Smith Raw Spirituality

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8308-9652-3
Verlag: InterVarsity Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 223 Seiten

Reihe: Renovare Resources

Have you ever felt a tension between developing your internal spiritual life and the call to outward service in the world? Those of us who are more naturally activists risk becoming bitter, tired and burned out. Those of us who gravitate toward the contemplative life may struggle to connect our spirituality with the world around us. How do we allow the life of Jesus to flow through our whole bodies into our everyday lives?This book is a result of how Tom Smith held these questions in tension, as Eugene H. Peterson reflects in his foreword:'There is a back story here that is helpful in understanding Tom Smith's fierce focus and energetic imagination. He grew up in South Africa during the years of apartheid. . . . He also was aware that the Rwanda genocide took place in a population mostly Christian. He became a pastor in a flourishing South African church and then came to North America. He experienced the temptation to degenerate church into a consumer program. . . . This book is a witness to what takes place when names trump numbers and stories with their accompanying metaphors keep relationships personal and prayerful.'Having Jesus in our hearts is not enough. Jesus calls us to a spirituality that involves our everyday actions and interactions with others and extends our sphere of influence. In this raw, honest, whole-life approach to Christian formation, Tom Smith introduces us into a 'rhythm of life' that that brings flourishing to our personal spirituality that then extends to our service in the world.

Tom Smith is the cofounder of Rhythm of Life, a spiritual formation consulting group. He was formerly pastor at Claypot, a church community in Johannesburg, South Africa, and continues to consult South African churches in the areas of spiritual formation and missional spirituality. He is married to Lollie and has two children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Tom

Leseproben

Introduction

One day, while I sat in a coffee shop and worked on a weekend sermon, the waiter saw what I was working on and looked at me excitedly,

“Pastor, I have a problem,” he said. “I accepted Jesus into my heart a few months ago and it is wonderful. I go to church every Sunday morning. But in the evenings I have wild promiscuous sex.” He looked at me to gauge my reaction. Then he asked something that I will never forget. “I have accepted Jesus into my heart, but how do I get him into my penis?”

I have had many of these impromptu pastoral conversations, but I must confess that this was a first for me. Although his question was unconventional it showed the deep desire of a man who wants to be formed into Christlikeness in every part of his body.

You might find his statement shocking or even offensive, but I am convinced that if we are going to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus we will have to talk about every detail of our lives.

The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God” (Romans 6:13 NLT).

In this book we will explore a raw spirituality through which we become instruments doing “what is right for the glory of God.” As we learn to use our bodies to the glory of God, this embodied faith extends into the world—making it a better place. This is raw spirituality.

How Disembodied Faith Wrecks Our World

I grew up in a church culture where it was all about “having Jesus in your heart.” Churches were interested in getting Jesus into hearts and populating heaven with people who have Jesus in their hearts. There wasn’t a lot of emphasis on the Jesus life through the rest of my anatomy and into everyday life. The Jesus life was disembodied.

It was this version of the Jesus story that allowed a gross system like apartheid to form in my home country, South Africa. We accepted Jesus into our hearts and worshiped him on Sunday, but during the rest of the week we used our bodies and the rest of our complex lives in ways that oppressed other people. We segregated Jesus from the raw material of our everyday life.

Many people have been hurt by versions of a disembodied Jesus story. Some have been oppressed by it, like the millions of people in South Africa. In other places this distortion led to genocide. In Rwanda, where a majority of the people “accepted Jesus into their hearts,” people used their bodies to kill one another.1

Some of the hurts are not as obvious as the South African or Rwanda stories, but they are also deadly. I know a lot of people who have become bored with a disembodied version of Christianity; they have already accepted Jesus into their hearts, but what now? While I lived in the United States for three years I saw how this disembodied version got mixed with a consumerism wherein the temptation became to use Jesus like a product. Every Sunday people came to the church like they were shopping at a mall. The rawness of Christ’s humanity morphed into a plastic consumer product.

I regularly meet people who feel sad about current versions of Christianity. Some of them say the Christian life is just a lot of chat, that the church suffers from verbal diarrhea, that it is all a head trip. Some of their sadness siphons into bitter anger or cynicism. They seek embodiment in other places.

