I noted here on LifeBrook back in 2009 that I was undertaking the Lenten tradition of giving up something for the season leading up to Easter, albeit with a bit of an intangible bent. That year I vowed to give up something that fed a longstanding stronghold in my life: negative thinking. As I look back on my journals from that period of time, I saw that this was quite a struggle. There were more than a few days that this chronic negativity had a life and a momentum of its own. Yet, at the same time, I did see that there were also more than a few days that I became less prone to negative cognition and even when I did have a pessimistic thought, I immediately became aware of it and was able to, as that wise sage Barney Fife told his friend Sheriff Andy:”Nip it in the bud.”
I mention all this because this year I have once again taken on this anti-negativity challenge as part of my Lenten practice. It is not so much that I have slid back into chronic negative thinking – no – in fact, the Holy Spirit has helped me immensely in this area. It’s just that I realize that this issue is one that has been a powerful force in my life and I want to take yet another step in getting on top of it. I will let you know from time to time how things are going.
I would be most interested in hearing what sort of things you folks are considering dealing with this Lenten season.
Yesterday I ran across these profound words by Max Lucado, in his excellent book Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make a Difference. I think we all might benefit from spending a bit of quiet time prayerfully reflecting on the message here:
God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.
Just look at the motley crew of hillbilly net casters, crooked tax collectors, and treacherous treasurers he assembled as his first disciples. Jesus said he would build his church on the foundation of a hot-headed blowhard that denied even knowing him when the going got rough. There was nothing about this band of simple folk that screamed “I am qualified to face every kind of hardship and carry your message to the ends of the earth.” Yet that is exactly what they eventually did. With the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the called were qualified.
Does Christ do the same today? You can take it to the bank. Friends, if you feel a calling, stop doubting, questioning, and stalling. Just step out in faith and take positive action. You may well be quite surprised at what happens next.
Icon depicting the First Council of Nicaea. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mick Turner
Christianity, as most Americans have known it, is in its final death throes. Almost all denominations have witnessed dramatic reductions in membership numbers and fewer converts are entering the faith than at any time in its history. Many view this as a negative trend and in some respects perhaps it is. On the other hand, I firmly believe that something highly positive and creative can be birthed out of the current travail of the institutional Church.
This positive birthing, however, will require a major paradigm shift.
Robin Meyer speaks clearly regarding the current situation of the church and its seeming inability or unwillingness to feed those very people who are so spiritually hungry.
There is a deep hunger for wisdom in our time, but the church offers up little more than sugary nostalgia with a dash of fear. There is a yearning for redemption, healing, and wholeness that is palpable, a shift in human consciousness that is widely recognized – except, it seems, in most churches.
Strangely, we have come to a moment in human history when the message of the Sermon on the Mount could indeed save us, but it can no longer be heard above the din of dueling doctrines. Consider this: there is not a single word in that sermon about what to believe, only words about what to do. It is a behavioral manifesto, not a propositional one. Yet three centuries later, when the Nicene Creed became the official oath of Christendom, there was not a single word in it about what to do, only words about what to believe!
My friends, there is something wrong, drastically wrong, with this picture. Doctrine can do no more than guide our thoughts in one direction or another. It has no transformative power of its own, however. Today’s church is by and large an impotent institution and the sooner we get our minds around that salient fact the better. Only when we confront the reality of the situation the postmodern church finds itself in can we begin to make plans for any kind of effective, beneficial, transformational, and lasting change. Until we come to grips with the enormity of our problems, we are only whistling in the wind.
Over the course of the centuries since Christ walked the earth, we have gone about domesticating Jesus and his mission. In the process of doing so, we have lost something very important – in fact, the very source of the church’s life. By taming Jesus and toning down the revolutionary character of what he is calling for, we have lost contact with the vine. And the Master told us quite clearly what happens when such a thing occurs. Branches die when they are severed from the vine.
