Visualizing Shared Spirituality

[ryancarter]

I have been trying to help students and church members understand shared spirituality. The attached overly simplified diagram is my attempt to understand both why shared spirituality seems so foreign to us and how to better explain the concept. I am wondering if anyone has any feedback on it.
Thanks.

[Lorna Rasmussen]

Greetings in Christ dear brother,

TUMI has been sharing a spirituality for years now, focused on retrieving from the Great Tradition what we believe are the Sacred Roots of our faith. Our spirituality is shared as we together focus on the person of Christ and his life through the celebration of the Church Year. What's so exciting about this for me is that this has nothing to do with me. Its not grounded in how I feel or my best thinking but in what was handed down by the Apostles and contended for by the early church to ensure that we had a correct understanding of what our faith entails.

I read your post last week and after proofing Dr. Davis' prayer letter yesterday and I thought this very appropriate to your question so I've posted a portion of that letter below.

From Dr. Davis' letter...
"Believers in the inner city must be grounded in the apostolic faith concerning Christ. Urban churches, whose leaders have often received limited or no formal theological training, can easily fall prey to heresy and schism. In order to combat this slippage, TUMI is dedicated to helping urban churches rediscover our faith’s Sacred Roots as articulated in the Church’s Great Tradition. This includes a commitment to the authority of the Scriptures, centered on the victory won for us through Christ defended and lived out in the Church. As the people of God we confess the historic faith articulated in the ecumenical creeds (especially the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds), shared in the Great Commission to the lost. As the apostle Jude asserts, this is the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints, worthy of our confession and defense (Jude 1.3)."

We are going to be hosting a workshop in April (the 24th) specifically on this subject. Don Allsman and Dr. Davis both have created two resources that will help urban leaders better understand this. "Jesus Cropped From the Picture" was written by Don Allsman. In it he makes the case that cultural influences have caused us to “crop” Jesus from the picture of American evangelicalism. He argues that these tendencies can be overcome by grounding our identity on the Church’s Sacred Roots, as articulated by the Great Tradition and God’s work through Church history. The second was written by Dr. Davis, and is titled "Sacred Roots: Retrieving the Great Tradition" which explains what it is that the Great Tradition represents, what those essential elements are of our faith that we should be confessing and contending for, ie, what our Sacred Roots are, and how a return to these can renew and refresh our theology, worship, discipleship, and outreach in the city.

We have several pastors and leaders who are planning to attend this workshop, and even some folk from out of town. I believe this would give you a good understanding of what we believe a shared spirituality is and should be founded on.

Thanks for your post brother!
Lorna

[ryancarter]

Lorna,
Thanks for your response.
Indeed, Don's paragraph is appropriate. It fills out very nicely what I meant by the "Body of Christ" on my little chart.
I do plant to attend the Sacred Roots workshop. I will be looking forward to growing in my understanding, practice, and teaching of shared spirituality.
Ryan