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SPIRITUAL
PRACTICES
[July 5 - August 30, 2009: An Entirely Different Way of Life]

© Mars Hill Bible Church 2009

SPI RITU A L PRACTICES
"You are no one unless you are the best, the strongest, and the most
attractive—all your energies and practices should be directed toward
achieving these things." This is the message we hear all around us—it’s a
message of inadequacy and hopelessness, even despair. Yet Jesus taught
an entirely different way of life, a way of life in which people oriented all
their energies and practices toward God and one another. So for centuries
Christians have understood that living the way of Jesus requires
deliberate and attentive spiritual practices. These practices create space
in our lives where God can dwell in our midst, but they also put us at odds
with some of the dominant messages and values of our day.
FEASTING
Many spiritual practices involve some kind of deprivation, but there are
other spiritual practices that intentionally involve the experience of
fullness and extravagance. One such practice is feasting. The trick in
learning how to feast is a capacity to experience the present moment
fully, as if it were our last moment on earth.
Practice feasting: The practice of feasting with food is about learning to
experience fully the extraordinary gift of this life and respond with gratitude.
When you take a bite of food just pay attention to the sensation and pleasure
that the food activates on your palate. Remember that God gave you taste
buds for the main purpose of pleasure and enjoyment. Attend to that taste
and sensation closely, don’t swallow too quickly. The objective is not to get it
into your stomach. This isn’t about filling the stomach. It’s about opening
and activating gratitude in the heart. As you taste the food, sit up straight,
relax your shoulders, open your chest, and relax your belly. Then breathe
down into your heart. Expand your chest. Don’t just consign this experience
to the mouth or your stomach, use your inhalation to conduct the joy of this
sensation from your mouth into your heart, let it activate a feeling of
fullness in your heart. And as you feel the great fullness in your heart, offer
back to God that gratefulness and gratitude.*
*[Copyrighted material: Shane Hipps, 2009. Used with permission.]
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SOLITUDE + SILENCE
The prayer of silence is not about quieting external sounds. Instead it is
about quieting the inner noise in our minds. There are all kinds of voices
rattling around inside us, battling for our attention. This practice is aimed
at increasing our ability to silence the inner noise in order to hear the
voice of God.
Practice solitude + silence: Start by closing your eyes. Sit up straight or
lie down, whichever is more comfortable for you. Pay attention to your
breathing. Feel the air enter just beneath your nose, and the slight
cooling sensation as the air comes in and goes back out. Don’t change
your breathing, simply be aware of it. Notice any tension in your body,
your belly, your chest, your shoulders, or your face. Notice the way your
mind fixates on the past and projects into the future. Notice the way your
mind verbalizes this moment. Just observe it. Watch it without judgment.
What are the noises bouncing around inside your head? Each time a
particular thought seizes your attention, simply return to focusing on
your breath out as a symbol of putting distance between you and your
thoughts. The trick is to neither resist nor retain the thoughts and
feelings in your body and mind. Just watch them and gain distance from
them, the way a plane gains distance from the ground on takeoff. Start
small; try five minutes a day. Eventually increase the amount of time you
spend in silence. As you begin to feel the distance between yourself and
the thoughts that usually fight for your attention, how are you aware of
God’s presence? What, if anything, is God saying to you?*
*[Copyrighted material: Shane Hipps, 2009. Used with permission.]
CONFESSION
As soon as Adam and Eve had taken and eaten the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, their eyes were opened, and they became
aware of their nakedness. Their first impulse was to put some clothes on,
to conceal themselves, to hide in a way, from one another. Next they hid
in the trees from God. What a picture of how sin always opens up a
chasm between us and God and between us and others! Our first impulse
is almost always to hide and conceal the ugly truth, to put on our best
face for everyone to see. But the Christian story suggests that the way to
overcome shame is to bring our broken selves out into the open and to
find there the transforming love of God.
Practice confession: Set aside some time to practice confession this
week. Begin by asking God to overcome your tendency toward
defensiveness. Then ask yourself, “Who have I injured lately through
thoughtlessness, neglect, anger, and so on? As the Holy Spirit brings
people to mind, confess your feelings about these people to God. Ask God
to forgive you and, if need be, to give you grace to forgive them. Write an
apology, make a phone call, or have a face-to-face conversation to put
the relationship back on track.*
*From Spiritual Disciples Handbook by Adele Calhoun. [InterVarsity Press, 2005]
HOW TO SING
There‘s something significant about the fact that whenever we gather,
we sing. It’s a weekly practice for most of us—even if you don’t sing,
you’ve still shared an experience with a group of people, and that is at the
heart of what happens when we sing: sharing an experience with God and
one another. It’s a profoundly countercultural practice.
Practice “singing” together: Try the practice of having a shared
experience with a group of people sometime this week. Go for a walk
together with no particular destination. Instead, wander aimlessly. Or
plan to have a meal with some friends, except don’t begin the meal by
eating. Spend an hour or so at the table before you begin the meal. Then
when it seems good to start, eat slowly, letting the conversation and pace
come naturally. When everyone is finished eating, don’t jump up to clean
the table. Linger with one another. Think about what made the
experience different than a typical meal.