In the meantime, we have settled for a weak-kneed, timid imposter of a church. At the heart of the church is a fabrication, a weak-kneed imposter of a Savior that is a far cry from the revolutionary firebrand that set his world ablaze 2,000 years ago. Instead of the radical, world-changing Jesus, we have settled for a much safer version – a version that, in the words of Brian McLaren, is a:
…..popular and domesticated Jesus, who has become little more than a chrome-plated hood ornament on the guzzling Hummer of Western civilization…
It’s no wonder people are fleeing the church in staggering numbers. Robin Meyers continues:
The earliest metaphors of the gospel speak of discipleship as transformation through an alternative community and reversal of conventional wisdom. In much of the church today, our metaphors speak of individual salvation and the specific promises that accompany it. The first followers of Jesus trusted him enough to become instruments of radical change. Today, worshipers of Christ agree to believe things about him in order to receive the benefits promised by the institution, not by Jesus…..Christianity as a belief system requires nothing but acquiescence. Christianity as a way of life, as a path to follow, requires a second birth, the conquest of ego, and new eyes with which to see the world.
The Demise of “Christendom”
It is imperative that those of us who identify ourselves as followers of Jesus accept one salient fact: in terms of the West, the era of “Christendom” is over.” The church as we have known it, both in terms of actual numbers and cultural impact, is dead. The sooner we come to grips with this reality, the sooner we can get on with the business of birthing its successor.
It is important that we face facts here. The version of the Christian faith that has been dominant in the West over the past two to three centuries eventually evolved into something akin to what I call “Everglades Christianity.” I grew up in southwest Florida and later, as an adult, spent 15 years living in Dade County. As a result, I became quite familiar with the famous “River of grass.” The fact is, the Everglades is a river that flows south from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. It is about one foot deep and 50 miles wide. Everglades Christianity is a similar phenomenon. Our churches are filled will too many believers that are quite satisfied with big numbers and shallow substance. This version of the Christian faith is superficial, focused on belief rather than genuine spiritual experience, and more often than not, choked to death by legalism and rigidity of thought.
Increasingly, however, there are more optimistic voices being heard regarding the future of the Christian faith. Perhaps the passing of Christendom, especially as described above, is not such a bad thing. It is only when the old forms of a tradition are removed that room for something new and refreshing is created. Michael Frost, an Australian Christian writer and professor, sounds a more positive tone when he says:
….there are other voices that express real hope – not in the reconstitution of Christendom, but in the idea that the end of this epoch actually spells the beginning of a new flowering of Christianity. The death of Christendom removes the final props that have supported the culturally respectable, mainstream, suburban version of Christianity. This is a Christianity expressed by the “Sunday Christian” phenomenon wherein church attendance has very little effect on the lifestyles or values or priorities expressed from Monday to Saturday. This version of Christianity is a façade, a method for practitioners to appear like fine, upstanding citizens without allowing the claims and teachings of Jesus to bite very hard in everyday life. With the death of Christendom the game is up. There’s less and less reason for such upstanding citizens to join with the Christian community for the sake of respectability or acceptance. The church in fewer and fewer situations represents the best vehicle for public service or citizenship, leaving only the faithful behind to rediscover the Christian experience as it was intended: a radical, subversive, compassionate community of followers of Jesus.
I am of the opinion that future historians will look back on this period of church history and describe a rich tapestry of theological transition, eventually resulting in a new Reformation. These same historians will see that the polarization between the liberal/social gospel branch of the church and the fundamentalist/conservative/evangelical branch, spurred on by the Emergent Church movement over time led to a synergy that gave birth to a vital, comprehensive, service-oriented Christianity that steadily grew in terms of both numbers and cultural influence. People who formerly beheld organized religion with marked suspicion were now among its most ardent and committed advocates. Many of you may be thinking right about now I have gone around the bend, but I trust my own insanity regarding this issue. I have great optimism for the church’s future and trust that just as the prophet Isaiah recorded long ago, God is once again telling us:
I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
The wild animals in the fields will thank me, the jackals and the owls, too, for giving them water in the desert.
Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland so my chosen people can be refreshed. (Isaiah 43: 19-20 NLT)
Am I being too idealistic? I hope so. It is only when the idealistic people in this world catch God’s vision and spread it far and wide does major and lasting change take place. In the words of the late John Lennon:
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one….
In a similar vein, Michael Frost continues:
I, for one, am happy to see the end of Christendom. I’m glad that we can no longer rely on temporal, cultural supports to reinforce our message or the validity of our presence. I suspect that the increasing marginalization of the Christian movement in the West is the very thing that will wake us up to the marvelously exciting, dangerous, and confronting message of Jesus.
The new Christianity that is taking shape comes in many forms and, in the long run, will appeal to a wide variety of spiritual seekers. It is difficult to accurately predict what the picture of the faith will be like twenty years from now, at least in the West. Whatever forms eventually coalesce and move forward, we can be sure, however, won’t be the “Sunday-go-to-meeting” variety of Christianity that dominated the past century. In and of itself, that is a step in the right direction.
