Christian Practices

So, every year I try to get to one of John Roberto’s institutes- last year I blogged a lot about it, you can read back about it here- and this year I’m in Connecticut with a bunch of great people for the Summer Seminar on Faith Formation in Christian Practices.
John is an inspiring teacher, full of great information and ideas- he is a walking best-practices resource. I love these weeks because they fairly make my head explode with ideas and inspiration and a fire under my butt. I get this feeling of energy and urgency at these weeks that drives me for the rest of the year.
So… Christian Practices concern the things that people DO as Christians. John, and the Valparaiso Project (more about them later) define Christian Practice in much the same way as a doctor has a practice, or a lawyer has a practice. Christians, they say, have a practice too.Here’s the definition Dorothy Bass gives (of the VP):

Christian practices are shared patterns of activity in and through which life together takes shape over time in response to and in the light of God as known in Jesus Christ. Woven together, they form a way of life.

Got that? Okay, here are some of the practices we are talking about this week:
Honoring the Body
Hospitality
Household Economics
Saying Yes and Saying No
Keeping Sabbath
Testimony
Discernment
Shaping Communities
Forgiveness
Healing
Dying Well
Singing Our Lives
There are more, but these are the original ones identified by the VP.

Today we talked a lot about how we (and the people in our parishes) already do so many of these practices without necessarily identifying that they are- and, that when given a chance to share their stories, they will (like we are) learn to see their daily practices as connections to their faith.

It’s kinda hard to describe. Check out the website at www.practicingourfaith.org and the teen version at www.waytolive.org
because I’m sure they explain it there better than I do, so far. But after tomorrow…