WHEN CHRISTLIKENESS GROUPS first started, I had developed a somewhat convoluted curriculum for us to follow. As reality weathered away intention, we were left with a much more simple — maybe deceptively simple — approach to helping one another grow in deeper Christlikeness.
Essentially, we ask of each other three questions:
1) What’s going on in your relationship with God?
2) Where are you striving to grow spiritually right now?
3) How can we help you make progress in getting there?
These do not seem like exceptional questions, but in the lives of nearly every Christian I talk to, they are questions that very often go unasked. When they are asked, the answers usually go unheard.
The typical church service is a one-sided communication. A sermon may push a person to consider his or her relationship with God, or to seek a place to grow in faith, but there is no one available to listen to the response. There is no follow-through. A weekly Bible study would seem like a great place for deeper, responsive conversation, but most often the Christian life is discussed obliquely, through the third person. Much emphasis is placed on what “a Christian” should know or believe or understand — an examination of doctrines, perhaps seasoned by a personal example or two — rather than on challenges to personally become transformed in tangible ways by a closeness with the Scriptures. It’s considered intrusive, perhaps, to ask someone to make a plan of action, to follow up on their progress — to ask more of them than to sit back and ruminate on an issue. But most of us as human beings are desperate for the people around us to say: I want to hear your story; I want to be with you in your struggle; I care about where you go from here; you are not alone. We long for that depth of involvement, even as we fear it — but fear need not win out.
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OF COURSE, you can’t just lay these three questions on the table and expect instant camaraderie and community. There are some key intangibles in how we conduct our meetings that allow these questions to be more than an intellectual or emotional exercise.
To begin with, it is not our intention to make any judgments about the answers given. Whether things are going great with God at the moment, or you feel distant from and confused by him, all that we ask for is honesty. There is no great crisis, no sense of shame or failing if one’s spiritual life has been dry. This is a huge difference from how such questions are usually asked, on the rare occasions they are: they come from a parent, or mentor, or pastor, or even a friend, but in every case they come from someone whose opinions and relationship we value. We want to remain in their good graces. Even if they inspire us to do more in our spiritual walk, the process is tainted when we are going after it for the wrong reasons: an approval and affirmation awarded by others. We can so easily go through the motions to look good on the outside without really drawing life from God himself.
Our method is different: for starters, we ask these questions of each other every other week. It seems unlikely that a person is going to be wholly successful in connecting to God and growing deeper in that relationship week after week after week. There will be setbacks. When you have shared what is good, and gotten that out there, you are free to say: this week was a step back; this week was harder; this week I was lost. This requires a huge time commitment. It means that what we do as a group is dominated by our reflections on our lives; in short, our lives are the text that we study. We don’t try to tack these conversations on to end of a prepared lesson. Instead, the alternate weeks that we meet — when we’re not sharing — are filled with prayers, scripture passages, songs, book excerpts, and conversations that support and deepen the questions that we raise about life and God during our sharing times. Our study and learning is tailored to support the development of stronger relationships and to prompt new insights in our times of reflective sharing. That’s what you will find is different from virtually any other church small group out there.
Second, and key, is that we have no “leader” per se. There is no one person with more answers and knowledge and wisdom than anyone else, who everyone is tempted to defer to. We have facilitators who keep the meetings moving along, who coordinate the schedule and so forth, but who share just as openly and just as solicitous of help as everyone else. This honors the “priesthood of all believers” in which every person has permission to minister to one another through their own experiences of God working in their lives. There is no one in particular whose good opinion you might be tempted to solicit, even if there might be one whose advice resonates best with you. In our model, the group as a whole fulfills the role of counselor — we call it “peer mentoring.” We do not anyone to become passive in their relationship with God and just accept someone’s advice because they are in charge. Each person is encouraged to set their own goals and take the responsibility themselves for moving forward, to be answerable to God and God alone, and use the group as one would use a band of fellow travelers: for other tales of the journey, to hear the perspective of another vantage point, to shine light on the path ahead.
Traditional mentoring pushes people into polarized roles: the experienced and the weak, the elder and the struggler — when in fact we are both of these things at one point or another. Traditional mentoring works itself toward an inevitable breaking point, where one must, in some way, throw off the reigns of control of the other. Peer mentoring, on the other hand, in which each person has permission speak into the lives of the other, moves us toward deeper, lifelong, bonded relationships. It is not that we ignore authority or leadership, but rather achieve such an abundance of leadership roles in our lives that we are being led collectively, by Christ through his servants.
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IT IS WORTH noting, too, what happens outside of the group meetings. We do not go home from the meetings and simply compartmentalize that conversation until the next week — we take what we learned and what we discussed and try to bring these new ideas into our everyday life. It is unfashionable, I realize, to assign homework in a church group, and to add one more things to a person’s busy schedule. Leaders tend not to ask too much of people, lest we scare them away. But the Christian life, as we all know, must be a 24/7 venture. God doesn’t want just two hours a week from us, or even four or six. He wants all of us. Everything we do must fit into him.