Plurality religion by state, 2001 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mick Turner
As the new century begins to unfold, we often hear many so-called and often self-proclaimed “experts” on culture and religion predicting the extinction of Christianity. If one listens closely to these pundits, it would seem the faith is already in its death throes, gasping vainly for its final breath. Are these doomsday prophets correct? Is the ancient and once-vibrant church universal on the cusp of being relegated to the dust bin of sociological irrelevance?
The answer is clear: Yes and no.
If one is speaking of the Church in its traditional form and structure, securely anchored to its dated and increasingly ineffective methodology of encountering the world, then the answer is a resounding yes. The Church of yesterday is rapidly becoming just that – the Church of yesterday. Stubbornly clinging to a Jurassic vision of its mission, function, and structure, the traditional church is incapable of successfully navigating the shifting shoals of the post-modern world. To make matters worse, people outside the Church have an increasingly negative view of Christianity in general and Christians in particular.
There can be little doubt that we are living not only in the post-modern age, but the post-Christian age as well. Some of our more cocooned brothers and sisters may be in denial of this fact, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is true. And now hear this, things are not going to go back to the good old days. As the old saying goes, once it’s a pickle, it ain’t gonna be a cucumber ever again. Don’t just take my word for it, take heed of these statistics, culled from the research of several prominent church historians and sociologists, as well as renowned researcher George Barna.
Historians postulate it took from the beginning of the church to the year 1900 for followers of Jesus to make up 2.5 percent of the world population. In the seventy years beyond that, it more than doubled. By 1970, the number of committed believers in the world expanded to over 6 percent. From 1970 to 1992 the number doubled again. So right now, in the world it is something like 12 or 13 percent. These are flowers of Jesus Christ, people who say, “I am born again.” Here’s what’s really interesting. Seventy percent of this growth happened in the last fifteen years. All of that sounds pretty good, Turner, so why are you waving all these red flags in our faces? Well, here’s why:
Seventy percent of that growth is happening outside the United States.
The trends on our shores are just the opposite. In America today, over 85 percent of the churches are stagnant or dying. And while the appearance is there is an abundance of churches, the truth is most are nearly empty buildings with an average attendance of fewer than seventy-five. Every week more churches close their doors. Even in Nashville, the buckle of the Bible Belt and home to numerous large para-church ministries, churches are being turned into storage buildings, office complexes, and strip joints. Some downtown churches are more famous for the architecture than for the person and purpose they were built to glorify.
“America is fast becoming the land of empty church buildings and hollow religion,” said David Foster, founding pastor of one of Nashville’s largest congregations. “Out of 450,000 Protestant churches, we lost fifty thousand churches in the ‘90’s. I heard a denominational leader say recently roughly 5,000 ministers are leaving the ministry every month. These are obscene and sobering numbers.”
Not such a pretty picture, is it? I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, where people still go to church in large numbers and Christianity remains a strong force in the cultural mix. We have no real shortage of churches and, except for several crisis-driven denominations, few churches are actually closing their doors. Still, the trend of declining numbers is more apparent in the larger cities in the Bible Belt, like Nashville, Memphis, and Atlanta. In other parts of the country, entire denominations seem to have on foot in the morgue and the other on a banana peel.
Denominational leaders and church leaders tend to react in one of four basic ways: outright denial; panic-fueled tail chasing, like a dog running in circles; blaming everyone but themselves; or trying to find new, creative ways to fix the mess. Only Number Four has the proverbial snowball’s chance.
A significant section of the Body of Christ has arisen, showing not only signs of life, but also a freshness of vision, a flexibility of methodology, and a contagious optimism. Often referred to as the “EmergingChurch”, this proactive, mission-driven force in the Church is proving that the demise of the Christian faith is, to echo Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated.
In my mind’s eye, I often see Christ standing before the fetid tomb of Mary and Martha’s brother. With a calm, reassuring voice, Jesus spoke:
Lazarus, come forth!
Some of those assembled there initially expressed concern:
But Lord, he has been dead four days. He stinketh.
In spite of the odor, Jesus called his friend back to life and Lazarus responded. Still wrapped in his burial cloths, the once-dead man now walked with new life. As the vision progresses, it is no longer Lazarus who I see resurrected at the Lord’s call, but the contemporary Church. Particularly, I see the revitalization and renewal of the old Mainline denominations, so rich in tradition and resources. These denominations have experienced the greatest loss in terms of numbers and influence, yet it is these very segments of the Church that have the most to offer.
