Article 18: Christian Spirituality - growing closer to God through spiritual disciplines

In Article 18: Christian Spirituality, we return to the themes of relationship with God from Article 1 as well as discipleship and transformation from Article 17. In order to be the disciple that we talked about last week, we need to be in a deep relationship with God, a relationship of love that Romans 8:35-39 assures us that we cannot be separated from. Through that relationship, we need to be transformed into the image of Christ and be conformed to the likeness of Jesus rather than the world. This requires us to grow closer to God in our Christian spirituality, a process which happens primarily through the spiritual disciplines, which in turn foster the fruit of the spirit within us.

Galatians 5:22-26 tells us of these fruits of the spirit, characteristics of Christ-likeness made manifest in our lives. It suggests that these grow within us as we that are in Christ Jesus crucify the passions and desires of our flesh and as we walk in step with the Spirit. Much of this happens through the practice of spiritual disciplines "such as prayer, study of scripture, reflection on God, corporate worship, singing hymns, simplicity, witness and service" which Article 18 name. It is the practice of these disciplines that make up the core of Christian spirituality in our daily lives.

Yet we may wonder what "Christian spirituality" really means to us. I have heard it said that much of our culture has no interest in being "religious" but that many if not most of them consider themselves to be "spiritual." We identify with being spiritual and yet pages 101-103 of Conrad Kanagy's book "Road Sings for the Journey: a profile of Mennonite Church USA" tell us that only 75% of Mennonites pray daily and only 32% read the Bible daily. Moreover, only 53% attend Sunday school, only 77% in the Midwest attend worship on a weekly basis and only 38% participate in small groups. While some of these numbers are higher than in other denominations, participation in Sunday school, weekly worship, and small groups are each a signficiant decline from previous surveys in 1972 and 1989. What then are the markers of Christian spirituality and have we allowed our cultural context to water this down to some sort of generic "good feeling" or overarching belief that "there is a god out there somewhere."

Whatever the culture may offer to us as Christian spirituality, we must commit ourselves to something more. We are called to be in a relationship with our God. We are called to a transformed life of discipleship. We are called to be conformed to Christ rather than to the world; but in order to live out these calls upon us, we must choose to practice a Christian spirituality that fosters growth toward God. It is through the spiritual disciplines that this growth is fostered.