Friday, June 8, 2012

FIVE FRUITFUL PRACTICES

The fruitful, God-related life develops with intentional and repeated attention to five essential practices that are critical for our growth in Christ.

Radical Hospitality in our personal walk with Christ begins with an extraordinary receptivity to the grace of God.  In distinctive and personal ways, we invite God into our hearts and make space for God in our lives.  We receive God's love and offer it to others.

Through the practice of Passionate Worship, we learn to love God in return.  We practice listening to God, allowing God to shape our hearts and minds through prayer, personal devotion, and community worship.  We love God.

Through the practice of Intentional Faith Development, we do the soul work that connects us to the others, immerses us in God's Word, and positions us to grow in grace and mature in Christ.  We learn in community.

The practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service involves offering ourselves in purposeful service to others in need, making a positive difference even at significant personal cost and inconvenience to our own lives.  We serve.

Through the practice of Extravagant Generosity, we offer our material resources in a manner that supports the causes that transform life and relieve suffering and that enlarges the soul and sustains the spirit.  We give back.

These Five Practices -- to receive God's love, to love God in return, to grown in Christ, to serve others, and to give back -- are so essential to growth in Christ and to the deepening of the spiritual life that failure to attend to the, develop them and deepen them with intentionality limits our capacity to live fruitfully and full, to settle ourselves completely in God, and to become instruments of God's transforming grace.  The adjectives -- radical, passionate, intentional, risk-taking, and extravagant -- provoke us out of complacency and remind us that these practices require more than haphazard, infrequent, and mediocre attention.

These practices open our heart -- to God, to others, to a life that matters, and life rich with meaning, relationship, and contribution.  They help us flourish. 

-- Robert Schnase in Five Practices of Fruitful Living


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