A Place to Practice the Practices

Church and call is a regular column exploring how the church might better support people’s sense of call in the world. It is written with the assumption that the church is the best organization to help people listen for call, and to support them as they seek to live into the complexity of their call and ministry in the world. In each issue we look for ideas and suggestions for the church to become the ‘Call Center’ it is intended to be.

The first time I experienced group silent prayer, I questioned the wisdom of it. First of all, my stomach was making rumbling noises not unlike a thunderstorm. I was sure that Thomas Merton’s stomach never made the kind of sounds my stomach was making. Secondly, there was something a little odd about sitting in silence in a group. If all we are doing is sitting in silence, couldn’t we do this at home? If we are together, shouldn’t we be talking or doing something more productive?

Thankfully I didn’t get up and leave. Because after awhile, I began to awaken to a different reality. It is hard to put into words, but it was different – different than being together and talking, and different than me being silent alone. Group silence was and is a spiritual practice that I always find a little challenging. But I have become convinced of its power. And a part of its power is simply that it is being done together.

Church is a Place to Learn the Classics

More than ever in our society, we need places that teach spiritual practices. There are some basic disciplines – how to read scripture, or to pray, or to reflect theologically – that don’t happen anywhere else. These are practices that have sustained spiritual pilgrims for thousands of years, and helped them to live faithfully in the world. As Richard Foster notes in his seminal book Celebration of Discipline, “the classical disciplines of the spiritual life call us to move beyond surface living into the depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm. They urge us to be the answer to a hollow world.” He goes on to note that classic disciplines are not classic because they are old, but because they are central to experiential Christianity. They are time tested.

One church small group to which I belonged began every meeting with a time of prayer. We would do it in different and often creative ways, but eventually we got around to the basics: Offering up prayers of gratitude, confession, and petition. It never got old for me because there was always something new going on in one of my calls that I could bring to this prayer. And because the group was trustworthy, the prayers were honest and real.

Church as Research and Development for New Spiritual Practices

Church is also an ideal place to talk about new spiritual practices. At times the church has been guilty of attempting to define exactly when and where God can be found. Instead, church can be a place that encourages people to find practices that support their call and ministry in the world, practices that fit their uniqueness.

For instance, in his book Spirituality@Work, Gregory Pierce proposes a set of spiritual disciplines that are less about contemplation, and more geared toward the work environment. He writes:

The disciplines of a spirituality of work would have to be like these traditional disciplines, yet be designed for today’s busy workplace. They would have to be new disciplines, not mere adaptations of contemplative disciplines. They would have to be practices that could be done in the workplace without disrupting the flow of work. They would have to be things that people who are not particularly pious, or even religious would feel comfortable doing.

Because everyone’s work is different, Pierce does not attempt to prescribe what anyone’s practices should be. Instead he offers criteria for us each to develop our own:

1. We must be able to practice the discipline in the workplace – we should not have to leave our workplace to find God.
2. We must be able to practice the discipline without disrupting our work.
3. We must be able to practice the discipline regularly and consistently.
4. The discipline should be triggered by some event, task or situation that occurs in our workplace, so we are not relying on ourselves to be spiritual                                                                                                   (Spirituality@Work, Gregory Pierce)

Whether talking about classic practices, or new ones, the church is a perfect place to practice the practices.

• Wouldn’t a faith community small group be a wonderful place for people to generate their own workplace spiritual practices? Future gatherings would then provide the opportunity to support one another, and hold each other accountable around these nontraditional spiritual practices.

Books Referenced

Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster
Spirituality@Work, by Gregory Pierce

Doug Wysockey-Johnson is the Executive Director of Faith At Work. Doug co-leads FAW's Mutual Ministry Project with Dick Broholm. The MMP is a three year research effort to help the church support people for their ministry in daily life. It is called the Mutual Ministry Project out of the conviction that both pastors and laypeople are called to ministry, and that they need each other for support in the living out of our daily calls.