In many ways, it’s actually freeing to think about Christianity as an all-consuming venture. If we think about it as a side thing, a portion or percentage of our lives, then we are burdened with never doing enough. We already have our plate so full with non-negotitables: work and family, sleeping and eating, resting and playing. Then we struggle how to fit in the religious activities that re-center us, that give us perspective. But if 100% of our time belongs to God, then it becomes clear that necessities like work, and rest, and time in the kitchen are all tools that God has given to us to draw us closer to him. Our self-assigned “homework,” then, is to make progress in 1) examining our own character, 2) seeing how the fabric of our daily lives informs and shapes our character, and 3) making changes in our habits and routines that will push our character more toward that of a Christlike spirit. We don’t ask people to carve out time each week to work on a side project; we ask them to keep at the forefront of their minds the kind of person who God wants them to become, and let that goal infuse all that they do in an ordinary day.
As an example: Let us say that someone in the group is feeling convicted or inspired to work on their anger or a quick rush to judgment. We might begin a conversation around the question of: What situations trigger you to become angry, or what people get under your skin? Clearly, an answer to this question isn’t going to involve a small, once-weekly effort but a substantial digging into the elements of daily living. For the sake of argument, let’s say this person decides that one of their biggest triggers is driving: the rush-hour traffic burns his or her fuse down to the point that it’s liable to go off on anyone. At this point we discuss how to uncouple those sinful emotions from the daily experience and replace them with Christlike ones. It might be something as practical and simple as leaving for work ten minutes earlier, or taking an alternate route that is longer around but less stop-and-go. Perhaps this person might try singing or praying in the car to focus away from the feelings of frustration. Another idea could be to look past the anonymous metal vehicles and see the people inside, the long lines of human beings trying to make their way through the day, each of whom God knows and loves whole-heartedly, and to treat them as God would — or at the very least, to marvel at how much bigger God is, and the world is, than your own sphere of friends and family extends.
The key is to arrive at goals like this that are concrete, specific, practical, and achievable. Even though we are talking about character, the spirit, and the heart — spiritual matters — our approaches are through the tangible, physical reality of this world. God gave us our bodies, and our world, and called it good. He intends to resurrect us to new bodies in the new heaven and the new earth. Our spiritual strivings must not simply come from the brain, from the will, but also from the interactions with the created order that affect how we think and act. We all are aware that if we are lacking sleep or haven’t eaten in a while, that affects our mood and our thoughts, making us more quick to negative reactions. It is not unspiritual to attack this problem of the spirit through the restoration of balance in our physical bodies. Getting enough sleep and caring for our health can be profoundly spiritual acts, to name just two. Our group discussions are aimed at teasing out more and more of these atypical approaches through practical means.
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EVERYTHING I HAVE laid out so far are structural imperatives we use in fostering spiritual growth: ask pertinent questions, take the time to listen well, don’t judge but offer help and suggestions, come up with a concrete plan, and give yourself homework. Just as important, though, are the conceptual imperatives, the way which we think about our relationship with God and envision our path toward growth. What is absolutely essential in our conversations about making spiritual goals and living out our faith in relationships is this: God looks at the heart, not our outward displays.
It can be extremely difficult for us to shake the idea that what it means to be a good Christian is to attend church, read the Bible and pray, and donate money and service in the name of Jesus. Although they are all important things, a person could easily sleepwalk through years of ticking off these checkboxes on the to-do list without ever really engaging them. Even worse, they are quantifiable measures, meaning a person could easily be tempted to increase the number of services attended, chapters read, hours prayed, ministries committed to, and money given, in order to try to feel closer to or more loved by God.
But if we remember that God is interested in the heart, and what he wants for us is to be more hopeful, more joyful, more creative and spontaneous with our love, more perseverant, more bold and courageous, more patient and kind and long-suffering — then we have a whole new criterion to hold ourselves to. If God would rather have us truly engaging scripture once a week for a few verses than to read three chapters a day ritualistically, then our relationship with time is changed. If we understand that God would rather have you give one dollar cheerfully than a hundred dollars begrudgingly, then we discover a whole new economy. If God is more glorified when you make the effort repair a broken relationship by asking for forgiveness rather than singing a hundred songs about God’s forgiveness, then the direction of our energies is shifted.
So as we ask our group the question “where are you striving to grow spiritually?”, we expect that the answer will be couched in terms of one’s character, in terms of our intentions and motivations that we are asking God to transform. The term we usually use is that we are pursuing a “spirit change.”
