Hey friend, welcome to another episode of the Sunday Sit down
and we are glad that you are tuning in on this not quite
Advent. Advent See Christmassy but not
quite Christmas episode. So yesterday for us, this past
Sunday, we began our Christmas series and we did it one week
earlier than normal. Advent, what do you call 0.5?
Advent 0.5 Yeah, which also, hey, we tried to do it at 0.5
speed. Half don't do that.
That's gonna sound terrible. That's not what you meant by
slowing. Down.
No, not quite, not that much. Although for some people they
prefer, you know, like I've, I've heard some people say that
Grant, he's a, you know, a great preacher, but he, he speaks real
fast sometimes. That's cause I gotta get
everything out, Yeah. Otherwise they'll be, we'll be
here for like 52 minutes. Yeah.
And, and so the flip of that is I was with someone yesterday who
really listens to my messages on 1.5 times speed.
Yeah. So you go both ways, right.
I think when you listen to something online, you can tend
to speed it up a bit faster if you're only listening to it and
then you just get into the flow of it.
Whereas in person, yeah, we want to try to slow down a little
bit. I need to slow down a little bit
and just remember to do that. So in the name of slowing down,
what we want to do today is talk a little bit about where we
landed yesterday and our challenge to the congregation,
which is to really do just that. Slow down during Advent and be
intentional about what you're doing, what you're not doing,
what you're spending time on, what you're not spending time
on, what you're spending money on, what you're not spending
money on, all of the things. And just to name attention,
which I named yesterday, which I think is where we're going to
begin today, I, I, I preached on preparing out of Isaiah and the
idea that in Isaiah's language, to prepare doesn't mean do more
things. It, it in many, many ways just
means be different, live differently.
And so we talked about that language, that word itself
meaning to turn, like to turn your face in a different
direction, to turn your body in a different direction, and then
to begin to move in that direction.
In many ways, and I don't have a direct link in the Septuagint to
the New Testament, but it in many ways carries the same
definition as the Greek word metanoia, which is to repent and
to change your. Mind that was like, there's
gotta be a connection. There.
Yeah. So I didn't wanna preach that
necessarily yesterday, but it in many ways it holds that same
meaning. And I remember when I was
preaching on repentance, one day I brought somebody up from the
congregation and said, OK, face this way, now face this way.
Turn 150°. That's what it means.
You're changing your mind in a way that also changes the
direction of your lived experience and trajectory,
right? So to prepare is really to turn
and to be different, to live differently.
And that's our call to you. That's what we're challenging
ourselves with this Advent is to prepare by living differently
and trying to do this Advent season differently.
It's why we started a week too early because we wanted to give
you a full week to, to prepare, to prepare like, you know, don't
be surprised on the 1st Sunday of Advent.
So I think what we're going to do today and what we've been
talking about is just talking through some of these practices
because I left, I said here's the tension.
Uh, do less. Here's a whole list of things to
do. Are correct, right?
Unbelievable. So let's talk through this list
and really wrestle out why it's not simply doing more or adding
more to your To Do List. Because what I don't want you
listener feeling and walking away thinking is, Oh my
goodness. Now on top of everything else
that I have to do, those pastors over there are telling me to do
all these other things as well. And now I'm overwhelmed.
Which which feels, you know, just to kind of call back to
last week a little bit, you know, Jesus critique toward the
the scribes and the Pharisees was often that they were heaping
more laws upon the people, right.
Yeah. And and that is not what we are
aiming to do here, right. And in fact, I mean, I'm, I'm
just even thinking about, you know, my morning struggle to if
I get up, you know, in in good time, which I try to do more
mornings than not to be able to just be still before God.
Like there is always the tension of I could sit here and scroll
whatever, you know, your medium of choices for half an hour or
do something more intentional, right?
Like there is a choice to be made, not an addition to.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the word intentional,
right? I think that's what we're really
challenging ourselves with. So here's the piece with the
Pharisees, right? Jesus says you heap heavy
burdens on all the people and you yourself are not even
willing to lift a finger to do them.
And so I like, I just want to say, and I'll speak for myself
like these are practices that I'm committing to do that are
will be challenging for me to do as well.
So, you know, it's not like this is not coming from a place of,
hey, look at the five practices that I do every year now you
need to do them too. Like this will be a challenge
for me and for my family to incorporate one or two of these
into our intentional rhythms of life for the next 4 weeks.
