Pressing Hard into God: No other learning matters without this obvious - but often-forgotten - first step! So...
- I'm in my Bible a ton, studying, pondering, meditating on verses, paragraphs, chapters, and books.
- I'm turning off my car radio/CD player and spending drive time praying.
- I'm keeping a moleskin with prayers in it.
- And I'm trying to "unplug" a day a week and just spend time dwelling, listening, and talking with God.
Reading: I generally have about four books going at any given time - on purpose, not because of A.D.D! I read in "categories":
- Personal growth: generally books by older saints that pour into my personal walk with Christ: at the moment, Tozer's The Root of the Righteous; next up, Mahaney/Harris's Humility.
- Professional growth: growing in theology, philosophy, and practice within different areas of pastoring: at the moment, Frost/Hirsch's The Shaping of Things to Come; next up, TBD - probably either Belcher, Deep Church or Bosch, Transforming Mission.
- Culture: I try to keep a pulse on different perspectives of the local, national, worldwide, and faith cultures surrounding me: at the moment, Keller's The Reason for God; next up, Chandler's Pilgrims of Christ on a Muslim Road.
- Fun: I have always enjoyed reading, and there's a ton of great, fun reading out there - classics, hidden gems, & more: currently, Conan-Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, vol.1; next up, Vol.2, obviously!
Writing: I learn best when I write. It forces me to develop thoughts, research, consider opposing viewpoints, etc. before I put something in print. So at the moment, I'm working on...
- Village Leader Training: a 3-month curriculum to use within The City Church.
- Pastor-elder/Deacon Training: a several-month process of testing and training before we install key leaders.
- Acts 29 Model-Based Mentoring: helping develop a 6-month curriculum to pair new planters with a more experienced guy, for training, coaching, help, and personal/pastoral/vision development.
- A short booklet on what it practically looks like to live on mission in our daily lives. We'll see what happens with it.
- TCU Lesson Plans: This fall, I'm constantly developing lectures, activities, etc. for the TCU communications courses I teach.
- Plus... blogs, and I've always got a couple chapters, sentences, or outlines for other random papers and projects that have been started but at the moment, are simmering for a bit.
Dialogue: I love grabbing coffee, beer, or meals with folks and having good, engaging dialogue. Whether it's The City Church's discussion of Total Church, talking with a college student about various faiths/worldviews, getting to know new folks and their stories at the Gingerman, meeting with other church planters, or just shooting the breeze with good friends, good, intelligent conversation revives me and breathes life into me.
So that's how I'm currently growing in my faith, learning to lead better, and developing as an individual. How about you? What do you do?
1 comments:
I have almost the same structure but it ebbs and flows a bit.
Like I know in myself that studying will not always be maxed out at 11. When that throttles down, instead of beating myself up over it, I increase in other disciplines such as writing, discipleship and the like.
I. Reading - I too go in between several books at the same time.
Bible - I take two books (usually 1 OT and 1 NT) and do this pattern. One, read them straight through. Two, next I read them alongside commentaries/notes over passages I don't understand and try to come to a conclusion using other passages in Scripture. Three, pencil to paper, write out my own study notes, verse by verse, passage by passage, line by line. Also, once the two books graduate from one level to another, I then add two more books to read straight through and so on and so forth. So I should be in 4 to 6 books of the Bible at a time. Again, ebb and flow. If I am in something heavy (Romans or Jeremiah), then I will throttle down the other books to focus on the one and two that are kicking my butt.
Theology - Grudem's Systematic Theology (seriously, I will always read this till the end of time... it is way too enjoyable to put down), Desiring God by Piper & The Cross of Christ by John Stott. Next up: Knowing God by J.I. Packer.
Preaching/Teaching/Ecclesiological/Academic - Christ Centered Preaching by Chappell, The Basics of Biblical Greek by Mounce. Next up: Christ Centered Worship by Chappell, Deep Church by Belcher and definitely some Lectures to my Students by Spurgeon
Culture/World - I need more books in this regard like The Reason for God by Keller. Right now, I try to keep a beat on what is going on in my city via blogs, newspapers and the like.
II. Writing - Blog, Doxologies, etc.
III. People - Great conversations, discipleship, community... all of this fuels me and gets my engine going. I love people!
IV. Prayer - All of this is complete failure if it is not saturated in prayer. Every opportunity to pray for others, I jump on that chance. My studies, reading, engaging, writing have to be prayed over. Out of that, not only we have the chance to see the glory of God but I get to go be with Him. That is all wins and zero losses.
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