The process works something like this: Someone in the group will share about a difficult relationship they have, with a roommate or boss, perhaps. Or someone will share about being drained and depleted from too much going on in life. These are the things that God has burden their hearts to confront. But rather than deal with those issues head-on, and trying to conquer them through force or determination, we take a step back and say: What element of your character is not letting you deal with this situation easily? What part of you needs to change so that you can bring to bear a new perspective and new energy to the situation, seeking a transformative outcome rather than simply putting a bandage on the situation? Let’s work on that first, separated from the immediate crisis.
I cannot overemphasize the importance of naming a spirit change when working on spiritual growth. Simply keeping at the forefront of our minds that we are trying to work on patience (or on gratitude, compassion, listening, boldness, forgiveness, or perseverance, to name a few examples) gives us a new outlook on every facet of our lives. Every moment is a new opportunity to practice developing this new character trait, instead of only trying to deal with one small troubling incident. Naming a spirit change is making a diagnosis instead of putting a bandage over a symptom. No longer will we judge success of failure by the outcome of a particular relationship, or on our strength in getting through a harrowing schedule, but by the vibrancy and vitality of our heart’s reception to God’s spirit. The onus for progress is no longer on your own striving and effort, but on your submission to and embracing of the spirit of Christ. The very reason we use the name “Christlikeness Groups” is because we need the constant reminder that whatever we are dealing with in life, what’s important is that we use our circumstances to try to take on the character of God, through his grace.
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AT THE SAME TIME, it is important to remember that real change requires real work, and real openness. Naming a spirit change is important in making sure that we don’t get bogged down in the specifics of a situation, but it equally important that we don’t simply float above it all, clinging to a vague ideal of a love, joy or peace at the expense of working toward real, tangible, practical incarnations of love in this world. It is important to have the proper motivations and a true heart for God when striving after his character, but that does not get us off the hook for taking the risky and daring steps toward an open and dynamic living out of one’s faith.
Toward that end, we have developed a certain structure, a set of loose guidelines, that the group collectively has found helpful in trying to honor and live up to these spirit changes. I must stress that this is absolutely not a fast track to success, or a secret formula that no one has ever discovered. In fact, for the most part, I try to keep the structure deep in the background, offering people space and freedom to try their own intuitive approaches or bring their own personal touch to a situation. But there are certain lessons that people in the group have learned, through their own trial and error, that can be of help to all of us, and I like to make these suggestions available to people who don’t know where to begin. These guidelines are not to be taken as mandates, rigid and constricting, placing complex human emotions and relationships into artificial boxes. That said, we are equally aware that discovering what has worked for people in the past, and what hasn’t, can be an invaluable resource. In short, we have found that:
Working to adopt a particular characteristic of Christ requires that our efforts are:
— rooted in relationship with Jesus
— reinforced through daily decisions
— supported by a group of believers
— expressed in relationship with others
Let us examine each of these elements individually before discussing how they fit together as a whole.
The first we often refer to as developing an “intimacy with God” or cultivating a “love of Jesus”; different terms tend to work for different people, so we try not to codify it too much. The essential point is that it is not by our own efforts that we are transformed, but only through a closeness and communion with the living God, whose mindset, and approaches and solutions to problems, rubs off on us the more we walk and talk alongside him. For some, this area might involve developing a deeper prayer life or reading the Bible more. For others, it might mean setting aside a dull devotional routine and listening to the voice of God through other means, like a walk in the woods, through music, or painting, or journaling. The classic Christian disciplines like fasting, solitude, study, and simplicity would fit here as well. The point is that we don’t want to take our relationship with God as a given, or to coast on our past closeness, or to imagine that we know the full extent of the mystery of God. We want to keep exploring, seeking ways to renew and maintain the vibrancy of our relationship.
Now, few if any of us are always at a peak in our relationship with God, and I absolutely do not want to suggest that you have to master this step before you can move on to becoming like Jesus. It is not a linear process, A first, then B, then C. Becoming more like Jesus is not an extra task added onto a deep sense of connection with God; they are intertwined. If you try to seek the presence, comfort, healing, and restoration of God in your life but want to keep him at a distance from the inner workings of your heart, you’ll find it hard to feel that presence. To truly be touched by God without making oneself vulnerable and open to being changed and transformed by the encounter is a near impossibility. Reflecting the likeness and image of Christ is at the very center of a proper relationship with God: We were made with the express intent to be image-bearers of God, and we were saved from sin so that Christ might live through us. To pursue the nature and character of Jesus when you are at your very lowest might in fact one of the best ways to reignite a flagging enthusiasm, because it connects us to God’s own heart and desire, his true passion for us. Communing with God and adopting his heart go hand-in-hand together.
