Spiritual Roots, Rhythms, Practices
Building Deep Roots for a New Year
As we step into 2022, many of us are desiring to go deeper with Jesus this year, to put down stronger roots and to nourish a healthy soul; to use the momentum of a new year to fuel our trajectory towards Christ-likeness. This was the same desire we had as we started our Church Leaders Incubator this Fall, to step into a season of intentional growth, reflection, and formation. After hearing such great feedback from the group on some of the exercises at our first Incubator Retreat, we thought it could be a gift to other pastors at the start of this year to share two of the exercises. Below you will find short descriptions of exercises you can lead yourself and even your staff through. And like usual, we have also included a curated list of valuable resources to bring depth, health and vibrancy to your life this next year.
CCLN Incubator Exercises
Exercise 1 | Writing Your Eulogies
Write down a list of the most important relationships in your life (spouse, kids, friends, family, co-workers). Then, for each relationship/group, take 5-10 minutes to write down what you hope they will say about you at your funeral. This exercise will help you flesh out the type of person you want to become by the end of your life, and cause you to evaluate if your current rhythms, practices, and decisions will shape you into that kind of person or not (leading to the below exercise).
Exercise 2 | Developing A Rule of Life
Based on desires and themes from the eulogy exercise, along with your apprenticeship to Jesus, build a Rule of Life to reflect the priorities you want to build into your life this next year. If you are new to Rule of Life, you can find more information here. Essentially, what are the rhythms and practices of your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly schedules that will lead to a faithful life following Jesus and bring the hopes from your eulogies to fruition.
Curated Content For You
Gordon MacDonald on The View From 80, 15 Life and Leadership Lessons After Eight Decades of Life
Many of you have likely heard this podcast, but if not, we wanted to highlight this beautiful and rich conversation Carey had with Gordon after his 80th birthday. Carey shared that this was one of the most widely shared episodes ever (you’ll understand why when you give it a listen).
In this in-depth interview, Gordon unpacks 15 lessons he has learned over decades of following Jesus including avoiding the evils associated with institutional life, how to make sure you don’t cheat your family and close friends, overcoming doubt, obscurity and discouragement, reinventing your interior life every 7-10 years and learning how to ask penetrating questions that open people’s hearts.
Helpful Reads
Books to Deepen Your Love For Jesus.
The Way of the Heart - Henri Nouwen
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership - Ruth Haley Barton
Experiencing God - Henry T. Blackaby, Claude V. King, Richard Blackaby
Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness - Eugene Peterson
The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus - Zack Eswine
The Deeply Formed Life - Rich Villodas
In Case You Missed It
How to Reach the West Again Podcast
In follow up to his e-book that found a wide resonance last year, Tim Keller has released a podcast where he discusses a different element of a missionary encounter with culture. He is joined by pastors and scholars from across North America and Europe who unpack and illustrate what a missionary encounter looks like in their unique cultural contexts. Together, they cast a rich and robust vision for how the gospel changes everything—even today in our secular age.
Intentional Family Podcast
A 10-week mini-series highlighting both the problems of our current family ideals, as well as the solutions that can make a better way forward.
Topics include:
“What’s gone wrong with the family?”
“What happened to ‘rites of passage’ for our kids?”
“How to disciple your family consistently”
A Canadian Church Story
Youth Movements Reaching Their Cities
“We had 32 schools represented amongst our youth group.”
This was the spark that marked a turning point among a handful of youth pastors in Calgary. James Clarence, Associate Pastor of Next Gen & Discipleship at First Assembly, is one of the founding members of the 403 Youth Network in Calgary. It’s a family of churches from different denominations that are convinced the only way to see their city reached with the love of Jesus is to do it together. But for years, that was easier said than done.
Before the 403 Youth Network began in 2016, there were other groupings of pastors and youth workers seeking to collaborate for the sake of unity and the kingdom. Often however, it was easier for leaders to be primarily concerned about their own ministries and events and it was tempting to see these networks as a way to garner support for their own work…