Holy Spirit 27 (Photo credit: Waiting For The Word)
When Christ was here on earth, He was limited to performing His ministry in one place and at one time. He was one man, walking beside one sea in one little corner of the earth. He healed whatever He touched, but His touch was necessarily limited by time and space.
Now, does it make sense that the Father would send His son for this limited ministry? I don’t think that is tenable. He made provision to carry on the work through the Holy Spirit: we are to complete His mission. We are his multiplied hands, His feet, His voice, and compassionate heart. Imperfect and partial to be sure, but His healing Body just the same. And it is through the Holy Spirit (Christ’s love which is everywhere at once), that we receive the power to carry on the work of the apostles. It is a challenging and sobering thought: when we receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, we receive the same urgent and life-giving force that led our Master.
Set your eyes beyond the stratosphere and see a Christ who confounds the mind. This Christ is – present tense – the visible image of the invisible God. Jesus Christ displays God’s image visible in the invisible realm, where He is seated in heavenly places at the Father’s right hand. To look upon the carpenter of Nazareth is to discover God in totality. To know the Nazarene is to know the Almighty, the one true Creator – He who was, is, and is to come.
But that’s not all.
This Christ is the firstborn of the entire cosmos, the first person to appear in creation, and He is preeminent in all of it. All things visible and invisible were created by Him, through Him, to Him, and for Him. He is the Originator as well as the Goal – the Creator as well as the Consummator.
But that’s not all.
This Christ existed before time as the eternal Son. He is above time and outside of time. He is the beginning. In fact, He was before the beginning. He lives in a realm where there are no ticking watches and clocks. Space and time are his servants. He is unfettered by them.
This Christ is not only before all things, but the entire universe is held together in Him. He is the cohesive force, the glue and gravitational pull that holds all created elements together. He is creation’s great adhesive, the hinge upon which the whole cosmos turns. Remove Christ, and the entire universe disintegrates. It comes apart at the seams. Remove Him, and creations wheels come off.
But there’s still more.
This Christ is the very meaning of creation. Eliminate Him, and the universe has no purpose. Remove Him, and every living thing loses its meaning.
But more than all this, the One who created the universe watched it fall. He saw the cosmic revolt in heaven and the wreckage on earth. Under the caring eye of the Father, the Lord looked upon His own creation as it morphed into an enemy – His own enemy. And then he did the unthinkable. He penetrated a fallen world.
This Christ pierced the veil of space-time. He became incarnate and took on human flesh. As such, He was touched with the same temptations, the same infirmities, and the same weaknesses as all mortals, only He never yielded. Christ entered into His own creation to reconcile it back to Himself and to His Father. The Creator became the creature to make peace with an alienated creation.
It seems that over the last couple of centuries the church has become increasingly less “Christ-centered” and in doing so, has completely lost its divine grounding and its sense of direction. I remember spending time as a child on my grandmother’s farm in rural North Alabama. Whenever she wanted to fix fried chicken, she didn’t go down to the supermarket to pick up a fryer. Instead, she sent my father out to get a hen from the barnyard.
I vividly recall that my dad would decapitate the hapless bird and even without a head, the chicken would go flapping around in circles for awhile before finally keeling over. In many ways, this childhood memory is analogous to the present condition of the church. Christ is the head of the church and without a firm connection to the head, the church also runs around in misguided, uncoordinated circles before it eventually collapses. This is a reality we can ill afford in the contemporary Body Of Christ.
The remedies for this situation are multi-faceted and complex. Yet I have become convinced that whatever constellation of strategies we implement in our attempts to rectify this hapless dilemma, one thing remains constant. We must have as the central and defining element an unrelenting focus on Christ, not just as a historical or celestial figure to be worshiped. Instead, we must come to view Christ for the truly magnificent and wondrous being that he is and also come to an understanding and internalization of his role as a living, vibrant agent of transformation.
Centuries ago, for whatever reasons, the church seems to have lost sight of this aspect of Jesus Christ and his mission to this planet. In our obsessive worship of Jesus as “Savior,” we somehow managed to jettison his transformative power as an agent of personal and social change. I think this is the chief reason we see so many otherwise sincere believers walking around in a state of bafflement, aimlessness, and quiet desperation.
