: CORE STRENGTH : winter/spring teaching series : 2009 :

... as the teaching planning team of Dennis, Alan and I began thinking about 2009's first 6 months of teaching/preaching at SBF way back in November, we felt that the progression from Fall 2008's "Se7en Churches of Revelation" into Advent 2008, and into Haggai this month of January would lead beautifully into something based on the spiritual practices, or disciplines, or habits that build a life of consistency and stability necessary to navigate the challenges staring us down spiritually in the 21st century.

We looked into a number of approaches to that, asked around some, bounced a few ideas off the elders, and did a bit of research and reading into it. What we came up with, after some give and take, was what we are calling ...

CORE STRENGTH : spiritual practices for a twenty-first century faith

A number of leaders in the area of spiritual formation have articulated some of these disciplines in written form : Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline, Dallas Willard's trilogy, Brother Lawrence's writings, and some others. In some way, shape or form each explains and defines these practices in different ways, but corporate, outward and inward disciplines say it best.

So as Dennis wraps up the Haggai series this Sunday at Communion, he will also introduce this series ... and through February, March and April, after Easter and Sunday February 8th we will launch into looking at Confession, Guidance, Worship, Celebration, Prayer, Simplicity, Submission, Solitude, Service, Fasting, Meditation and Study.

CORE STRENGTH is a sports medicine term, referring to essential, deep, basic muscle groups that when taken seriously, taken care of, developed and used properly bring overall health, stability, longevity and balance to our lives. Well, we thought ... we could do no less than teach our way through the same idea spiritually, identifying and addressing and together as a faith community working through these practices.

There are no shortcuts to CORE STRENGTH, but there are also significant benefits from understanding what is and isn't going to mature our faith. CORE STRENGTH is the opposite of cosmetic muscle work, or faddish body sculpting, it is deep, difficult, but rewarding effort.