LISTENING TO A SERMON
In Hebrew the word “davar” can mean “word” or “event”. When God
speaks in Genesis 1, creation happens. In a similar way, words have a
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unique ability to shape our world. Words inspire, disturb, comfort, and
challenge our understanding of reality. Listening, however, requires great
attentiveness. Without attentiveness, it is possible to hear only what we
want to hear, or worse, to not hear at all.
Practice listening to a sermon: Try to become aware of your responses to
the following in listening to the next sermon you hear. Also try this
awareness exercise on a conversation you have with someone or a
passage of Scripture you read.
■ What words, phrases, or ideas did you connect with? Why?
■ Was there anything that disturbed you or felt unsettling? Why?
■ What did you hear that you want to know more about?
■ Finish this sentence: If I take this seriously, then that would mean____.
■ What questions does this raise for you?
■ If you had to draw what you just heard, what would you draw?
THE SACRED MEAL
The practice of observing the sacred meal, communion, is deeply
rooted in memory. Every time we take communion, we are calling to mind
Jesus’ sacrifice. We’re also reminding ourselves that we’re called to be
both broken and given for one another. Deeper still, the sacred meal is
rooted in the celebration of the Passover, when God brought Israel out of
Egypt. Celebrating the sacred meal is a reenactment of liberation. It is a
hope-creating practice rooted in the memory of God’s faithfulness.
Practice the sacred meal: Grandparents and parents are rich sources of
memory. Arrange some time this week to either call or visit with a
grandparent or parent. Ask them to share some of their memories of how
God has been faithful. Or simply ask them to share some of their most
meaningful memories with you. Be mindful of the fact that remembering is
at the heart of the sacred meal. What was it like to hear their memories?
WHERE DO YOU BEGIN READING?
Beginnings are vital because they shape everything that follows. To a
great degree, beginnings shape identities. If we don’t understand
beginnings properly, we’re tempted to make all kinds of assumptions
that miss the point. We need to know the whole story—this is true also in
reading the Bible. Genesis 1 describes a world and a humanity dripping
with beauty and goodness. It’s difficult enough remembering that
brokenness doesn’t have the last word, but in looking to the beginning,
we see that in the whole story of the Scriptures, brokenness didn’t have
the first word either.
Practice beginning a reading: Try to read Genesis 1 and 2 once a day this
week. Pay attention to words that get repeated over and over. Allow the
passage to sink into your bones, shaping how you see the world.
Whenever you encounter brokenness of any kind, whether in others or in
yourself, remind yourself that it didn’t have the first word.
SABBATH
Rest matters to God, and the practice of Sabbath is God’s way of making
sure that people understand that. Sabbath isn’t about replenishing our
energies in order to face another week of work. Nor is Sabbath simply an
arbitrary discipline of doing nothing in order to make God happy. Quite
the opposite, it’s about making sure that we’re living our lives rather than
letting our lives live us. Sabbath is one day every week when we are
meant to experience the kind of life that God created us for.
Practice Sabbath: Choose one full day in the next week to practice
Sabbath. As a way of preparing for that day, think carefully about what
activities are, or feel like, work for you. Commit to avoiding any of these
activities during that day. Next, identify what activities make you feel alive
and connected to God and others. How will you incorporate them on this
day? When your Sabbath has come to an end, reflect on this question:
What about this day felt holy? Why?
MEDITATION
Meditation isn’t about the mind; it’s about the heart. To meditate is to
ponder something in your heart. The Hebrew word for meditate is hagah.
Isaiah uses the word to describe the growl of a lion feasting on its prey. In
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the same way, pondering something in the heart is like sucking the juice
out of an orange until it’s dry. The only trouble is that there are so many
things fighting for our attention that we rarely meditate on anything.
Practice meditation: In order to make space in your heart for God’s
presence, take 5-10 minutes and write down all of the noise inside your
head and heart. This is sometimes called “stream of consciousness
writing”. Be mindful of the fact that these noises are constantly fighting
for your heart’s attention. Now choose a small section of Scripture to
read aloud. Read it out loud three times, allowing for a brief period of
silence after each reading in order to meditate. [This practice is called
Lectio Divina, which means “divine word”.] During the first reading, listen
for a word, phrase, or idea that captures your attention. Then focus your
attention on that word, phrase, or idea, repeating it to yourself quietly.
During the second reading, pay attention to how the word, phrase, or idea
is speaking to your life. What does it mean for you? What is it telling you
about your life? During the last reading, focus on what you sense God
calling you to do or to become.
PRAYER
Jesus was deliberate about teaching his disciples how to pray. The
apostles devoted themselves to prayer. For centuries, monks have
devoted their lives to prayer. This long tradition of prayer has produced
many different and meaningful answers to the question of how to pray.
One of the most enduring practices involves simply offering God’s own
words back to him. This is called “praying the Scriptures”.
Practice prayer: Look through your Bible for a passage that connects
with you. Or look for a passage that seems to capture what you might
want to say to God. Try looking through the book of Psalms for a passage
you could pray. When you’ve found the passage, spend a few moments in
silence to ready your heart. Then read the words of the Scripture to God
as a prayer. You may be surprised to find that praying the Scripture helps
you to express your own words. If so, pray those words to God after
reading the passage.