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. John 6:33
  “Jesus’ words as a glass of life.”

We are cleansed by the washing of the word. Ephesians. 5:26
  “We’re gonna need a bigger glass, perhaps a tub.”

Psalm 1 contrasts two types of people. Dry, scaly, hollow chaff that the wind blows away is contrasted with a tree that is planted by streams of water whose leaf never withers regardless of the circumstances.

This is the secret of the planted tree-person:

His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:3

We asked one of our leaders, Rachel Lehr, to share some practical steps she has learned on her journey of delighting in and drinking deeply from God’s word through memorization and meditation.

Here’s Rachel:

Throughout scripture, God calls his people to remember - his character, his works, his word. Memorization and meditation on the word are two practices that can help us remember. In memorizing and meditating, we make space in our heart and mind for God to lay a firm foundation of truth, root us in streams of living water, renew and transform us, and create a safe place in hardship and pain.

Like many of the practices we’ve talked about, memorization and meditation are ones that take time to practice and bear fruit. Some people are more inclined towards meditation and memorization because of personality, interest, or life stage. If that’s not you, that’s okay too. It’s still a practice you can engage with on whatever level you can access it. It’s less about the number of verses you memorize, how perfectly you know them, or the exact insights gained from passages you meditate on. All of that is great, but secondary to how the practice tills up the soil of your heart for the Father to plant seeds of truth that take root and grow by the power of the Holy Spirit as we learn to tend to the instruction of Jesus.

Suggested Practices

Practical tips for where to start

• Ask the Father to help you write the Word on your heart and mind.
• Spend a little time reflecting about verses or passages that have been meaningful over the course of your life with God.
• Turn that into a life verse list and keep it in your Bible, at your desk, in a Google Doc etc. Ask the Spirit to bring things to mind if you can't remember (that's one of his jobs so it's fine to ask).
• Choose 1-2 to memorize or meditate on. Remember, you're starting so you don't have to have them all down right now.
• If you want to borrow some verses to start with, try 2 Thessalonians 3:5, Colossians 3:16-17, and Romans 12:1-2.

After you make the list and as you go

• Practice reciting verses regularly, out loud, with someone else if you can; include the verse reference when you're memorizing and reciting so you know where to find the verse.
• Read the verses in the Bible you use most often so you can find it when you need it.
• Keep adding to your list over the course of your life. The end of a season or year is a great time to do this. As you add verses, continue to commit some to memory.
• For memorization, use the translation of the Bible you use most often because your mind and heart are used to the rhythm of that translation. For meditation, check out a few different translations to see how those perspectives expand your understanding.
• Connect to other practices - breath prayer, encouragement, Bible study, etc.
• Remember that you can do this. God made our hearts and minds for Himself and the word. You have all you need. Keep at it.

Make it easy and fun

• Write out the verse or passage to connect what you're doing with your mind with an action you're taking in your body.
• Put up verses where you spend small amounts of time like the bathroom mirror, next to your bed, by the coffee, over the sink, or your phone's lock screen so it's easy for your eyes to fall on it.
• Experiment with different ways to take in scripture - read in your mind, read aloud with your actual voice, write it out, listen to an audio Bible, make art, fill up little pockets of time with the Word.
• Start where your heart is drawn using the life verse list.
• Start small - pick 1-2 verses to memorize or meditate on, not a whole passage. There is no rush or race. Take your time and enjoy spending time with God in this.
• Memorize weird verses. Meditate on hard passages. See what grows from that.
• Read the Silver Chair and think about how the signs and Aslan's instructions relate to these practices.

Resources

• 3x5 cards and a pen - make your own cards to carry with you or hang up around your house.
• The Navigator's Topical Memory System is a short guide book plus verse cards that fit in your purse or wallet.
• Dwell Audio Bible App is a phone app created for listening to Scripture. They have free and paid versions; this is an instance where the paid version is significantly better and has way more options than the free version. The paid version allows you to listen to the whole Bible in a variety of translations, with an array of voices (male, female, different nationalities/accents) and soothing background music (Rosie with Cello and Piano at 1.25x playback speed is my favorite). There's listening plans, pre-made playlists, and a DIY play list option.
• If you need a free tool that gives you access to Bible dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, and more, Bible Hub is a great place to go.