Several of my friends feel the growing frustration of the gap between what they profess to believe and the actual rhythms of their everyday lives. The waiter in the restaurant falls in this group. He sincerely wants Jesus to become real in all of his life, but he experiences the disappointment of not knowing how. I share some of the hurt, sadness, boredom, frustrations and disappointments. I also yearn for something else.

In James K. A. Smith writes that

one of the most crucial things to appreciate about Christian formation is that it happens over time. It is not fostered by events or experiences; real formation cannot be effected by actions that are merely episodic. There must be a rhythm and a regularity to formative practices in order for them to sink in.2

The raw spirituality described in this book is for those of us who want to learn how to embody the Jesus life through an engagement with rhythms within our everyday existence. In what follows I will describe how a group of us discovered these rhythms and sunk into raw spirituality.

Developing a Rule of Life

In 2003, a few friends and I planted a church in Johannesburg, South Africa. Our church’s name is Claypot; the name comes from a passage Paul wrote to the Corinthian church. “We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

As a community we were drawn to this verse because we were frustrated with continual church critique. We wondered what it would look like to spend our time focusing on Jesus instead of obsessing over the vessel. Raw spirituality starts with God.

One day Jesus was approached with the eternal question “What is the good life?” He answered,

The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31 NRSV)

Jesus wants to be in our hearts. He also desires to be in the rest of our lives in such a way that we become an embodying presence of his love. In order to train us in embodying loving God with heart, soul, mind and strength we developed a rule of life. For us a rule of life consists of Jesus’ invitations that we follow together. The rule of life provides a general rhythm; its implications are as unique as the individuals partaking in it and the contexts they find themselves in.

Marjorie Thompson describes a rule of life as “a pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth in holiness.”3 A rule of life is a way to orient and train our lives toward God. Through our rule of life we seek to embody a raw spirituality for the sake of the world.

But what does this mean practically?

For us it means a life engaged with seven invitations, or what we call the rhythms. Our love for God, neighbors and ourselves flows out into engagement with the rhythms to (1) develop healthy images of God as number one in our lives, (2) plugging in daily, (3) journeying with other people, (4) discovering our piece of the puzzle and gifting others with it, (5) placing ourselves in other people’s shoes, (6) commitment to downward mobility and servitude, and (7) seeing our working lives as an essential expression of our with-God life. An honest engagement with every rhythm fosters raw spirituality. It is a way of embodying the life of Jesus.

The rhythm of life diagram represents the raw spirituality we are going to explore (see fig. 1.1).

Figure 1.1. Rhythm of Life

Our exploration will start with some general training tips. Then we will move into the rhythm starting at the center. God initiates the rhythm. We will then circle around to the other rhythms. We will conclude our journey with an example of how you can contextualize a raw spirituality within your local community.

How to Use This Book

As I wrote this book my wife repeatedly said, “Tell them that we cannot do this alone.” She is right. Developing raw spirituality is not a solo affair. This book describes a journey within the environment of encouraging friendships. Raw spirituality also involves training. Following Jesus exposes us to the verbs of , , and . In this book I will use the umbrella term for these vibrant verbs. In the first chapter I will explain the concepts of training naked further.

In every chapter you will find input followed by a “Training Naked” section, which includes questions and training exercises. If you are like me, you might be tempted to read this book but skip the training exercises and the questions. I encourage you not to do that. All three aspects are crucial.

Invite a few friends to go on this journey with you (at least one but not more than seven). Decide on a day, time and place where you can hang out. Without companionship, questing with the questions and training with the exercises of this book will become just another head trip. Adri-Marie, my friend and colleague, is fond of saying that too much information in the head without an embodying in life makes the heart sick. I suggest that you first read chapters one, two and three, and after that you can skip around in the book.

One more thing: Read this book in unusual spaces. Raw spirituality develops in unusual physical locations. Find a raw space like a park, school, wilderness area or off-the-map coffee shop. Relocate your body. Move away from comfort.

May this book help you to develop an embodied raw spirituality that makes the world a better place. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and will be...