But it's a challenge because it's, it's so different from
what we're used to, rather than just, it's a challenge because
it's just how are we gonna make time for all this, right?
Like the time is there, right? And it's just about re, you
know, reorienting, realigning, preparing for it in this way.
Yeah, yeah. So I think the first thing if
we're going to talk about steps like just to get really
practical and, and name, you know, these five practices, what
they could look like. I think the first step before
you even get to these practices is to sit down and either by
yourself, if you have that kind of autonomy over your own
schedule or with a spouse, with your family, say together,
alright, in order to do this, we need to give something up.
What is the thing that we're going to give up?
Might not even be like, what's the thing we're willing to give
up because that gets into a different, but what is the thing
that we're going to choose to give up in order to incorporate
some of these practices? We believe that we want to do
ADVENT differently. So therefore, what needs to be
different? What are we going to let go of?
And you know, you get the easy culprits, right?
The easy quick sort of you've said social media, maybe you
delete all your social media off your phone for Advent.
And that's the I'm going to give that U and I'm going to instead
I'm going to install Lectio 365 and that's going to be my go to
thing. Whenever I talk to people about
habits, like we're really trying to change and form our habits.
You need to replace a habit with a habit.
Like you can't just say, oh, I'm gonna do this new thing or you
can't just say I'm gonna undo this old thing.
So for me, like if I want to spend less time on my phone,
what I do, and I think we've talked about this a little bit,
is I have a pocket sized notebook that's basically the
same size as my phone and it goes into my back pocket, which
is where my phone normally is. So if I want to be intentional
for a day about not reaching for my phone, my phone goes into a
different spot. Usually it's into like I've got
this little tech case that I put it into and zipper it up and
then it goes into my backpack and a zipper that up and I'm
just like barrier after barrier here, right?
And so I'll stash it away somewhere and I still hear it if
it rings, but like, I'll stash it away.
And then instead I'll put a notebook in my back pocket
because what's the habit? The habit is I'm gonna reach for
my phone. And so instead it makes me pull
out a journal. I'm like, well, I guess I'm
gonna write something down like, you know, you need to, you need
to start tricking your brain a little bit in terms of doing
this. So give something up and choose
what that is. So, you know, maybe it's social
media, maybe you put something in its place like 2365, maybe
it's evening, Netflix, Disney, Prime Video, whatever, like
streaming or television. If people still have satellite
or cable subscriptions, you know, maybe maybe you actually
decide to unplug it, right? Or, you know, you put in like
into your router, if you're smart enough to do this, like,
hey, turn off at such and such a time so that you're not gonna go
and stream, you know, endlessly for a few hours in the evening.
Maybe it's video games, Maybe it's.
Stop calling me out, I'm sorry. You know, like pick what it is
for you. Don't let like I think that
there what what I'm trying to say is don't let us dictate what
that thing is. Yeah, I think everybody will
know. Different for.
Everyone, yeah, here's the thing that I could let go of for for a
season and it doesn't even need to be a bad thing.
Yeah, that's the, that's the, I think the other piece right, is
it's just a choice. So yeah, do that first.
A 10.5 step. 1A. Choose what you're going to let
go of. And so like you talked about
like, you know, deleting certain apps and adding something like
like, like your 365, which we've talked about quite a bit.
And that's one, that's one form of like it's kind of a loose
form of Lectio Divina, right? There's, it's not quite the same
as Lectio Divina, but it's, it can kind of get you there is in
a guided sort of way, right? And so like, that's like a,
that's a great way, but it's not the only way to do it, right.
And so you've highlighted in these practices kind of a a
proper Lectio Divina where you are just sitting with a
scripture and you're reading, meditating and praying and
contemplating, right. So when we talk a little bit
more specifically about that practice, yeah.
And just to say, one of the reasons why I like lactose so
much, like the Lecture 365 app, is that it, it actually
incorporates practice 1 and practice two.
Yeah, into its just if you put the app on your phone, what
you're going to see is it's got sorry not to It's it's three
practice 3, the fixed hour prayer more so so practice 1 and
practice 3. But it has this slowed down way
of reading Scripture and then encouraging you to contemplate,
pray through it. And it's going to give you
prayers if you like. I don't even know where to
start. It's so it's such a great on
ramp. And then it's also, you know, it
has it has alarms and it has morning and evening.
So you can get into some of the more fixed hour prayers as well.
