Building a Holy Habitus

the patient ferment

This week I thought I’d review another of the books I devoured during my sabbatical. It’s called ‘The Patient Ferment of the Early Church’ and is written by the late Alan Kreider. As he attempts to unpack what features of the Jesus movement of the first 3 centuries led to its powerful ferment and improbable growth, he encourages us to discover the “lost bequest” of the ancient church and reclaim some powerful resources for our own patient witness, worship and discipleship in today’s increasingly pluralistic and post-Christendom world.

you are what you love

I’m back from sabbatical and thought I’d review one of the books I read over my time away called ‘You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit’, by James K. A. Smith (Prof of Philosophy at Calvin College, Michigan). It’s a fascinating look at the ways in which we are propelled through life by what we love. But we ‘don’t always love what we think’. Our love and worship are oriented towards a vision of ‘the kingdom’ (whether of God or some competing false god), and we imbibe this vision from the ‘liturgies’ we allow ourselves to be immersed in.

the game with minutes

This week exploring Frank Laubach’s lovely little book ‘Letters by a Modern Mystic’ and his attempts to saturate as much of his day with an awareness of God and an openness to his leading as possible. What a transformative impact it would have to incorporate this prayerful meta-habit into our holy habitus – surely one to work with God towards.

“truly my disciples if…”

‘You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings’ says Jesus in John 8:31. Sometimes we’re guilty of over-complication and abstraction when it comes to our portrayal of discipleship. But what’s required of us is often quite concrete – our today being characterized by its Christlike decisions, actions, habits; our lives increasingly modeled on Jesus, and aligned with the instructions he gave. What one command of Jesus might the Spirit be nudging you to work on, or seek to implement, today so as to become more like the one to whom we are apprenticed?

make every effort

Today I’m camping out in 2 Peter 1:1-11, and taking a look at the challenge of growing in Christlike character. Jesus has ‘given us everything needed for life and godliness’, we now need to ‘make every effort to support our faith’ with goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection and love. What can we do this week to intentionally grow in some of these areas?

let’s talk about discipleship

Today I’m interrupting our journey through the beatitudes to look at how we can ‘whip one another into shape’ in terms of our discipleship! Whip stands for:

What is Jesus up to in your life at the moment?
How are you co-operating with him in that?
Is there anything I can do to help with that?
(let’s) Pray!

The more we have these kinds of conversations, the better we get at discerning, articulating and co-operating with the will of God for our lives.

recap: the key questions so far

In this video I recap the ground we’ve covered so far and summarise with these key questions:

• What does my habitus currently look like?
• What core values and priorities does my habitus reveal to the world?
• What one good habit am I currently working at building into my habitus?
• What bad/unhelpful habit am I currently working at dislodging from my habitus?
• What’s my next step and how am I taking it?
• Who am I accountable to and how is that going?
• What’s the level/quality of my exposure to friends, mentors and communities that are forming me in the way of Jesus?
• Which people or communities am I spurring on to love and good deeds?

Looking at these questions has God prompted us into action on some or all of them? If not, maybe there’s a blockage somewhere in our ‘hear – know – plan – act’ cycle that needs tackling?

Let me know your thoughts!