Last year, on this site, I posted a piece entitled, A Decapitated Church is a Lifeless Corpse. In that article I discussed these themes at some length. I also included several cogent, powerful passages from the fine book entitled, Jesus Manifesto, written by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola. It was my intention in that article and this one as well, to get across the same point made by Sweet and Viola in their excellent book. Stated simply, that point is that the primary task of the church in this challenging time is to reintroduce the world to Christ and his kingdom. And sadly enough, this mission begins with the church itself. I daresay that a near-majority of contemporary church-goers have only a minimal understanding of just who Christ was and is, much less what he accomplished and expects of us.
With that being said, it is critical that the church develop workable, practical strategies that will help its own members deepen their awareness of who and what it is they are dealing with. Sweet and Viola, for example, give us this introduction:
Set your eyes beyond the stratosphere and see a Christ who confounds the mind. This Christ is – present tense – the visible image of the invisible God. Jesus Christ displays God’s image visible in the invisible realm, where He is seated in heavenly places at the Father’s right hand. To look upon the carpenter of Nazareth is to discover God in totality. To know the Nazarene is to know the Almighty, the one true Creator – He who was, is, and is to come.
But that’s not all.
This Christ is the firstborn of the entire cosmos, the first person to appear in creation, and He is preeminent in all of it. All things visible and invisible were created by Him, through Him, to Him, and for Him. He is the Originator as well as the Goal – the Creator as well as the Consummator.
But that’s not all.
This Christ existed before time as the eternal Son. He is above time and outside of time. He is the beginning. In fact, He was before the beginning. He lives in a realm where there are no ticking watches and clocks. Space and time are his servants. He is unfettered by them.
This Christ is not only before all things, but the entire universe is held together in Him. He is the cohesive force, the glue and gravitational pull that holds all created elements together. He is creation’s great adhesive, the hinge upon which the whole cosmos turns. Remove Christ, and the entire universe disintegrates. It comes apart at the seams. Remove Him, and creations wheels come off.
But there’s still more.
This Christ is the very meaning of creation. Eliminate Him, and the universe has no purpose. Remove Him, and every living thing loses its meaning.
But more than all this, the One who created the universe watched it fall. He saw the cosmic revolt in heaven and the wreckage on earth. Under the caring eye of the Father, the Lord looked upon His own creation as it morphed into an enemy – His own enemy. And then he did the unthinkable. He penetrated a fallen world.
This Christ pierced the veil of space-time. He became incarnate and took on human flesh. As such, He was touched with the same temptations, the same infirmities, and the same weaknesses as all mortals, only He never yielded. Christ entered into His own creation to reconcile it back to Himself and to His Father. The Creator became the creature to make peace with an alienated creation.
I think Sweet and Viola have put together a positive, creative, and pragmatic way of introducing Christ to those outside the church as well as those inside the Body of Christ who have, for all practical purposes, never met the Master in any comprehensive fashion. Granted, no one definition or description can cover all the bases when we are dealing with a subject that is vast, cosmic, and ineffable. Still, we can create first-rate starting points and I believe this definition by Sweet and Viola precisely this.
I would like to suggest a spiritual exercise that you might carry out in the near future. Using the description of Christ given by Sweet and Viola, take one line a day as a focus for prayer, meditation, and reflection. In a period of quiet time, begin by asking the Holy Spirit to speak to you in whatever way he deems fit regarding that one line. Read the sentence, reflect on what it says to you about the person, the nature, and the mission of Christ. Record what you discover in a journal or notebook that you keep for this particular spiritual practice. If possible, do this in the morning and in the evening. From my personal experience with spiritual practice, I feel confident in assuring you that you will come out of it with a deeper and more life-changing awareness of just what manner of being Jesus Christ was and is.
If the contemporary church is to be healed, this is where we must begin.
Christogram (labarum) with Jesus Prayer in Romanian. Jesus Prayer in Romanian Doamne Iisuse Hristoase, Fiul lui Dumnezeu, miluieste-ma pe mine pacatosul. English translation Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner. This image appears on the cover of all editions of Romanian translation of Philokalia Français : Christogramme entouré de la Prière de Jésus en roumain (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mick Turner
Let’s begin by clearing up a common misconception: the practice of Christian meditation in no way involves emptying the mind. Instead, it is aimed at positioning ourselves in a receptive state whereby we can have a fresh encounter with our Inner Light. The practice of contemplation is central here, however. Through it we connect with the Holy Spirit at the deepest level by entering in through the Sacred Silence.
Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly speaks of the experience of taking the comfort and wisdom we find in the Sacred Silence and carrying it into the cauldron of daily living. Listen carefully to his words:
…and in brief intervals of overpowering visitation we are able to carry the sanctuary frame of mind out into the world, into its turmoil and fitfulness, and in a hyperaesthesia of the soul, we shall see all mankind tinged with deeper shadows, and touched with Galilean glories. Powerfully are the springs of our will moved to an abandon of singing love toward God; powerfully are we moved to a new and overcoming love toward time-blinded men and all creation. In this Center of Creation all things are ours, and we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. We are owned men, ready to run and not be weary and to walk and not faint.
Notice here how in very potent language Kelly alludes to Christ’s great prayer in John 17. Jesus prayed that we be his, just as he is God’s. When, through the grace of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, and our own diligent practice of entering into the Sacred Silence, we become more and more capable of abiding in our inner sanctuary we make manifest that chain of possession spoken of by Christ. Kelly tells a poignant truth when he says “we are owned men.”
In another relevant passage Kelly states:
Continuously renewed immediacy, not receding memory of the Divine Touch, lies at the base of religious living. Let us explore together the secret of a deeper devotion, a more subterranean sanctuary of the soul, where the Light Within never fades, but burns, a perpetual flame, where the wells of living water of divine revelation rise up continuously, day by day and hour by hour, steady and transfiguring.
Kelly’s teaching here is most profound. Beginning with the reality that only regular, repetitive practice of Sacred Silence can give us “renewed immediacy of the Divine Touch.” Unless we are diligent and consistent in our pursuit of this sacred sanctuary and its inherent blessings, we run the risk of letting the experience of the Divine become little more than a quickly fading memory.
Kelly then goes on to reiterate the fact that it is in this Sacred Silence where we find not only the Inner Light, but also those ever-flowing wells of living water Christ spoke of. Further, he reminds us that these waters are more than refreshing, although they are certainly that, but also emphasizes that these wellsprings are “transfiguring.” These blessed streams are capable of changing us at our core. These waters of healing and transformation have their source in God’s unlimited gift of grace.
In order to get a firm grasp on these issues, it is important that we have a deeper understanding of a pair of key principles. The first is related to the various methods of meditative tradition in our faith that are conducive to the kind of receptivity that was described above. Second, we need to have a least a modicum of insight into the concept of the Inner Light.
In terms of Christian meditation, space does not permit a detailed explanation of the different meditative practices. The context of an article or a blog entry is much too brief. However, we can at least look at a few of these beneficial methodologies.
I have personally found meditation, especially Christian meditative practices, to be among the most spiritually lucrative practices I have ever undertaken. Spiritually, my walk of faith grows stronger, deeper, and more stable when I commit myself to regular periods of meditation practice.
In terms of technique, among the more popular forms of Christian meditation are the following:
John Main’s Christian Meditation
The Prayer of the Heart
Centering Prayer
Ignatian Meditations
Christian Meditation,” aside from being a generic term, is also the name of a specific meditation technique developed by John Main, a Benedictine monk who was stationed primarily in India and was a disciple of the great Catholic genius Bede Griffiths. In brief, this meditative practice is similar to “mantra meditation” whereby a word or phrase is repeated in order to quiet the mind. The word selected by Main is the four-syllable word “Maranatha.” Maranatha end the final book in the Bible, Revelation, and is Aramaic for “Come, Lord.” In Christian meditation, one repeats the word with equal time and stress on each syllable, Ma-ra-na-tha. When thoughts intrude on the mind, one does not suppress the thoughts, but instead, allows them to pass gently as one returns to the word. According to Main, the word Maranatha was used extensively as a prayer tool, especially in the Fourth Century works of John Cassain.
The “Prayer of the Heart” or the “Jesus Prayer” is from scripture as well. The practice itself involves repeating the phrase of scripture in coordination with the breath. The scripture in full is “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.” Often the phrase is shortened over time to Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” or “Lord Jesus, Have Mercy.” The technique was developed in the Eastern Orthodox Church and is still widely practiced in all Orthodox traditions, especially the RussianChurch. The prayer’s popularity in the West spread with the appearance of the anonymous spiritual work entitled, The Way of a Pilgrim.