Say Hey remind me to do this but.
I think this afternoon now too. Yeah, yeah.
So let's just like you said so practice 1.
I often just say lectio, which just that doesn't define it at
all. But in English, sacred reading
is the translation. And these are all, like, the
thing I love about these practices is they're all so old,
like they are ancient. Practices.
They're awesome. And I think the thing, the thing
that I would love for people to realize is like, I didn't cook
these up and, you know, you and I didn't sit and be like, oh,
what, what can we make people do?
Like these are practices. Novel is like sometimes the best
things. Often when it comes to our you
know, our spiritual practice is the best things are the ones
that have been tried, tested and true over generations and
centuries and millennia. Saints have been formed.
Yeah. By doing these practices, Yeah.
And you know, that goes down a theological rabbit trail that
we're not gonna go to today. Yeah.
But like there is there's something good and leaning into
practices that are historical and well trodden.
You know, these are are good ones in that way.
So, Lectio, here's the the, you know, 32nd elevator pitch.
It is going to help you slow down and listen for what God
might be saying to you through a specific passage of Scripture.
Yeah, you're not trying to cruise through it to get done.
It's not about efficiency. It's not, we're not, we're not
enc no. And we're not saying read an
entire chapter or three chapters or a whole book.
We're saying slow down. Read a few verses and allow God
to speak to you. So if you've been wrestling
through how and when and where does God speak to me?
And if you've been saying to yourself, like I really want to
hear from God this season, whatever that season is, right?
Good or bad, Um, this is a good way to do that because one of
the things that I'd like to remind people is, um, I think we
all go through moments where like I just, I want God to speak
to me. I want God to say something like
I wanna hear from God and at the same time we say that and then
are not reading Scripture and they go.
You have in front of you, like so many of the messages and
words and moments where God has shown up and spoken.
Um, and, and, and yet we kind of like leave it off to the side.
We'll say, well, I, I don't want, I don't want to read the
Bible. I want to hear from God.
Yeah, I was like, well, listen, like chances are this is the way
he's gonna speak to you. Yeah.
And so I think it's a great place to start.
So what I would love for people to do is slow down, read the
text. You read it in a way of just
say, hey, what is this text saying?
Simply put, what is it saying? And then you meditate on it.
What is the text saying to me? What's jumping out at you?
What is standing out? What is grabbing your attention?
What words can you not move off from?
Like what's the thing that you keep repeating and rereading?
So what does the text say #1 and then what does the text say to
me? Almost like as an emphasis there
um #3 to pray. What do I want to say to God?
What does this text challenge me to say to God?
What am I bringing as I come? And it's kind of like a shedding
of yourself a little bit like, you know, you get into these
moments where like in prayer, you again, if you want to hear,
but you just can't get out of this like framework of but this
is going on and this is going on, this is going on.
I said like God cares about that.
So bring that and then you get contemplate, like, what is God
trying to say to me in the midst of what I'm saying to God, in
the midst of what the text is saying to me in the midst of
what the text is just plainly saying?
Yeah. And do that a few times.
So you go, you know, go through that kind of three times.
Yeah, if you're if you're someone who's like interested in
diving a little deeper into some of this, there's a really short
book by Eugene Peterson called Eat This Book.
Have you read that one? Yeah, Yeah.
It's a great, it's a great little, just little book that
kind of goes through the different facets of Lectio and
talks about why it is so such a beautiful practice.
And he kind of use otherwise. The reason it's called Eat This
Book is because he kind of uses the metaphor of I think it's
Ezekiel that, you know, that has this image of eating, eating the
scroll and it tasted like honey. And, and, and kind of using that
example of like when we when we slow down and we just savor and
listen, God speaks in pretty amazing ways.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
The last thing that I would add to that is I like to do Lectio
with a journal reopen beside me because again, slowed down.
You're trying to listen. Sometimes it's helpful just to
write things down as you go. So use that as a tool.
That's number one. And that could look like every
morning, that could look like, you know, part way through the
afternoon. It could happen in the evening.
There's no set time where this works better than others.
I think that the challenges carve out the time and commit to
doing it at the same time. That that would be my
encouragement. Cool.
Yeah, alright, practice too. This one has to happen at a
specific time. Yes, yeah.
