River's Edge Community Church

Sunday is a day of preparation, a day to focus on what we want God to produce in us as a result of our time this week.

We believe that far too much attention in Christian spirituality is concerned with retreat and reflection. While we acknowledge and appreciate a rich inner life, we believe that true spiritual formation requires that we engage our culture and speak relevantly to our world. Our spirituality is intimately connected to our missional calling. Here’s the bottom line: true spirituality doesn’t withdraw and retreat. It isn’t found in a fortress locked away from the surrounding culture. Instead, it engages the world and speaks its language so that it may present Christ.

Israel’s purpose and calling was to speak to the nations. The disciples were not only taught by Jesus, but were sent out into the world to proclaim the good news. The book of Acts is the story of the early church proclaiming Christ throughout the Roman Empire. And our calling is to continue their work by taking Christ into our world in ways that they can hear and understand. Spiritual formation involves living to change our world.


Paul writes (2 Corinthians 10:3-5):
     For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.


Let’s pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.


When we talk about growing in our ability to engage our world with the Word of God and to speak relevantly to it, we look for these five signs of God’s work in us:

1. We are attempting to engage our culture skillfully at some point.
2. We are having more spiritual conversations with people who are lost, conversations that are winsome, gentle, gracious and engaging.
3. Unchurched people see us as a loving people and they speak highly of our character, integrity and compassionate lifestyle.
4. We are growing in our awareness of the needs of others (both here and around the world) and how we can make a difference in their lives.
5. We feel we are removing (and not creating) barriers to faith in the lives of people so that the only barrier left is the clear offense of the cross.

Pray through the above statements and ask God to lead you to choose one that you feel is most important to you right now for your spiritual formation. Pray that God would produce this in you in the upcoming weeks (“O God, change me. Pour out your grace upon me so that . . . .”). Pray this prayer repeatedly throughout the upcoming week. Keep this request in mind as a goal so that you will be aware of opportunities that God is giving you to develop this in you.


This one thing I ask of God this week (Prayer Goal for this week), that he would transform me with his grace so that ______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________.

My prayer goal for last week was _________________________________________.


(Optional) Reflecting on the Christ follower’s relationship to culture (from All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, by Kenneth A. Myers, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Il, 1989, p. 51)

     “But saying that human culture is not holy is not to say that it is worthless. It is still part of the image of God in us for men and women to pursue cultural activities. The experience of human culture in all its diversity is the way we enjoy being human. And enjoy it we must. Being human is the most profound aspect of the creation for which we ought to give thanks. If we can enjoy the beauty of all else in creation, how foolish to resent or ignore the image of the Creator, the pinnacle of creation. It is being human, not being saved – it is the image of God in us, not regeneration – that establishes the capacity to recognize the distinctions between the beautiful and the ugly, between order and chaos, between the creative and the stultifying.
     We were created beings before we were redeemed beings. God’s benediction on creation has not been entirely erased by the Fall. Jesus Himself is not only divine, He is human. Does he enjoy it, or simply endure it? Until our bodies are made new, like the body Jesus now enjoys, our calling is not to escape fleshly existence, nor to sanctify culture (since it is “common,” shared by believer and unbeliever, and cannot be made holy), but to so influence our culture as to make it more consistent with the created nature of man and to sanctify our own lives, because we are also living in the Spirit, with our minds set on the things that are above.”

What does this reading call you to do? Is this a novel concept for you or is it business as usual?

How do Christians try to escape their humanity?

Myers says our calling is not to escape our culture, not to sanctify it, but to influence it as to make it more consistent with the created nature of man. What does he mean?

How do these paragraphs relate to our passage above (2 Cor. 10)?

How can this reading shape how you approach this week?


Let’s Pray (adapted from The Valley of Vision):
O God,
I know that I often do your work without your power,
     and sin by my Pharisaical obedience, my lack of love, my lack of prayer.
I see sin in my heart in seeking the applause of others.
This is my vileness, to make men’s opinion my rule,
     whereas I should see what good I have done and give you glory,
     and consider what sin I have committed and mourn for that.
It is my deceit to serve and to pray and to stir up others’ spiritual affections
     in order to beget commendations,
     whereas my rule should be daily to consider myself more vile than any man in my own eyes.
But you show your power in my frailty,
      so that the more feeble I am, the more fit I am to be used,
           for you do pitch a tent of grace in my weakness.
Help me to rejoice in my infirmities and give you praise;
      to acknowledge my deficiencies before others,
           and not be discouraged by them
      that they may see your glory more clearly.
Teach me that I must act by a power supernatural
      whereby I can attempt things above my strength,
           acting for Christ in all
           and having his power to help me.
Let me learn of Paul,
      whose presence was lacking,
      his weakness great,
      his speech unprofessional,
      yet you did account him faithful and blessed.
Lord, let me lean on you as he did,
      and find my service yours.


Thinking Through Spiritual Formation and Growth
Choose one or two of the following questions and think through your answer.

How do you think the world wages war in order to win in the marketplace of ideas and in the pursuit of popular?

How are we to demolish strongholds?

What does it mean to be “in the world” but not “of” it?

How is the local church to put this passage into practice?

What does it mean to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ?

What does it mean to be a culturally-engaged spiritually-formed Christ follower?


A Thought to Ponder
"The friends of God should love him to the point of merging their love with his with regard to all things here below."  (Simone Weil)


Closing Prayer:
Abba Father, pour out your love upon us so that we may love you and love our neighbor as ourselves. Give us wisdom that we may engage our world with your truth. Give us compassion that we may speak with tenderness. Give us courage that we may always be faithful and give us hearts of faith that we may seek your glory in everything we do. Today, we give ourselves to you, body, soul and spirit and ask that you advance your kingdom in us and through us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.