What kind of person do you want to become?    

       Dallas Willard once said, “Spiritual formation is character formation. Everyone gets spiritual formation. It’s like an education. Everyone gets an education, it’s just a matter of which one you get… Spiritual formation in the Christian tradition answers a specific question. ‘What kind of person am I going to be?’”

        We will begin walking together through our first spiritual discipline as a community in the coming months. First, I want to remind everyone that this is optional and not something to feel pressured to join in on. However, I want to invite you into this process as a community. The aim of doing this together is one of growth for each of us individually and as a body of believers. We believe that by intentionally reorienting every part of our lives to follow Jesus, we will grow closer to him and become more like him. As this happens, we can invite others to do the same. Some of these people will be friends and family. Some might be believers and non-believers.

        While drawing closer in relationship with Jesus and becoming like Him is not easy, we can find hope and inspiration in committing ourselves to the transformational power of the Holy Spirit. By practicing these disciplines in a healthy way, we can build a rule of life that leads us on the path of spiritual growth. Like all new things, it takes consistency and repetition for them to become normal parts of our lives. The same must be done with our yearning to be more like Jesus. It will be a road, not of perfection, but of grace from God and each other.

         My hope is that you will join us as we begin our journey of practicing the way of Jesus. It will be a journey that requires commitment, but Paul reminds us that the way of Jesus brings new life.

“For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:5–11, CSB)

- Pastor Josh