Lenten Study Series – God in My Everything – begins 12th March, 7:30pm at St. Michael’s.
If you long for a deeper more satisfying life in God but feel the busyness of life makes a close relationship with Jesus challenging – if not impossible – then this year’s Lenten study series is for you.
This 5 part series, God In My Everything, looks at ways we can establish a ‘rule’ which sustains us in our everyday lives together. The series is based around the book of the same name by Ken Shigematsu.
Shigematsu shows that spiritual formation is more than just solitude and contemplative reflections. Spiritual formation happens in the everyday, in each and every moment of life. For those caught up in the busyness of work, family, and church, it often feels like time with God is just another thing on an already crowded ‘to-do’ list. Shigematsu explains how busy people can enter into a closer relationship with God through a personal ‘rule of life’ that fits almost any vocation or life situation.
Shigematsu proposes three spiritual disciplines which he sees as the roots lying beneath a personal rule: Sabbath keeping (“oasis for body and soul”), prayer (“deepening your friendship with God”) and sacred reading (nourishing your soul through the Word).
This will sound familiar to Covenanters – except we have four disciplines to his three! At points, we may struggle a bit with the slightly cheesy North Americanisms (Shigematsu has very much embraced his new post-corporate-Japan life in Canada), and a tendency to overstate the obvious. Just the same there is real value in much of his teaching here.
Shigematsu then explores how these disciplines may be expressed in different areas of life which he groups under three further categories: relating (spiritual friendship, sexuality and family life), restoring (care for the body, play and money) and reaching out (work, justice, witness). Again, some parts of this are a bit up and down in their quality, but the very practical aspects of his teaching certainly speak to the concern of his book – helping frazzled, over achieving middle class people find a sustainable spirituality in an alien world often experienced as hostile to the ways of God.
God In My Everything – Lenten Study Series
Begins 12th March, 7:30pm at St. Michael’s.
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