Posts Tagged ‘Faith’

28 Jun

Spiritual Growth Takes More Than “Just Add Water”

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

20130628-144715.jpgSummer is here and that means lots of free time for my dear son. So, the other day, he decided to try out some of his “grow animals.” Grow animals are these little encapsulated sponges that you put in water and they “magically” grow to be ten times their original size. Seeing these animals grow right before my very eyes got me thinking about our spiritual lives and how growth as a Christian doesn’t happen so easily.

What about Baptism?

As a good Lutheran, I am probably missing an opportunity to talk about the Sacrament of Baptism. We Lutherans are big on our Baptismal theology and teaching–through the waters of Baptism God adopts us as sons and daughters. Perhaps “just add water” could be a fun angle for a baptismal post.

But…

Living out our faith day in and day out, growing in Christ throughout our lives over time, is not something that just happens right before our very eyes. We can’t just add water and experience phenomenal growth in minutes. The truth is that even my son’s “grow animals” took more like days than minutes to reach their 10x growth potential.

What is involved with spiritual growth?

Spiritual growth, the ways we learn to rely more upon God and be more like Jesus in how we love our neighbors, involves:

  • God’s love and action for us first and foremost. Our growth in faith is an outgrowth of our trust in what God has first done for us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
  • Showing up. How do we “show up” in our spiritual lives? By going to worship–hearing God’s Word and receiving the Sacraments. We also show up through spiritual disciplines like prayer and Bible study. Showing up at worship and spiritual disciplines gives us opportunities to connect with God which helps us grow in our faith and trust in God.
  • Spending time with fellow Christians and learning together how to best live our lives as the Body of Christ. By being with others who are also trying to live this out and grow in faith, we can share ideas and offer support when needed.
  • Practice over time. Growing in our spiritual lives doesn’t just happen in days or weeks, it takes months and years and decades. It is something that happens over the course of our entire lives.
  • Patience & learning from messes. Sometimes, maybe more often than any of us really want to admit, we mess up. We fail in some way to live up to the name of Christ. Sometimes Christians give Christianity a bad name. It is sad, but true. Instead of wallowing in our messes, we can learn from them and let those lessons become part of our growth.
  • Saying we’re sorry. When we do make messes, it is important to acknowledge them, and to say we’re sorry–to God and to those we’ve harmed. It is difficult for anyone to move forward when messes are left messy.

God is doing it!

Yes, growing in our faith is more complicated than “just add water.” But I do not intend for this list to be a legalistic checklist of whether we’re doing our faith-living right. This is merely descriptive of the types of experiences that contribute to our spiritual growth. Our spiritual growth does not happen on our own. It is not something we have to do for ourselves to make God love us, it is something that God works in and through us. May we each experience God’s love more deeply in our lives as we seek to grow in our love for God and our neighbors.

What do you think? Is there anything you would add to the list of what is involved in spiritual growth? What has helped you grow in your faith?

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If you enjoyed this post about spiritual growth, you may also appreciate the follow up post titled Let’s Talk About Spiritual Shrinking As Well As Spiritual Growth (click the title to read the post).

29 Apr

The Power of Family to Shape Faith

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Family, Inspiration, Leadership. Tagged: , , .

20130430-231747.jpgHeather Caliri wrote a great post the other day about the power of family culture. Heather and her family live in Argentina. So powerful is their family culture, that her children, who are homeschooled, have been slow to learn Spanish (the local language).

She says she is not surprised, but she learned something else too:

The real lesson for me is the power of family to insulate you from the culture surrounding you. It’s almost complete. And that is both frustrating (for someone who was trying to immerse) and heartening (as a parent who loves being in a family).

She goes on to call family culutre a “super power”! Reading this got me thinking about the responsibility to use a “super power” for good.

One of the ways in which we can use the power of family culture is in passing on the Christian faith to our children. Many families may not realize the impact that their day-to-day family culture has on their children’s faith.

Church and Sunday school are only a couple of hours a week. If you think about it, that’s not that much exposure to the faith. But when the family culture is infused with faith-talk, praying for one another, and reading the Bible together, the potential impact is much greater.

A lot of my thinking on this has been influenced by Faith Inkubators. The church where I did my Deaconess internship used a lot of Faith Inkubators materials. One of the pastors there taught me a lot about the importance of equipping parents to “incubate” faith in the home.

On his blog, Faith Inkubators founder, Rich Melheim wrote a Top 40 Principles of Faith Inkubation. I’d like to highlight one of those principles:

19. 3/4 of your youth ministry must be committed to helping parents DO and BE who and what God once called them to do and be when they first held their child in their arms.

This is important because it calls the whole church to responsibility for helping families use their “super power” to pass on the faith to the next generation.

Some families naturally weave faith into the fabric of their family culture and that is wonderful. But in my experience as a church worker and being married to a pastor, a lot of families don’t know where to begin. Either way though, it is counter-cultural to raise children in the Christian faith and families need the support of their church to do it well. After all, every super hero needs a trusty side-kick.

What do you think helps families weave faith into their family culture? What best practices can churches do to support faith formation in the home?

