A New Year

What follows is a bit of a change of pace from the usual posts. But this blog is about what's going on the in the Gates' home, and the thoughts below fit in our pre-defined category.

Jenn and I have been enjoying our Adult Bible Fellowship at church, and it's been a neat experience working with some of the other couples that head up the ABF. If you're not familiar with ABF's, you may be familiar with "Sunday School," each of which are a way for a church to break down what is a very large community into smaller, more functional communities. In a church of more than 1,500 people, it can be hard to connect on Sunday mornings during the worship hour. So ABFs are set up to provide smaller community for meaningful connections and friendships to be made, and for sound and Biblical teaching and discussion to take place. Jenn and I have been involved with the leadership of our ABF from the beginning in 2006 with only a brief interruption in mid-2008. When we first began attending HCC in early 2006, we never thought we'd see the day when we'd walk down a hallway and recognize most of the folks we'd pass, but that's how it is now, and it's partially due to the connections we've been able to make by breaking down a large church into smaller groups with the ABF structure.

One of the roles I've taken on within the ABF is to provide e-mail updates and recaps of the previous lesson/discussion as well as previewing the upcoming lesson/discussion to all of the ABF members on a weekly basis. I've been sending these as an html (website-like) attachment complete with links and pictures. It's a way to keep those who couldn't make it one particular week up to speed, and to offer a bit of an oasis during the middle of the week by providing relevant resources, commentary, and insight... sometimes from myself, but most of the time from respected sources across the evangelical Christian spectrum, such as Rubel Shelly, Rich Nathan, Chuck Colson, etc. Writing and compiling the content also prompts me to study and to set aside devotional time that I probably wouldn't be consistent with on my own.

Recently, as we were wrapping up our series from Death By Suburb, by David Goetz, our discussion on Sunday morning touched on the Classical Spiritual Disciplines. (Our long-time blog readers may recognize this book from an earlier post. Jenn and I went through this book with our former Community Group.)

Let me make it clear right up front that I am not nearly as proficient in the Classical Spiritual Disciplines as I'd like to be or ought to be. Discipline is a challenge (or else it wouldn't be discipline), but I've found this subject and their practice very intriguing ever since I took Brandon Fredenberg's class at Lipscomb on the subject back in the late '90's. During that class, we used Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline as our text.

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It was both enlightening and deeply spiritually challenging. The thought of the clothes that I buy and the car I drive and the neighborhood in which I live reflecting and revealing the nature of my relationship with Jesus was a tough concept to grab, and one that contributes to a constant mental struggle for me. Celebration is a tough book to internalize because it rubs against the grain of Western culture that all of us enjoy. It would be tough to argue that any Western Christian actually puts the entire book into practice. Enter Death By Suburb, or what I like to call it, Celebration of Discipline Light. Foster's book may scare a new or comfortable Christian away, but Goetz's book is easy to read, and hard to deny. He speaks pointedly and humorously to the American Christian. Though there are a few holes in the book, and a couple of areas that could have used some elaboration, I found myself saying, "Yep, that's me." Sometimes that was a good thing, other times, not so good. But where Foster is intimidating, Goetz is not. Once Goetz's book is accepted, though, Foster's book is the next logical step. Both are very worthwhile reads for all Christians.

Fast forward to today. You didn't think you were going to read some sort of book review when you came to our blog (much less two book reviews!), and I'm not much of a book reviewer. I also don't consider myself a deep, religious philsopher. (If you're looking for something like this, check out my friend Adam's blog.) Why I hike through this background with you is to illustrate what has been going on in my mind related to the e-mail updates I distribute. I was looking for ways to elaborate on the Classical Spiritual Disciplines and I came across some great websites and blogs that deal with these in meaningful, rubber-meets-the-road ways. I share them here for you to check out when (or if) it's convenient for you because I believe they're good for us. As an analogy, I don't have the food... I'm just a beggar pointing out to other beggars where to find food.
The Inward Disciplines
Meditation
Prayer
Fasting
Study
The Outward Disciplines
Simplicity
Solitude
Submission
Service
The Corporate Disciplines
Confession
Worship
Guidance
Celebration
It is easy when you start taking the Disciplines seriously to pursue them as the end, rather than the means to an end. It's easy to begin to either worship the Discipline(s) or to become very legalistic about the Discipline(s). This is no excuse for not pursuing them, though. It's true of my life, and most Christians will acknowledge as well, that the times when I've been closest to Jesus "oddly coincide" with the times that I've been making a number of the Disciplines a priority in my life. Additionally, the Disciplines don't make us good Christians. Rather, they help us form good and healthy habits, and they become symptoms of a healthy relationship with the LORD.

One thing I hate to do in either my personal life or my professional life is to set up unrealistic expectations. They only lead to disappointment. So I don't share all of this with you as some sort of New Year's resolution that you and I can let slide sometime in late January or early February and feel depressed in May when we remember the broken resolution. Phooey! But with the thought of a new year and new starts, why not consider pursuing the goal of forming and firming up good and healthy habits as they relate to our relationship with the LORD? I understand that my readers fall all across the spectrum when it comes to this subject. But we all have to have a starting point, and we all have room to improve. If you have any questions or thoughts about this, feel free to post here or to e-mail me separately.

From the Gates Family to you and your family, have a Happy New Year!