So this one and and admittedly this one is less familiar for
me. So I'd I'd love to hear a bit
more about it. I'm I am vaguely familiar, but
the daily examine. Yeah, so Ignatian, this is
Ignatian practice. Daily examine is out of the
ignition order so originated with Ignatius of Loyola and
again ancient practice it it really is I I think and in my
experience to hone in on that contemplation.
The thing I love about it is that in in a similar way to like
a brother Lawrence practice the presence of God, right doing
dishes do like in the back of the kitchen doing dishes
wrestling out the presence of God in these moments.
I think the thing that I love about this, the daily examine is
that it is very pointed at looking for God in your everyday
life. So what it's not is this super
sacred separate moment where you're doing your devotion thing
and then you re enter back into everyday secular life, whatever
like this one fights that disintegrated life to use some
of our language from the past few weeks.
So the disintegration where you are ripping apart like your work
life from your home life, from your Christian life.
This is God time. This is me time.
Absolutely, like there is no sacred secular divide in Jesus's
understanding of the world. And so this enters into that
frame of mind where there's no, you don't get the excuse of,
well, you know, that's my work life, so I can leave it over
there. Now is my time with Jesus and
I'm going to focus on scripture. Everything of your life gets
brought into like the light of examining before Jesus.
So again, this one's a little bit, a little bit more nebulous,
but you can look so online if you Google like the daily
examine or ignition practice daily examine, you will find
many different resources on these five steps.
But generally speaking, there are 5 movements to the daily
examine. This is meant to take place at,
you know, in the evening after your day is done.
And it's meant for you to look back on your day.
And it's meant to encourage you toward gratitude.
And it's meant to encourage you to name.
The places where you saw God at work.
So sometimes it's hard to do that in the moment.
Sometimes you're in the moment, like I wanna remember this
tonight. So it just helps you name God's
presence and God's acting in your life when you are like,
say, doing dishes or on your commute or at work or at school
or at home, like wherever you find yourself.
SO5 practices or five movements, intentionally placing yourself
in God's presence and giving thanks for his love.
So settling into a place where you can sit and consciously
choose to realize God's presence.
That's not gonna feel like it might.
It might feel like, you know, the clouds parting and light,
you know, shining into a room and like it might feel this
super spiritual. Sometimes it's just like a
stillness. Right.
More often than not, it's choosing to acknowledge the
presence of God that Scripture says is there, as opposed to
wait and be like, OK, God, I'm ready.
I'm ready for you to show up. It's actually like God.
I'm going to choose to believe and trust that you're here with
me. Alright, so you're shifting your
own mind about, you know, the presence of God.
But place yourself in God's presence.
Give thanks for His love. Start with gratitude #2 pray for
grace to understand how God is acting in your life.
Just say, hey God, I want to see you at work more.
Again, I'm going to choose to trust that you are.
Help me to see the ways you are working.
Yeah, and help me to trust that it is you working.
So again, 1-2, place yourself in God's presence, pray for grace
and an understanding of how God is acting in your life, and then
#3 review your day. Think about the things that you
did. Think about the things that you
didn't do. O we use this language in our
prayers of confession, right? Things that we did, things that
we left undone, right? But I think you just think
through the steps of your day and how were you so like getting
your kids out the door, trying to pile them all into snow
suits. And like this very real one for
me, like trying to pile my kids into snow suits this morning.
Like, how was I? And and nice.
Yes and no. Like me.
And it's like no, like, no, like Monday morning snow suits.
It's it's sometimes it's a battle.
Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes I have
patience and sometimes I don't have patience.
Yeah. And today was a less patient
day. Hmm.
For sure. Hmm.
So think through those moments of your day and listen, the the
point isn't to add guilt and shame.
And, you know, not that those things are even the same.
Yeah. But but it's to notice the
notice to to notice and to allow God into those spaces, because
sometimes I think we can just go on autopilot right in our day
without, without self reflection, without looking back
at me, like I kind of was a jerk to my kids this morning.
Perhaps, you know, tomorrow I can be more conscious of my
what, you know, my own emotions in that moment.
What's, what is you know what, what's what's going on with me,
right? Yeah, I the beauty of this is I
get to say, you know, alright, how was I wasn't at my best.
What am I gonna do differently? Yeah, absolutely.
And, and to do that in a place before God is, you know, in many
ways like, hey, if if you know, if you're wrestling at what
confession is like you just, you just made it 90% of the way
there right before God. And so review your day, be
grateful for what you should be grateful for, and then recall
specific moments and then specific emotions attached to
them, Right. So name the wins and also name
the losses and name your motions in and through all of it.
