So how does someone dwell in a text?  How does an entire community dwell in the Word? Here’s an idea:

Whenever you meet, as an family of faith, house church, leadership team, training group, work team; spend the first 20-30 minutes dwelling within a particular scripture.  I recommend starting with the text Luke 10:1-12; it is a text of mission, of being sent out with the most basic of instructions, dependent upon our receivers’ hospitality, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near!

As you listen to the text being read, consider how the text impacts you personally, at a family level, at a congregational level, and how it impacts our world.  Let God speak in the silence, as well as in the written words.

As we consider our decisions and actions in congregations and church bodies, in creating partnerships, in venturing out in mission… this text speaks to us, sometimes moving us forward, sometimes making us think differently about what is happening to us and how we should respond.

You can have this habit, too.

1. Choose a passage - perhaps a lectionary text for this coming week, perhaps a passage already meaningful to your group, and read it aloud.
2. Read the passage 2-3 times, preferably read by different readers each time, and optionally changing translations.
3. Between each reading, sit silently for 3 minutes, letting certain words, phrases and images to surface in the minds of the participants.
4. Sit together with the passage, in silence, or in conversation, sharing with one another where your imagination was caught or where a memory was triggered. Let the passage draw you together as a group.
5. Bring the passage up throughout the day, or when you’re trying to make a decision. See what it says to you then.
6. Close with a prayer of thankfulness to God for what was revealed.

Bring up the passage again during the next meeting, in the same manner.

Live in the passage for several months. It will bring more and more to you as you revisit it!

Some other Scriptures to get you started in Dwelling in the Word (also known as “Lectio Divina“)

God “dwells in light” (Ti1 6:16; Jo1 1:7), in heaven (Psa 123:1), in his church (Psa 9:11; Jo1 4:12)

As we are considering what a rich spirituality looks like in the twenty-first century, let’s make this the moment when the Church reintroduces itself into the powerful, expansive history filled with resources and insights to propel us forward.

If we want to know how to connect with God in a deep way, if we want to avoid the common pitfalls that Christian communities make on their way to spiritual maturity, (there are at least 12 I’ve counted, but that’s for another day) and if we are interested in changing our lives and the lives of the people in our faith communities – we’ve got to make this a crucial part of our faith journey.

3 Parts – the Ancient, Medieval and Modern Spiritualities

Think of these three eras as shaped like an hourglass.  The ancient church (Pentecost to 600CE) was characterized by rapid exampsion to the continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe.  The medieval church (c.600-1500) was marked by withdrawal as internal divisions and the rise of Islam greatly diminished the Christian influence in Asia and Africa.  The modern church (c.1500-present) saw a new expansion beyond the boundaries of Europe, and in the past few decades the churches of the third world have shown the greatest vitality, expansion and missionary fervor.

The ancient church – after it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, was rapidly transformed from a network of periodically persecuted believers into a geo-political bishop-states.  While some bishops used their power to fight off doctrinal heresies – (Montanism, Gnosticism, and Neo-Platonism) – others left the Christian empire to pursue desert spirituality, creating monastic orders.

Christianity became a largely European phenomenon throughout the Middle Ages.  The Western and Eastern branches of the Church (Edessa, and Constantinople) formerly separated during this period.  The Eastern church became increasingly apophatic (mystical in their theology, and their spiritual disciplines – like listening prayer and stillness).  Monasticism flourished in the West, with Benedictine, Carthusian and Cistercian orders continued to develop contemplative and ascetic approaches to spirituality.

Modern Spirituality begins with the impact of the four branches of the Protestant Reformation (Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, and Anglican Spirituality).  Each of these understood their relationship to the state in a different light, as well as HOW the church in the West needed to transform.  In the Catholic Church, fantastic spiritual thinkers emerged in Spain and France during this time.  As Christianity found new territory in the far West Americas, new post-Reformation Protestant movements (Puritans, Quakers, Pietists, Evangelicals, revivalism, Methodists, holiness groups, and Pentecostals).  Most recently in our time, we’re seeing the Catholic Church fundamentally reformed in Vatican II, as well as other movements (ecumenical, charismatic, twelve-step spirituality, psychological approaches, and creation-centered spirituality).  Finally – the seeds of Eastern Orthodoxy and Christian developments in Latin America, Africa and Asia are finally making a real impact on the Church of the West after years of isolation.

This is about as brief as one could span through the movements of 2000 years of Christian Spirituality.  If you’re truly interested in learning more, I recommend a few books to get you started!

“Our system is perfectly designed for the results we are receiving.”

This was the repeated phrase at a lunch I recently attended where author Alan Hirsch was presenting.  The room was full of Chicago-area church leaders, and the room quickly fell silent as Hirsch began critiquing the current state of affairs in the Western Church.  While he had some apt critique, he wasn’t all sour – he was just as ready to point to fresh perspectives and examples of the church engaging and subverting the culture in America.

He made it clear that only the American Church, unlike the church in Europe or Australia, stood a real chance at re-interpreting the Gospel for the West in a way that could thrive in the post-Christendom era in which we now live.

But his strongest words were the line  he dropped half a dozen times throughout his talk: “Our system is perfectly designed for the results we are receiving.”

Think on that for a moment – how much weight can you bench press?  Only as much as your body’s system allows - and the way things are in your body are perfectly arranged for you to lift exactly what you’re capable of lifting.  Want to up your max weight?  Change your system! Try adding more protein to your diet, and less sugar.  Head to the gym 2 extra times a week.  Read about lifting techniques.  If you want to change the results, change the system.  Its amazing how we constrain our imaginations when it comes to the systems in our lives.

“Oh, that’s the way things have always been, and always will be…”  Give me a break.  You’re talking “equilibrium,” and to biologists, equilibrium is another way of saying, “you’re stone dead.”  Change = life!

The Church in the West today is spending 3 times as much on facilities as it was 10 years ago. 3 TIMES AS MUCH AS A DECADE AGO!  And numbers are in decline.  Leaders are getting harder to come by, as congregations are expecting more and more from their church leaders.  Sure, there are more and more mega-churches dotting the American landscape, but for every mega-church that breaks 1000 attendees, how many congregations had to shut their doors?

It has been said of the American Church, “The front of the parade is becoming more and more impressive, and no one is noticing that the line is getting shorter and shorter.”

The question is – can the church…your church…change its system? It is interesting how quickly we have come to expect the inevitability of the mega-church as the ONLY form of ecclesiological success.  Like the industrialized food system in America, the mega-church has only emerged in the last generation or so; and yet we see it as the only box God can work in.  I for one simply refuse to go along with that.  What ways can we keep the Gospel close to our chest, and yet experiment wildly with the form?  Let’s change the system – let’s take ourselves a little less seriously, and let imagination become our modus operandi!

Don’t do it out of fear that “God’s Church is depending on you,”  Do it because prophetic imagination is central to the story of God.  Do it because the Gospel is ALWAYS changing its clothes – the “word” is always “becoming flesh” and “moving into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14)

We’re perfectly designed to get the results we’re seeing across America today.  If we want more of the same – keep doing the same thing you’ve always done.  Otherwise, get out there and break the mold!