April Leadership: Spiritual Practice/Revisiting Practicing God’s Will Together

We will be returning to the Ruth Haley Barton book by reading Ch. 7, Practices for Listening to Each other.

“Leadership discernment requires us to be open and receptive to God with each other and to be open and receptive to each other with God.” pg. 132

Ruth walks through a few practices that will help us continue to learn to connect at a soul level. This morning, we will take some time to engage in one of these practices with God: confession. This will be more of a practice of personal confession, rather than interpersonal or corporate confession, though Ruth points the importance of these out as well, which we will read later in the chapter. Growing in any rhythm of confession is counter cultural, runs oppositional to our human nature, and yet, is extremely hopeful and freeing.

Take some time with the Practice of Confession. (15-20 min?) Gather back together and open conversation up for anyone who want to share what the process was like for them, or anything meaningful they experienced in their time.

Part 2: A brief revisit to the conversation on Rule of Life. Open your books to ch. 7, pg. 133. Someone read the section on “Practicing Transformation” out loud.

-Does the definition of “spiritual practices, attitudes and behaviors that keep you open and available to God” simplify the intention or a potential benefit of a Rule of Life where it perhaps felt more complex or complicated previously?

-Does anything change when you recognize a rule of life as a tool for practicing transformation together? Or put in other words, a way of experiencing, noticing and communicating the transforming work of God in our lives, with one another?

-Where do you feel hung up or confused thinking about a Rule of Life, or how we work to identify or establish our own personal rules of life? (Jeremy may spring board conversation from here). The process of establishing a rule of life may take months. It is not something we rush into, but should do with patience, wisdom, awareness, and relational honesty with ourselves and the Trinity.