Reflect on what you did, what you said, what you thought.
Were you in that moment moving closer to God or further away
from God? So that's the fourth one.
I think that's where you, you, you are challenged to be the
most honest and raw. Be like, yeah, my commute this
morning was not moving closer to God, did not reflect Jesus.
Well, that I'm not saying that about my day today cause I've
got the greatest commute in the history of commutes.
One minute. Yeah, if I walk like it's, it's
so, so, you know, there have been days though, where I had
like hour and a half commutes, absolutely frustrated and
stressed out and not in those moments moving closer to God.
So how am I gonna do that differently?
Again, don't beat yourself up. But just this gives you an
opportunity to be honest and then #5 look forward to
tomorrow. How might you partner with God
and invite him into your day? And I would say like, invite him
into your day in a different way.
Like, what steps are you going to take to just say, hey, I'm
choosing to be more conscious out of you showing up and how
I'm leaning into that or running away from that.
Help me to do that better tomorrow.
Yeah. So it it here's one of the wins
of this thing. So if you go to bed and you find
yourself waking up thinking, Oh, I didn't do this.
I gotta remember that tomorrow. I can't believe I left.
Like, ohk, OK, gotta run down, figure that out.
I left an e-mail and like unresponded to or I got text
this person. Like if you find yourself waking
up with that jolt and going, oh, like this is a really good
safeguard against that. And what a what a great way to
slow down this Advent just to reflect on every single day as
you move toward Christmas. And I bet you're going to see a
massive change in a whole lot of different things, like you might
start sleeping better, you'll probably have more patience.
You might feel a little worse about yourself for a little
while. Yeah, but gives you a chance
maybe to repair some things that have been, um, you know, broken
to some degree or fractured. Those are not insignificant
changes to think about over the course of a month just simply by
reviewing your day before God and saying, God help me to be
different tomorrow. Like I'm going to choose to be
different. So give me what I need again,
like the invitation into Jesus prayer guy, give me, you know,
give me today what I need for today.
So you go to bed starting to pray that prayer, God for
tomorrow. Give me what I need just for
tomorrow. As you as you unpack some of
those, it is, you know, going back to like your like your 365.
The evening one does incorporate quite a bit of this as well.
It does. So that is you know, if if that
if you need a bit of guidance with that.
I love, I love the evening one because it it almost puts me to
sleep in like the best way. Yeah, like so.
Absolutely, Yeah. I think what we're just saying
is if if all you did was download like 2365 this Advent
and committed to opening that app once a day, your life would
be better for it like that. What a what a beautiful.
This is not paid. This is not a paid sponsorship.
Nothing. No.
No, but I think we use it right. Yeah.
And like that, I think that's, that's probably the number one
indorsement is yeah, yeah, absolutely only endorse the
things that we know. So OK, so that's practice one
and two practice 3 fixed hour prayer.
Hmm. Or what's often been called
Liturgy of the Hours. Again, just this.
Really, this one may be the most structured in terms of your
entire day. And where your technology might
come in handy. Yeah, because you can actually
just like put a little alarm on your phone or watch or whatever,
just to remind you. So what I would do here is
exactly that I would set an alarm for three times a day, and
that the first one might be the alarm that you set when you wake
up and you just go. I'm going to commit to not hit
snooze. That alarm is going to go off
and I before my feet hit the floor, I am going to say a
prayer, right? Don't light a candle before you
get out of bed. Probably not safe because that's
what I included for the morning. Like light a candle and read the
day's Advent reading. These are these are examples of
what you could do. You could you could sit up in
your bed if you had a candle on your night stand.
Just saying. Yeah, listen, that's do that at
your own risk. No, but I I think here's here's
the point. Morning, midday, evening, set an
alarm and choose a practice. It could be to pray the same
prayer you you could literally pray the Lord's Prayer three
times a day and that will begin to shift and change your
relationship to Jesus and others like it.
It. It doesn't need to be this fully
formed practice with candles and readings and it can be but if
well, I wanna be careful with this, but like if all you did
was three times a day prayed, the Lord's Prayer leaps and
bounds ahead of not doing. It.
Like can't even begin to say. So yeah, set an alarm for three
times a day and then choose a practice.
It could be the same practice that you do every single time,
or it could be a different practice at each point.