20 Apr

5 Reasons Being on the Fence is Hard

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Community, Leadership. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

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Have you ever been accused of being on the fence on a tough issue? People don’t realize how many of us there are because we’re not the ones making headlines. They also don’t realize being on the fence isn’t easy. Here are five reasons why being on the fence is harder than people think.

1. People Think We’re Just Sitting Here, Not Caring

The people on the extremes of an issue advocate legislation, push the envelope, and get noticed. Since we’re not in the public square making our position clear, they think we’re just sitting here on our fence, not caring about the issue at hand.

They imagine us here, blissfully unaware of the heated debate all around us. They think, because we haven’t chosen one side or the other, we simply don’t care. While that may be true for inconsequential matters, we do care about the big stuff. Its just that the way we care doesn’t look like the way an activist cares.

2. People Don’t Understand the Fence as a Position

People assume just because we haven’t chosen “either/or” we don’t have an opinion. They say we’re undecided. They don’t seem to appreciate that we chose the fence for a reason.

What they don’t realize is that we’re as passionate about the issue as they are. Our decision to take middle ground is often just as intentional as their choice to take a side. We’re not undecided, we have simply chosen a highly nuanced position somewhere in the middle.

3. Sometimes We Agree with Both Sides

Our nuance often comes from the reality that we can see merit on both sides of the issue. We think both camps have valid points and we take a position that embraces the best of both.

It’s hard to talk about the issue with people who want us to pick a side when we agree with them and their opponents. When we nod in agreement on their concerns and also nod with their opposition, they think we’re being disloyal.

4. Other Times We Disagree with Both Sides

On some issues our nuance comes from the conviction that both extremes are just wrong. We hear all the arguments on both sides and neither one seems a suitable option. We don’t pick one or the other because there just isn’t a good choice between them.

We take our perch on the fence because we find balance there, avoiding the muck on both sides. The trouble then is, we’re easy targets on that fence because we’re everyone’s opposition.

5. Some Fences Just Plain Hurt

Oh sure, some fences are sturdy and comfortable, but other fences are rickety or barbed. Being on the fence can be pleasant, but sometimes being on the fence itself is dangerous.

When the moderate position has its own dangers and difficulties, it can be tempting to just choose a side. Sometimes being on the fence hurts like barbed wire but we do it because we’re convinced that’s where we’re supposed to be.

What the Fence Could Be

Maybe if more people understood why being on the fence is so hard, they’d give us a break. Maybe if we could somehow articulate why we take the middle ground, they’d see that we care. And maybe if we could better communicate our nuanced view they might even help us bend back some barbs and join us on the fence.

Do you wish more people would take a nuanced view of controversial topics? Or are you on the fence about that?

5 Apr

Is it Really Good Enough?

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Brokenness, Community. Tagged: , , , , , .

Yesterday my friend Sarah Bessey shared a link to a guest post by Tara Livesay over at D.L. Mayfield’s blog. In the post Tara Livesay talks about her life in Haiti and her concern about visitors who come for mission trips.

Tara laments the tendency of visitors to view themselves as the heroes and to look at the people of Haiti as “projects.” She writes about the air of superiority and even the disdain with which some visitors view the people of Haiti.

Tara says,

It is not at all unusual to hear visitors botch something up they are working on and say, “Oh well, it is good enough for Haiti.”

That post hit me right between the eyes, because I was one of those visitors. When I was 17 years old (over half my lifetime ago), I went on a week-long mission trip to Haiti.

I know I went there thinking I was going to be a hero. The real truth of that trip is that the people of Haiti made more of an impact on me than I did on them.

When it came down to it, I avoided the hardest work projects because they were too hard. Even when I did help out with doable things, I remember just feeling hot all the time.

My half-baked efforts were far from “good enough for Haiti.” The “project” was too much for me. I failed it.

The only good I did in Haiti was when I joined in their singing. I was terrible at it because I was unsure of the words, their meaning and their pronunciation.

20130405-160409.jpgWhen we gathered with Hatian churches or Haitian school children, there was so much singing. Their singing was so joyful, so exuberant. They knew the words even if I didn’t.

I eeked out the words the best I could manage. And the best thing about singing with them was that it was with them. It wasn’t something I did for them because I was better. It was something we did together.

I still remember some of those songs and I still sing them from time to time. It is part of the lasting impact that the people of Haiti have had on me.

Still, I think part of me has carried a sense of failure that I didn’t make the impact on Haiti that I intended.

My son was in public school when Haiti had been devastated by the earthquake. So I dusted off my photo album from Haiti, made a slide show and spoke to my son’s class. I wanted to do something helpful, to Raise Awareness.

Now though, after reading Tara Livesay’s post I wonder if my little talk only perpetuated the “we as heroes” narrative. Did I use that opportunity to make up for my failure at the “project” earlier in my life?

I started writing this post last night before I went to bed and I have been mulling it over all day. I want to be able to wrap it up in some meaningful conclusion. I can’t seem to do it though because Tara’s post has left me with more questions than answers.

Could it be that is a good thing?

31 Mar

Resurrection Day Greetings!

Posted by Jennifer Clark Tinker in Inspiration. Tagged: , , , .

Christ is Risen!
May the Good News of the Resurrection of Our Lord fill you with joy! Alleluia!

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