On Friday Apr 25 and Sat Apr 26, Jack Stapleton, Guardian of the Aidan Trust in the US, spoke at Bethany Community Church in the Greenlake neighborhood of Seattle. He spoke on the topic of “Living by a Way of Life”.
Establish an intentional Way of Life
Every Christian church has a hope that its members grow in three specific areas
- Scripture
- Prayer
- Service (carrying it into the world)
(the Mom, home and apple pie of spirituality)
But not much substance. What do you do with these? How do they change your life and your community?
(The Aidan Way has 10 elements, which encompasses the above)
Scripture – not a book, but a library. How can a community be comfortable living, understanding, teaching the Scripture for itself, not waiting for the pastor to do all the teaching?
Prayer – has to be two directions. Usually we only pray one way – talking, but not listening. But look at the Scriptures – usually it’s God talking, humans listening. “you just can’t get God to shut up!”
Ref: The story of Samuel being called.
Prayer
- Self
- Spiritual evil (but usually this is way easier to discern than you might otherwise think). its goal is to keep you paralyzed
- God (on constantly, but we usually don’t take the time to listen). learning to do this means you WILL fall down and scrape your knees. there are no shortcuts to making mistakes and learning from them
Service – if God in heaven is going to be physically present, it’s going to be through you. Christ came to give his life as a ransom for many, and he came not to be served but to serve. So for us.
Break time – 30 minutes. Work on this: What do you want to do to grow? And, what can you do as a member of your church community to represent Christ?
pat loughery 
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