And I would say this is a great practice if you are not doing
anything right now, this is a great practice to start simply
by praying the Lord's Prayer three times a day.
If you have a daily prayer rhythm and you're like, I want
for something different or more, turn your current rhythm or
current routine into a fixed hour routine where maybe you're
already fantastic at giving up every morning and having quiet
time where you're praying in your reading scripture.
Great. So that's your morning.
This is an opportunity to add a midday prayer and then an
evening prayer, and maybe that evening prayer is the examine
and maybe your midday prayer is something like a Lectio 365
where you're listening. So that that I think is it this
is a really good practice for people who have a, a more fully
formed prayer life. And it's also a great practice
if you're looking for like just one kind of crazy.
And I'm doing air quotes here. But like, I know for some
people, in order to set a goal, it, you can't set a wimpy goal.
It's gotta be like, I'm gonna set a goal for 30 days to do
something a little, that sounds a little bit crazy because
that's the motivation, right? Like that's kind of the, the,
the reason behind it. So it's like, well, I'm not, I'm
not running at all. I did this one year.
I hadn't run in months and I was going on vacation.
So a sane goal would be I'm gonna run three times a week
while I'm on vacation. I said I'm going to run every
day and it didn't matter how far I ran, what mattered what.
So what qualified as a run? I could run to the mailbox 100
meters there and back. That counted.
If I got changed into my running equipment, like into my like
into my shorts, T-shirt, whatever, shoes, if I actually
gotcha. So running to catch my kid
because they're just like goofing off didn't count.
It had to be the intention, had to be there.
And then if I ran a block, fantastic, that worked.
That's a crazy goal after it had not running at all, right?
Were you sore? Yeah, it stunk, but I but I did
it because it was just a little bit crazy.
So the intention, right? The intention of it, it could
be, I think for midday I included a one minute silence
and then a simple three word prayer.
Come Lord Jesus, you might read that and go like that's that's
nothing. Don't like, but it's not
nothing. It's not the intent, It's the
intention. It's placing yourself before
God, right. We're talking about how do we
make ourselves available? Yeah, it literally a minute plus
3 words. See what guys gonna do with it.
One thing I love about all of these so far is that they're
just like we talked like them being like a little weird, like
this is like this is and as a church to like encourage
ourselves in this way. It's it's a little weird.
It's a little kind of counter cultural in like the best kind
of way. And that it that it pushes up
against the the tendencies of our world in in ways that that I
think are the most important for Christians to do.
Yeah. And that I think is the next one
as well for the the 4th practice of silence and solitude.
And I mean, I think this one is gaining more traction in, in
kind of pop psychology and culture, the, the, the
importance of like just being still and breathing and, and
even just like being bored, you know, and, and yeah, allowing
your mind to, to be distracted and then to return to, you know,
like, like there's, there's something that we're hearing a
lot more about the importance of, but you know, Christians
have been doing it for, for centuries.
Yeah, I almost called this practice.
Be bored. Yeah, like that is the like.
Choose to make yourself board again, like it is a gift.
Boredom is a tremendous gift. Why is it when I tell my kid
that it's not it's not well received?
Well, because you didn't receive it well when you were a kid.
It's only on the other. Side of it that.
You know, you come to realize I think creativity is born in
boredom. Like I I think what is This is
why I'm so leery of AI and generative, specifically
generative AI. Yeah, because what we're doing
is we're not allowing ourselves a couple of things.
We're not allowing ourselves to be bored because you can always
fill your space and time and mind with things, which was
stuff. Usually it's often it's garbage
stuff like just not good, right? What do we call it now?
Like brain rot brain. That's a.
Word. That is, That is a thing, yeah.
So that's number one, but I think #2 and, and I, I'm
starting to wonder and believe that this second one might be
more detrimental is the more, so there are now studies showing
that the more students, young students use AI to help quote,
like do research, the less they're able to think and
process, hmm, what it is they're doing right?
So when it comes to writing an essay, like, hey, give me an
outline for an essay, well, what have you not had to do?
Learn how to put together thoughts in an organized way
that that logically makes sense and takes somebody from here and
I'm pointing, you know, from here to there instead of not
knowing the answer to something and having to sit with that.
Oh, I don't know, like, what is it?
Could it be this? Could it be that like you're not
problem solving, so we've removed like there's there's no
need to problem solve anymore because you can go straight to
ChatGPT and say, help me, help me figure this out.
