Category Archives: Christian Disciplines

The Progressive Churches of Christ: Spiritual Formation

A few years ago, it was fashionable to have seminars, books, and classes on “spiritual formation.” Many churches hired a “minister of spiritual formation” — a position that has largely degraded into being the minister over the adult ed program and … Continue reading

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Progressive Churches of Christ: Community Formation

I confess to certain introverted tendencies. For example, I’m really happy sitting at my computer, listening to music, and typing theology for hours on end. That’s the behavior of an introvert. But, ironically enough, I’m not a fan of the … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 12

The practice of discipline in the community of faith begins with friends who are close to one another. Words of admonition and reproach must be risked when a lapse from God’s Word in doctrine or life endangers a community that … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 11

Here, bearing the burden of the other means tolerating the reality of the other’s creation by God—affirming it, and in bearing with it, breaking through to delight in it. This will be especially difficult where both the strong and the … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 10

The first service one owes to others in the community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for other Christians is learning to listen to them. God’s … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 9

Not considering oneself wise, but associating with the lowly, means considering oneself the worst of sinners. This arouses total opposition not only from those who live at the level of nature, but also from Christians who are self-aware. It sounds … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 8

There is probably no Christian to whom God has not given the uplifting and blissful experience of genuine Christian community at least once in her or his life. But in this world such experiences remain nothing but a gracious extra … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 7

In other words, a life together under the Word will stay healthy only when it does not form itself into a movement, an order, a society, a collegium pietatis, but instead understands itself as being part of the one, holy, … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 6

Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all … Continue reading

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Community Disciplines: Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, Part 5

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian community in which we have been placed, even when there are no great experiences, no noticeable riches, but much weakness, difficulty, and little faith—and if, on the contrary, we only … Continue reading

Posted in Bonhoeffer's Life Together, Christian Disciplines, Uncategorized | 33 Comments