I know what you’re thinking. Not everyone will want to be a part of a church that trains this way. That’s true. Not everyone wants to do CrossFit either. This is one possible way of pursuing physical and spiritual fitness. It may not be the best approach for everyone. I wouldn’t recommend trying to force it upon everyone in a church. Rather, I’d invite a few early-adopters to join me in giving it a try. It might turn out to be a more demanding path than most of us are willing to travel, especially after having gotten so used to everything in our church experience being in the sweet spot of our comfort zones.
But my gut tells me there will be some who are ready to step outside of their comfort zones, because they’ve come to realize that staying within them is taking them nowhere. Some will want to decrease the gap between their strengths and weaknesses. Some will be willing to explore a new way of spiritual training because they’re sick of showing up week after week, spending hour after hour on a church treadmill, and seeing very few results.
CrossFitters like to say “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Those who can embrace this mindset find themselves going places in their training and doing things with their bodies they never dreamed of doing or even imagined were possible.
If we step out of our comfort zones and embrace a constantly varied training approach to spiritual fitness we may discover that getting “comfortable with being uncomfortable” is really just another way to paraphrase Jesus’ invitation to “take up your cross and follow me.”
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wade,
In Cincinnati, we are getting ready to engage a city wide spiritual formation experience led by Crossroads Community church. It is called journey. This year’s theme is STRONG Challenge. It is a whole church experience that engages children’s, teens, small groups, and individuals. The theme this year is inspired by Crossfit/P90X type exercise. If in 90 days, I can engage an extreme exercise regime and see results, what if we engaged in a 7 week intentional spiritual formation regime?
The reason I am writing you all this, is the format is a deck of cards and a journal. Each week, you go to church and hear a sermon on the theme for the week and then you have 7 cards to choose from. Individuals are encouraged to engage a number of the exercises to interact with God and grow stronger in their relationship with him.
Here is the final look at the cards:
http://www.thejourneypartners.org/uploadedfiles/strong_cards_final.pdf
Last year, 63 churches participated.
I got an email this week and 54,000 small group packs (individual decks of cards and journals) were ordered from the print management company contracted for the journey this year.
Pretty cool.
I’d be willing to send you one when we get ours in late September. The journey starts Oct. 8/9.
Jason
Jason–I love it! I can’t wait to see how this works out. Looks amazing.
Yes, I’d love to get my hands on a set when they are available.
Thanks so much.