And you might get there faster and it might even be the like
you might get to a good logical place.
You might not AI is wrong. And we don't talk about that
enough that AI does make mistakes.
But what we're doing is we're not allowing ourselves the
challenge of thinking. We're not allowing ourselves the
challenge of being bored and going how, what, what could I
fill this space with? So we're going to lose, we're
going to lose problem solving and we're going to lose
creativity. And that worries me.
Yeah, and in a world that demands, you know, expediency
and efficiency, being bored and, and slowing down and being
silent for, you know, some people like you, I think you
wrote 5 to 10 minutes. My, my one professor who
doesn't, he wrote a book on like centering prayer and, and, and
that kind of thing. And he, he, he's like, I, I
encourage people to work their way like 30 minutes.
I'm like, who that's like that's, that's a lot.
That's a lot. But it's, I mean, it's changed
people's lives. There's a trend, there's a
there's a trend now where people are like, I'm gonna fly from
like Toronto to wherever, Vancouver, and I'm not gonna
watch anything and I'm not gonna.
Listen to anything you use that No but.
Yeah, it's, it's crass, but but there's a trend now of people
realizing and actually celebrating when you can sit
there without a screen in front of you for an hour, for two
hours, for three hours for A5, whatever it is.
I Yeah, there is something to be said about doing a full like 24
hours of silence and solitude. Like a full day, even a day like
a, like a, you know, 8 hour, like morning to evening kind of
thing. Yeah.
And I think that that probably terrifies a lot of people in
seasons where I've had to discern sort of large things,
Um, I've, I've felt that call to how you gotta get quiet before
God. And it's gotta be, it's gotta be
big. Like it's gotta be not the, the
normal sort of, yeah, I'm going to slow down for, for half an
hour, for an hour. Um, but yeah.
What could it look like to go away for a day, for a weekend?
Zechariah, he had to be quiet for a real long time.
Yeah, absolutely. That's just to tie in the the
biblical, you know, the the Jesus birth narrative.
Struck mute, right, Because he questions, he doubts.
But. Wonder what God did in that like
season there. Must have been wild.
Absolutely in his life. Yeah, I so just in the tie back
to Isaiah, right? He says in the wilderness, O
what you know, what wilderness might it be beneficial to
intentionally enter into? Hmm.
So silence and solitude, Yeah, I said, you know, can you get can
can you get 5 to 10 minutes a day?
Maybe incorporate some other things into it as well, but try
to be as. This is where I'll say try to be
as rigid as possible with this. Like try to be as even like
legalistic as possible 100% like your kids gonna run in and jump
on you and. That's that's very different
from so many other things that could be distracting you though.
Like that's like a good distraction. 100% yeah,
absolutely. Don't turn yourself into a jerk
by doing this. Yeah, you know, so I for for me,
for silence and solitude to what I have found is I tried to
incorporate silence and solitude into my morning prayer routine.
And what would happen is like my kids would join in and, or want
to eat because they're hungry, right?
Like I'd get up at 5:30 and they'd tear me up and so they
come downstairs and. You know, I'd start getting
frustrated, be like, well, I really wanted to get, you know,
like 1/2 an hour of silence before like assuming they wake
up at six and et cetera. And so I had to let just let go
of that because it, it becomes counterintuitive or
counterproductive rather. Hmm.
And so now I, I don't pretend that I can do that in the
morning when I also need to be a dad.
I need to be on call for whatever's happening that has to
happen at a different time during my day when I don't have
that imminent sort of immediate responsibility.
So yeah, be careful about how you schedule it, but I think
this is the one where you can, you can convince yourself for
sure to try to be a little bit more specific and even rigid on
it and see what happens. These other ones like again,
we're not, we're not trying to add burden to you, but there's,
there's some fun in trying to be like again, a little bit crazy
with. It and I think one thing worth
noting that you've talked about before, but just worth saying
again is that when we talk about silence and solitude, it should
not be confused with sort of like a modern notion of like
meditation, which is a different practice and one that often asks
us to sort of like empty our brains, which we're not called
to do as followers of Jesus. Yeah, that that we are taking
the moment to be still and to, you know, receive God's love and
to, you know, even some of these other things that are described
here that can be done in silence.
We're sometimes in something like centering prayer.
Sometimes there's a when you find yourself distracted, they
encourage like a kind of a phrase to return back to you.
