Rediscovering The Wheel

5 Baby Steps Toward A More Embodied Faith

Intro: Faith & Faithfulness

In my last couple of posts, I tried to show that the missing link in many of our spiritual lives today, and even in our churches, is what I have called participation. Our generation has been offered very good explanations of the gospel. We have also had very real experiences of God. But explanations and experiences alone have not been enough. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we could be given a very compelling theory of the atonement on which to build our faith. Likewise (perhaps more offensively for my audience), Jesus did not die simply so that we could experience his unconditional love for us. We believe in the atonement, sure. But this is not what the Bible means by “faith.” We have experienced his unconditional love and forgiveness, sure. But this is not nearly all the Bible means by “love.” Rather, Jesus died so that, by faith and faithfulness (the Greek word for “faith” πίστις renders both meanings), we could be set free to love him—and others—as he loves us. He died so that his love might be perfected in us, so that we might be united with him, sharing with him in his death and therefore also in his resurrection life. 

In the New Testament, the word for “heal” and “save” are actually the same Greek word and tend to exist more on a spectrum than as two entirely separate ideas. This serves as a simple reminder that: (1) The eternal salvation of our souls is not merely located in some future “heaven when we die” but is as near to us as our present pain; and (2) the present physical healing of our bodies and minds–from trauma, disease, anxiety, depression, and addiction–is within reach, and is not unrelated to our souls, our loves, and our relationship with God. In other words, salvation is not merely a golden ticket. It is a life-giving, life-transforming relationship with Christ that begins now. And to be honest, these days, we could use a bit more of that kind of salvation/healing.

In my last essay, I called this embodied, transformative faith a “religious relationship” and compared it to the pattern of covenants God makes with his people throughout the Bible. But since that’s still a terribly unattractive phrase, let’s call it participation: that feeling of longing you get when you see a beautiful picture or watch a compelling movie. You don’t just want to keep looking on from the outside as a spectator. You want to jump into it, to get caught up in it, to live in it. Participation means not merely to “believe in” but live in. 

Putting The Wheels Back On

So then the question arises: what does participation look like here and now? It’s one thing to say, “Don’t just believe in it; live it!” It’s another thing entirely to spell out exactly what you mean, without either falling into some form of Pharisaical legalism—“unless you’re doing  X, Y, and Z every day, you’re not a true believer…”—or else, on the other end of the spectrum, into some vague hippy notion of “love” as mainly good vibes and progressive social reform. Hopefully you will trust that I do not mean either of these things. (Though, I should note that the Pharisees were not entirely wrong, and neither were the hippies.)

No, I have something different in mind. Over the last few years, with our community of mostly younger adults in Virginia Beach, I’ve been exploring the question, “What does faithful participation in the body of Christ look like? Where do we begin?” In response, we’ve formed some very simple collective practices. 

Don’t get me wrong. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. In fact, quite the opposite. We’re trying to rediscover the wheel, as though somehow along the way, the wheels of our church fell off and got lost, and we’ve just been dragging our collective faith across the ground by means of occasional energetic spurts of explanation and experience. To rediscover the wheels of the church means to engage in shared religious practices that bind us together and bind us to God. Historically, these practices—these “wheels”—have carried a lot of weight for a very long distance, much more than we could ever do of our own accord. Without them, it’s actually impressive we still have a church. 

Impressive, but not sustainable. 

Our current do-it-yourself, just-me-and-God brand of faith appears to offer “freedom” from the constraints of a seemingly legalistic religiosity. In reality, it often requires Navy-seal-level willpower and PhD-level intellect in order for individual believers to thrive. And if only the strongest wills and intellects can thrive, that’s an indicator we’re doing it wrong. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Many believers toil for years trying in vain to lift one heavy stumbling stone from their path. Some succeed. Some never do. Yet the simplest communal habits, if practiced consistently together, can move mountains.

Practices As Plausibility Structures

Let me give an example. Of all the sins and vices we read about in the ancient world, why is it that we don’t often read about addiction? Of course, it existed in the ancient world as well. But compared to our time, where almost every individual can name at least one major or minor addiction of their own—whether a substance, a habit, or a particular form of content on the internet—it doesn’t seem prominent at all. Why? Well, you say, our addictions are a symptom of our modern Western wealth and decadence. For sure. But it’s more than that. See, in the ancient and medieval world, one thing almost everyone had in common—across many different cultures and religions—was a collective rhythm of feasting and fasting. Even though they consumed far less calories per day and had far fewer varieties of foods, yet, in times of fasting, they still refrained from eating certain foods or even from eating at all. And they did this on a regular basis. (This is still the the case in many cultures today.) We, on the other hand, neither fast nor feast. We eat what we want, as much as we want, whenever we want and set aside no time at all for fasting. (In fact, we do the same in other categories, for example, our use of the internet.) And of course, if every day is a feast, then no day is a feast. We do not feast. We constantly gorge. And now, go figure, even food itself has become one of our addictions. The closest we come to fasting is “dieting,” which, in a sense, is almost the opposite of fasting, in that it is done on an individual basis for one’s own self-care, rather then in a communal pattern for a higher, holier purpose. (No wonder it’s almost a cliche today that dieting doesn’t work.) 