One way in which this might work is, keeping your particular spirit change in mind, to use a concordance to create a Bible-reading track filled with God’s thoughts and words on the particular characteristic you’re seeking. Use a hymnal, or go through your own music collection, to find and sing songs about the nature of God that supports your goal. Read books by Christian authors you respect on the subject. Make your prayer life about a better understanding of your temperament and motivations, and of his temperament and motivations, so that you can learn from him. Ask him into the situation. However, this is only one approach. If you feel like things are going well with God at the moment, don’t try to shoehorn something artificial into the equation. If God laid on your heart the need to deal with a particular spirit change, simply follow that prompting through your normal channels of hearing from and responding to God. Maintaining an intimacy with God is one area where there might be thousands and thousands of viable approaches — if you have key methods or places or times that you know work well for you, revisit those first; alternately, you can open yourself to suggestions from the group and try a new approach in renewing your love of Jesus.
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THE SECOND ELEMENT is reinforcing your spirit change through daily and mundane decisions, also known as a “pattern change” or “spiritual conditioning.” I touched on this component earlier, in my example of the frustrated driver who is using the day-to-day pattern of driving to confront deeper issues of anger and control.
I consider this element to be the closest thing we have to a secret weapon, because it probably goes most unmentioned in the church today. The physical body and the daily life are often thought of as ordinary and unremarkable compared to the mind and spirit, and the compartmentalized spiritual experiences of a person. This false dichotomy between spirit and flesh, sacred and secular, runs counter to the way in which God created us, as a whole unit, a union of body and soul, as beings that needs sleep and food, whose lives are filled with ordinary tasks. When God gives the law to the Israelites, he makes it clear than no part of life, no matter how simple and ordinary, should escape its right place in our communion with Him: “Repeat [these commands] again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Duet. 6: 7-9).
One’s character is formed not through a single, important decision about a dilemma, nor through a mental adherence to a stated ideal, but through thousands and thousands of small decisions made day in and day out, which accumulate into shaping who you are. A person does not becoming loving toward one’s neighbors just by volunteering in a soup kitchen once, but by confronting the root causes of one’s indifference toward neighbors. What structures in your life are taking you out of community and keeping you at arm’s length from people? Why are you striving toward self-sufficiency, and then reaching out to others only out of your abundance, instead of from your need? What would you need to do to cultivate better habits of listening and interest in others rather than staying focused only on your own? The answers may touch on some of the most basic elements of our lives: where we live, what our checkbook looks like, how much time we spend indoors, the kinds of books and articles we read, how clean our house is for potentially inviting over guests, how often we put ourselves in situations where we are the new person, and on and on and on. We shape our reactions and thoughts through these physical constructs that we have created for ourselves. Just as when an athlete repeats an action hundreds or thousands of times so that it becomes part of his or her muscle memory, or when Pavlov’s dogs were trained to make the mental leap from the sound of a bell to the anticipation of food, the repeated patterns in our lives actually makes the physical pathways in our bodies and minds stronger and more easily traveled. We get trapped into repeating what we’ve always done if we don’t break out of the routines we’ve made for ourselves. We absolutely must examine the ways in which we are conditioning ourselves to think and act, and alter our patterns to allow for new thoughts and ideas and approaches to come to the surface. Every mundane task and activity is an opportunity to practice teasing out a new and transformed spirit.
Let us say, for instance, that the spirit change you’re working on is patience. You find that you’re quick to anger in a particular relationship, and you want to work on taking the time to listen and not assuming you know how an argument will unfold. What you need to do is to step back from the particular relationship and broaden the scope to examine your whole life, and ask yourself: “What in my life, on a regular basis, triggers a rush to judgment, or triggers turning a deaf ear to someone? How can I practice cultivating a different reaction to these triggers, in situations that are maybe not as highly charged emotionally for me? Or, perhaps, do I have such a great number of triggers in my life that the problem is in my regular habits, and it’s only in one relationship that I feel permission to lash out?” There is a bit of self-diagnosis going on here, but fortunately, these questions are explored in the context of the group, where we can all brainstorm together and learn from other people’s stories and experiences making changes in their lives. Maybe in the above scenario, you discover that you spend a lot of time reading the political opinions in the newspaper, or the home-team sports columnist, or the witty movie critic: personalities who get away with being opinionated and derisive rather than nuanced and understanding. You might try taking a break from that reading habit for a while, and read books of memoirs or poetry for a while, of a different tone and see if it effects you in any way. Dig into the patterns of your life that you don’t even think about, that are just there, taking up space, and ask yourself how you can turn them toward the purpose of being present, joyful, aware, reflective, invitational, or prayerful. Change your routines and see what you miss, and what you can do without. Keep the things that make you feel more expansive and life-giving, in a better place to respond to people in your life with the love of Christ.
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(If you have read this far, congratulations! You’re a trooper. I am still working on writing about the last two components, and the summary, so be sure to check back in the next week for the rest of the article to be published.)