Centering Prayer,” developed and popularized by Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington, both Catholic monks and writers, is based on instructions given in the 14th Century Christian Classic The Cloud of Unknowing. The technique involves choosing an appropriate word to use as sort of a ‘hitching post” for the mind. Whenever the mind begins to wander from the silence, you gently return to repeating the word. Once the mind is again brought back under control, the word is dropped until the mind wanders again.
The Ignatian Exercises, developed in the 17th Century by St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, involves visualizing basic scenes from the gospel stories and putting ourselves in the image.
Whatever technique one chooses as the focus of their meditative practice, the important principle involves the training of the mind to be still. This is no small task, as anyone who had tried meditation well understands. The mind is like a chattering monkey that resists all efforts to bring it under control. Still, with persistence, diligence, and the help of the Holy Spirit, the mind gradually but surely comes under increasing control.
Contemplation, a form of Christian meditation, has become increasingly popular as a method of realigning with the Inner Light. Sometimes referred to as “Contemplative Prayer, this ancient spiritual practice has many practical benefits as well, such as reduction of stress and fostering a sense of peace in daily life. Yet Christian meditation has at its foundation a spiritual purpose. It is part and parcel, for example, of the renewing of the mind. Henry Drummond exclaims:
There is nothing that will bring us such abundant returns as to take a little time in the quiet each day of our lives. We need this to get the kinks out of our minds, and hence out of our lives. We need this to form better the higher ideals of life. We need this in order to see clearly in mind the things upon which we would concentrate and focus the thought-forces. We need this in order to make continually anew and to keep our conscious connection with the Infinite. We need this in order that the rush and hurry of our everyday life does not keep us away from the conscious realization of the fact that the spirit of Infinite life and power that is back of all, working in and through all, the life of all, is the life of our life, and the source of our power; and that outside of this we have no life and we have no power. To realize this fact fully, and to live in it consciously at all times, is to find the kingdom of God, which is essentially an inner kingdom, and can never be anything else. The kingdom of heaven is to be found only within, and this is done once and for all, and in a manner in which it cannot otherwise be done, when we come into the conscious, living realization of the fact that in our real selves we are essentially one with the Divine life, and open ourselves continually so that this Divine life can speak to and manifest through us.
If you are looking for positive results in your spiritual life it is essential that you stake out time in your day to spend quiet time with God. This will help us get the kinks out of our minds and out of our lives. However, this special time with our Creator must involve more than sitting quietly, reading, and praying. Important as these disciplines are, if we want to taste the true blessings of Sacred Spirit, we must make personal effort to place ourselves in a receptive mode. This involves becoming mentally quiet, increasingly centered, and spiritually alert. Contrary to what you may hear from fear-mongering fundamentalists who have never really taken the time to research the subject fully, Christian meditation does not involve emptying the mind. On the contrary, it involves silencing our internal chatter so that we become a vessel God can then fill with himself.
Contemplative prayer constitutes the bedrock of the mystical life. It is the sublime activity in which we place ourselves in a state of openness and receptivity, ready and willing to encounter the Holy Spirit and hear whatever teachings may be offered. If you have never practiced any of these forms of Christian meditation, I encourage you to give them a try. There are many workshops taught in a variety of settings, some, of course, better than others. I would also encourage you to taste the varied flavors of methods available and find one that suits you best. Once this happens, then get down to the business of going deeper.
If you already have a practice of Christian meditation, contemplative prayer, or the like, keep at it and keep going deeper as well. You won’t be disappointed.
If you are a seasoned practitioner of meditation, I encourage you to keep at it. Make extra commitment and effort to go even deeper. Truly, beyond a certain point you can’t go back. Your only choice is to forge ahead toward a goal well worth striving to attain. This is part of a process we at Sacred Mind Ministries call “Consecrated Endeavor” and it is indispensable on the spiritual journey.
If you are just beginning a mediation practice, I laud your decision to encounter the spiritual light that exists within you. Although your journey is just beginning, I assure you that with consecrated effort and proper encouragement, you can make consistent progress and every aspect of your life will improve.
What follows is from the Chandogya Upanishad, which is the oldest in the entire collection. If somewhere along the winding path of your contemplative journey to enlightenment, someone asks you what it is that you are really seeking, you might refer them to this jewel of mystic scripture:
In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower, and within that can be found a small space. We should find who dwells there, a we should want to know him. And if anyone asks, “Who is he who dwells in a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower in the center of the castle of Brahman? Whom should we want to find and know?” We can answer, “The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars; fire and lightening and winds are there; and all that now is and all that is not; for the whole universe is in Him and He dwells within our heart.”
