I've been having various conversations with people lately about how we as spiritual beings travel through our journey of faith. The roots to all of this may go back to the Nature Vs. Nurture concept in psychology. Let me see if I can break down my thoughts into bite-size chunks.
All of us have some sort of spiritual heritage. Whether it be a world religion like Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism. Even a spiritual heritage void of religion is still a spiritual heritage, because I believe we are all spiritual beings with human tendencies (instead of the inverse). Now because I am most familiar with Christianity and the many parts that make up the Christian Camp, I'm going to now narrow the discussion to the Christian Faith.
I have some great friends that find themselves all across the spectrum of the Christian Faith...Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Non-Denominational, and Charismatic (Assemblies of God,
Taking this further into the traveling motif, there are many churches that have the entire journey spelled out for you. The journey of the Christian Faith in these fellowships are very structured and organized. This "route" is/can be a very effective route, especially if you are wired up to flourish under a structured environment. An example would be the Methodists. I mean, for goodness sakes, even their name gives light to what they are about. They hold the method of discipleship that have been passed down for centuries to be their vehicle they use to travel the journey of faith. This vehicle is many times a vehicle equipped with Spiritual Disciplines (internal, external, & community) Read "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster for a phenomenal introduction to the Spiritual Disciplines. I'm throwing out sweeping generalizations here by saying that many times you will find people with lots of education under their belt to gravitate towards movements such as the Methodist Church because they are so familiar & flourish under a life of structure & organization.
Are you sticking with me? Good.
Now on the other end of the spectrum, there are many churches that are very spontaneous when it comes to the journey of faith. Right now, the local church I am a part of is a church in the Vineyard Movement; and thus finds itself on this end where many charismatic churches exist. The journey of the Christian Faith in these fellowships are very free and the “route” they take is just as legitimate as the Methodist route. Where some churches may have rules, these type of churches tend to have guidelines. In no way, am I saying they are soft on theology or on the pursuit of a godly life. Many times, this freeness is spelled out more in their style than anything else. Where, typically, the Methodists seem to have their shirts tucked in & buttoned all the way up, churches like the Vineyard seem to have their shirts hanging out & buttons…what are buttons? :-) A sweeping generalization would be to say that if the academics tend to gravitate towards the Methodist side of the spectrum, then the artists tend to gravitate towards the Vineyard side of the spectrum.
A great example of this was one of my first visits to the Vineyard. About 2 years ago, I came from a Christian Movement that would be kissing cousins to the Baptists & Methodists…so structured & organized were characteristics of the church I was a part of before the Vineyard. One of the 1st services I attended at the Vineyard was at 6:00 PM. I am wired up to not only be on time but even be early when I go places so I was at the Vineyard at 5:45. 6:00 pulls around and still no service. The service probably started a few minutes later; but mercy, those 3 minutes lasted an eternity to me! I came to find out that this movement actually has their own sense of time…what they affectionately refer to as “Vineyard Time” which means always a few minutes later than normal time.
Trust me, I do have a point to all this…keep reading below for the conclusion.
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