The point is: If a community has never ritualized the interruption of a simple cycle or pattern—which is what fasting is—then how could quitting a chemical or psychological addiction even be imaginable? Why is it that we find ourselves with almost zero willpower to break even the simplest addictions? We will say we “hate” X, and yet we will keep doing it. Why? Because we have no plausibility structure for stopping. We’ve never experienced ourselves or our family members or our community doing it when they weren’t under duress. How then could we possibly do it when the pressure’s on? It’s like expecting to perform perfectly in the championship game when you’ve never been to a single practice. 

If your father plays and writes music, if your sister plays and writes music, if you’ve been around music-makers your whole life, then it’s not only imaginable but probable that you too could become a musician. But if the closest you’ve come to a musical instrument is listening to the latest pop song on Spotify, then songwriting may as well be wizardry to you. If someone asked you to perform or compose a simple song, even though you would know exactly what they meant, you wouldn’t have the slightest notion of where to begin. And it wouldn’t even be a matter of willpower. Try as you might; it wouldn’t happen. The rule is something like this: if you haven’t done it, you can’t do it. And the only way to start doing it, is to join in with others who are already doing it, and do as they do.

This is one purpose of religious patterns. To make things that might seem like wizardry from the outside—this is how prayer seemed to me for a long time—not only doable but natural, second nature. Lebron doesn’t have to think once he steps on the court. If he did, he would likely lose. But no, he has already gone through the motions. 700 shots from this spot. 700 shots from that spot. Now he can just play. And it works.

Okay, I’m done with my sales pitch. Let’s get to the actual practices.

5 Practices You Can Adopt Today

I have asked our community of mostly young people in Virginia Beach to commit to five shared practices. Here they are in their simplest form (though I may do separate follow-up posts on each of these):

1. SCRIPTURE: We share a common Bible reading schedule, usually one Pslam, one other passage from the Old Testament, and one from the New Testament. I recommend saying a short prayer as you begin and then praying the Psalm as best you can (even out loud). Then read the other passages and try to ruminate on some small part of the reading the rest of the day. In our community, people often share encouragements and questions about the passages over text message. For better or worse, we no longer live our lives in small villages. We may see each other at church and then spend the rest of the week running in separate directions, doing separate jobs, and coming home to separate neighborhoods. Amidst all of this separateness, keeping a common reading rhythm can be deeply unifying. Maybe you run into each other one night and have a few minutes to catch up. You say, “It’s been a hard season for such-and-such reasons.” They say, “That reminds me of yesterday’s reading when David was hiding out in the cave and had to wait on God.” You say, “Yes! And then this happened…” Even though you haven’t been physically together, you’ve been ruminating on the same stories, the same truths, and now you have a shared framework. You can hit the ground running. You’re welcome to join our reading schedule. Beginning December 1, we’ll start our Advent reading series. Perhaps I’ll share a bit about that in a shorter post to follow.

2. PRAYER: We pray on our knees the first minute we get out of bed and the last minute before our head hits the pillow. Just one minute each. Hopefully this grows longer as you do it more, but we’re all about baby steps. In the morning, prayer before phone. We sleep away from our phones if possible. At night, no phone after prayer. If we watch something in bed on Netflix, we get back out of bed afterward, put our phone away, and pray on our knees before getting back in. The point is to get in habit of greeting and thanking the Lord with our first conscious moment of the day and with our last. This simple posture, if practiced consistently, can reorient your attention hierarchy permanently. We use the Lord’s Prayer as our foundation, which helps to give structure to our asking and to fight distraction and confusion.

3. FASTING (+ Sabbath/Alms-Giving): Fasting is ritualized subtraction. “Blessed are the poor,” Jesus says. The trouble is you cannot be “the poor” unless you have a lack—some empty place for God to fill. An overwhelming amount of Jesus’s teaching, including almost the entire Sermon on the Mount, has to do with some form of subtraction in order to make space for God. (Seriously, go check it out; it’s everywhere.) Oftentimes, we do not receive because we have not made room. As soon as we feel a need, we reach for other things to fill the void, which satisfy in the moment but don’t solve the problem long term. Fasting empties us temporarily, even of normal good things like bread, so that we can be reminded that man does not live by bread alone. Our community fasts in different ways in different seasons:

“Cyber-fast Sundays” are perhaps our most powerful habit. This means no internet until sundown on Sundays, or for however many hours you can (baby steps, remember?). This also helps in reshaping your Sundays as a day devoted to rest, family, and fellowship. Sabbath-keeping is a fasting principle. We subtract in order to add; fast in order to feast. Some have also been doing “no meat or dairy on Fridays until sundown,” which is an ancient Christian practice to make each Friday a symbolic mini-Good-Friday. In January, we plan a longer (21-day) season of fasting and prayer, in which our family does the “Daniel Fast.” This has really helped my prayer life. It’s hard, but I look forward to it every year. Finally, in the summers, we have added a season of “alms giving” as another form of ritualized subtraction. Basically, whenever you come across a person in need (e.g. a beggar), you go out of your way to approach them, look them in the eye, ask their name, introduce yourself, and physically give to them. It helps to carry cash in this season. If you don't have cash, even better! Give them something off your person, however inconvenient. Part of the point is the inconvenience (“the extra mile"). You can also do this with friends. A friend of mine recently gave me the literal shoes off of his feet (I’m wearing them right now). The point is not especially practical. You cannot know how much the particular item will bless the particular person. It's about the act, which, for you, is self-emptying and, for the receiver, is an experience of love and provision. It’s Christian whimsicality. Little less planning and calculating, little more St. Francis. We own nothing except what we're willing to give away. 

Extra note: Three dangers of fasting: #1. Self-righteousness fasting: Jesus says we should go out of our way not to be seen by others, not even to let our left hand see what our right hand is doing. Otherwise we have filled our lack with the praise of men, and we miss out on the reward of our Father who sees in secret. We fast together, and yet we do not congratulation from one another, nor do we judge those who don’t fast. Fasting is not good in itself; it’s nothing to be proud of. It’s only good if it leads you to God. Which leads to… #2. Prayer-less fasting: The main point of fasting is prayer: to help us see the unseen. Fasting empties us of something so we can hunger for God and ask him to fill our lack. Fasting opens us up to the spiritual realm. It even opens us up to demons (same thing even happens to Jesus when he goes into the desert). That’s okay. The demons were already there; now you’re just seeing them! But if you don’t pray, you’re risking being the person in the parable who removes one spirit only to have seven more take its place. Like an addict who’s just given something up cold-turkey, the void will be filled with something. We are orbiting creatures. We cannot stop orbiting. The goal is rather to re-orient our orbit so that we revolve around the Sun. This is what fasting and prayer can help do. #3. Fancy fasting: Some people are drawn to fasting because it seems sexy and extreme. They want to do something hard-core, heroic, “fully committed.” Fair enough, I guess. But in my experience, it’s a bad idea. We are not saints…yet. Extreme fasting often gives way to pride and un-sustainability, both of which rob us of the true reward, which is God. Baby steps are better. Sustainability for a lifetime is what we’re aiming for.

4. CHURCH: Make a commitment to go and physically worship with the body of believers at a local church every Sunday. Block it off. Actually schedule your life so you are not going out of town every weekend or booking sporting events, etc. Go to your imperfect church. Worship with your imperfect brothers and sisters. Give trust and respect to your imperfect minister, without complaining or wishing. Be present. Be grateful. Be consistent. Perhaps nothing can transform your imperfect church (and your imperfect self) as surely as this simple commitment. If you have already been doing this, begin to ask the Lord how he wants to do use you there. How can you, with your particular gifts, become a servant of the body?

5. AUTHORITY: Begin to ask God for a trustworthy pastor, priest, or spiritual leader. Then approach that person and give them authority in your life. Not just a professional counselor who gives you “unconditional positive regard.” No, someone who can see into your blind spots, speak with authority in your life, and encourage you to repent, trust, wait, love, and obey in the places where you might not be able to of your own accord. This one is the hardest for many people. We are currently living through a crisis of trust and trustworthiness. Christians, especially young Christians, in our age tend to have the sentiment, “I trust God; I just don’t trust other people.” This is understandable, but also not possible. Most of the way we experience and come to trust God, for better or worse, is through others, especially through spiritual leaders. Obviously, this can open us up to all kinds of hurt. God knows this. Nevertheless, when we might have expected Jesus to come and just do away with all of the broken spiritual leaders of his time and replace them with no one but himself, he decidedly does not do this. Jesus and the other writers of the New Testament double down on the need for trustworthy spiritual leaders. “Priesthood of all believers,” sure. But in the same way that children must have parents long before they can become parents, some of us must be priests to all before all can be priests to one another. That’s the way reality works. God makes himself known through his people. Of course, those who lead and teach will be held to higher account before God. Not many of us should presume to be those leaders. But we should, carefully, humbly, give them our trust.

Conclusion

That’s it! Those are the five basic practices of our community. Of course, these are not meant to be a summation of the Christian life. (I haven’t even mentioned the sacraments! Or love of neighbor!) These are not “the goal.” Definitely not. These are merely baby steps toward a more embodied, communal, and participatory faith. We’re putting wheels back on the cart. Clunky wheels, perhaps, but wheels nonetheless. I hope they help. Please reach out to me if you have questions or thoughts. And, of course, we’d love to have you join our family and others in these rhythms. They work best when we do them together, while also refraining from judging those who don’t. We do them because we are weak, not because we are strong.