formation – Page 6 – 300 words a day

Spiritual training: models and pieces

We’re looking at spiritual training this week. We’ll look at questions two and three today. 2. What does maturity look like? When training, it helps to have models of what you want to look like, examples that you want to follow. In spiritual training, one model is almost always Jesus. (I want to be as […]

by Jon Swanson

Spiritual training: pick one thing.

Yesterday I gave an overview of one way to plan spiritual training. Let’s walk through it more slowly. The first question was, What does God want me to develop? I phrase it this way to allow for conversation between us and God. When talking about setting spiritual goals or training, I had some people push […]

by Jon Swanson

Spiritual training.

Many people don’t look to the new year. That’s fine. But some of us do. In the midst of all the planning and goal-setting we are doing for 2015, I’m thinking about spiritual goals. Or, perhaps more accurately, spiritual training. The idea comes in part from John Ortberg (Living in Christ’s Presence, p139.) “In relation to […]

by Jon Swanson

Removing yourself from distractions

Yesterday I talked about developing practical skills in hearing God better. Here’s an example. 1. Learn to remove yourself from distractions as much as it is up to you. Jesus regularly went into the hills in order to talk with God. That practice may be worth developing. Practice: For ten minutes, go into a room […]

by Jon Swanson

Portable routines

As much as I love the idea of routines, I admit that I struggle to follow through with the routines that I know will help me. Here are some of the struggles from recent weeks: When you are out of your routine surroundings, what are the prompts that will remind you of your habits? If […]