In light of this wisdom, let me close by adding that I couldn’t agree more with the wise King Solomon who advised:
Keep watch over your heart; for therein lie the wellsprings of life. (Proverbs 4:23)
Jesus came first and foremost preaching the kingdom. Even the most superficial skimming of the New Testament will readily reveal this fact. Inaugurating the Kingdom of Heaven (or Kingdom of God) and laying the groundwork for its ongoing establishment on earth was his central mission and, although other things were important, everything took a back seat to this. Dr. Myles Munroe explains most cogently:
“Everywhere He went, Jesus preached the Kingdom. That was His assignment. Jesus primary message was not the born-again message that dominates gospel preaching. In His entire recorded ministry, Jesus spoke only once about being born again, and that was in the middle of the night to a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus privately. Being born again is the way into the Kingdom – it is the necessary first step. But the gospel of the Kingdom involves much more……….Not only did Jesus rarely speak about being born again, neither did He make these other themes the focus of His preaching: prosperity, healing, baptism in the Holy Spirit, or many of the other things we preach so much about today. Jesus taught about those things, and He demonstrated them in His day-by-day ministry, but He didn’t preach them. There is a big difference. Jesus had only one message: the Kingdom of God. That was His assignment, and He passed it on to us. His assignment is our assignment.”
Indeed, healing, prosperity, evangelism, service to others, salvation, born again themes – all of these are foundational aspects of the gospel message, but they all pale in comparison to what I like to call “God’s Great Story.” This story is the underlying theme of the entire Bible and it is ultimately the story of how God is going about setting up his kingdom here on earth. Jesus had a unique role to play in this great cosmic drama and, because of who and what he was and is, it was a role only he could play. And just as Dr. Munroe so passionately explained, Christ’s assignment was to bring the message of the kingdom to this planet and just before he went back to his celestial home after ascending higher than the highest heaven (Ephesians 4:10), he had one more surprise: he charged us with continuing his assignment here on earth.
What this means is that just as Jesus had a unique role to play in the establishment of the kingdom, so does each of us. The problem is many of us are confused about what that role entails in both general and individually specific aspects. To make matters even more perplexing is the fact that the church, either by choice or by ignorance, seems to have abandoned its kingdom mission.
In order to rectify this situation we have to engage is serious study so as to discern exactly what Jesus meant when he talked about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. As we undertake such a project we also need to realize that the whole kingdom agenda is a multi-faceted phenomenon and does not necessarily lend itself to simplistic analysis.
I am convinced that although such a study can be carried out within the parameters of a group setting, ultimately, each of us must arrive at our own understanding of what the basic themes of the “kingdom message” of Jesus were. Perhaps the benefit of a study group would especially come in when participants came together to discuss what they had each discovered.
As to methodology for an undertaking like this, again, I think that whatever best suits the individual will be the most effective, provided of course, that it covers the territory in sufficient detail. For example, whenever I undertake this sort of study project I typically fall back on my Methodist background and John Wesley’s four-part system of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. I have never failed to find this methodology sufficient for any research task of the nature we are discussing.
The Kingdom Agenda is at the foundation of all acts of Christian service. As followers of Christ, called to give flesh to grace and make disciples in all the world, we must constantly be about our kingdom calling in ways great and small. I like the way N.T. Wright puts this into proper perspective:
“……….what we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15:58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about tobe dug up for a building site. You are – strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself – accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God.”
As Wright so eloquently reminds us, the Kingdom agenda is permeated through and through with proactive compassion. It is not enough to sit back and identify and discuss social problems from a comfortable distance. Jesus was not afraid to get his hands dirty and he certainly does not call us to detached, sterile service. Kingdom work is often unpleasant and frequently places us in circumstances that are far out of our comfort zones.
As followers of Christ in this challenging age of change it is imperative that we reorient our efforts, making certain that we are in alignment with the mission the Master has given us. The specifics of each mission will be different for each of us, but each will share a common denominator. Our particular calling, whether great or small, is grounded in love, kindness, and compassion. Each personal mission will seek to establish a just and equitable way of being in the world, solidly based on kingdom principles and deep concern for the well-being of others.
LifeBrook 