Last Fall we intentionally built our rhythms as a church around investing in and cultivating the most crucial component of our apprenticeship to Jesus: “being with Jesus”. Together we intentionally practiced silence and solitude, abiding in Jesus, casting our cares on Jesus, and reading the Bible for transformation. As we enter the new year and transition to the Spring “semester” we don’t want to leave those practices but build upon them. So we will be making space and implementing rhythms to help us in another significant component in our apprenticeship to Jesus: becoming like Jesus.
Whether we care to admit it or not, our lives have been significantly shaped by external influences: family, friends, school, church, culture, etc…. For most of us, the greatest shaping influence on our life has been our family of origin. And no matter how healthy or unhealthy our families and childhood experiences have been, at some level every family experience involves function and dysfunction (health and unhealth). As a result, each of us has inherited ways of thinking and living from our family of origin and culture that are out of sync with the way of Jesus. Our hope for the Spring is that 1) God would be glorified as 2) The Holy Spirit uses the season to shape and form us in a way that we become more like Jesus, and 3) that we would experience greater wholeness, joy and freedom in Christ as we deal with our past with both honor and honesty.