But like, you know, the one that the one that I'm familiar with
is, you know, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a Sinner, something
like that, right? Yeah, and you can incorporate
some like breath prayers, right, what what the traditions have
called like breathing prayers or breath prayers.
Again, this is another ancient practice, but where you breathe
in and as you breathe in, you say like a couple word prayer
and then breathe out. Yeah, and Justice use that
because again, like, great point, You're not trying to
empty your mind where you're not trying to find this like divine
nothingness. Yeah, that's not the point.
What you're trying to do is eliminate the external noise.
You're going to find it's actually not quiet inside your
mind. No, and that's the battle.
And then you go into these intentional things, so silence
and solitude pick a place and you know, no music, no podcast,
no plan and see, you know what, what will happen as you wait on
God to show up. So practice for practice 5 And
Advent wreath is, um, kind of maybe the most modern of these
practices. This one's not like the ancient
of ancient practices, but this one, I'm, I'm looking forward to
this one. I'm going to try to do this one
with my kids and I'll just say this much this week I am gonna
go and try to find some. You can get these like flat
sheets of beeswax and we're going to make these, we're going
to make our own candles. And I'm sure they're gonna like
fall apart and we're going to like, I can't, I can't, I don't
have, I don't know how to make a candle.
But we're gonna, we're gonna try to find these flat wax sheets,
roll them up into candles and make some sort of wreath that
then we can use through this practice.
So. You've inspired me.
I'm going to do that with my family.
Yeah, this one, I think it's like for a family.
This is the one that I was, I was picturing.
Hey, what a great way to start to pass on some traditions to
your kids and start to create some memories with them that I
remember every year before it was even Christmas, you know, we
made these ugly candles and then recited some prayers together.
Uh, that's what I'm looking forward to in this practice is,
uh, yeah. The, the kind of messiness of
doing this as a family. Yeah.
Together with other people kind of sounds to me like a good way
to prepare for, for Advent. So I would say if you have kids
and you're trying to find something to do with them or
grandkids and you'd like something to do with them, this
is the one that that I, I really think you could have some fun
with. Absolutely.
Yeah. So then I think the the last
piece is about that one. Commit to doing it on a day.
I think we will. We'll do Sunday, you know, we
might there's there's an argument to be made like if you
do a Sabbath practice kind of Friday to Saturday, incorporate
this into that and then use a prayer to pray and just make it
simple. It doesn't need to be
complicated, but read the story of Jesus's birth, kind of break
it up into four, four or five chunks and say a prayer together
as a family. Use it as a time to reflect on
your day. We ask our kids what's not like
a OHT? What's something that went
really well today? What's something that really did
not go well? And did you see God doing
something? Hmm.
So there's three kind of three simple questions to ask around
the table as you do something like this, So.
This is awesome I I'm excited for what God is going to do in
our church in this season. It just feels the the
anticipation for me is is increasing more than other
years. I would say it's always a
beautiful season. It's always a wonderful time,
but for I think just as we, as we bring this level of
intentionality to not just the, the services, which are always
wonderful as well, but just what God is doing throughout the week
in our lives. And some of the practices that
we're building in that are going to safeguard against, you know,
cause it's one thing we always say almost every Christmas, we
always talk about, well, like that.
Don't be so in a hurry. Like don't like slow down, savor
the moment. Like, but this gets at like
these these are practical, actual things you can do to make
that happen rather than just this nebulous sense of just
don't give in to the consumerism and business.
So I do hope that we as a as a church by and large take
advantage of this opportunity and and to enter in well.
Hmm. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
That's my prayer as well is, you know, I got tired of not tired,
but like you get tired of in your own life saying I'm going
to slow down and I'm going to ever pay more attention and
instead go, alright, what do I need to do to push against the
hurriedness? Yeah, or the business or all of
these things. It really is, you know, just
jump forward. I think we'll do a similar thing
around Easter where we talk about intentionally practicing
our way toward these moments. So we, hey, we're praying for
you and I hope you can hear that and know that.
And also we'd love to hear some of your stories of how you
implemented these practices and what you saw God do on the other
side of Christmas. So.
In fact, maybe that'd be a good thing like to send in like to
the questions at coreychurch.org, like just like
send us some of what God has been saying and doing your life.
So does not be a question, just like share what you're noticing
and seeing SO. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So we'd love to hear from you and we will see you in the next
episode.