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    Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook
    Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook
    Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook
    Ebook147 pages2 hours

    Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook

    By Steve Harper

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    About this ebook

    This workbook describes major features in John Wesley's devotional life, and it illustrates how you can apply his ministry to your own life.

    Structured around Wesley’s "Means of Grace," the 7-week study covers prayer, scripture, the Lord’s Supper, fasting, Christian conferencing, and providential means of grace. Developed for individual or group study, the workbook also offers suggestions for organizing an initial group meeting and developing a successful group study.

    Also available in Spanish as La Vida de Devoción en la Tradición Wesleyana.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpper Room Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2016
    ISBN9780835816007
    Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook
    Author

    Steve Harper

    Steve Harper, PhD, is vice president and professor of spiritual formation at the Florida campus of Asbury Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous magazine articles and has written twelve books, including Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition and Praying through the Lord’s Prayer. Dr. Harper and his wife, Jeannie, live in Orlando, Florida. They have two grown children and two grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition - Steve Harper

      Devotional Life in the Wesleyan Tradition: A Workbook

      Copyright © 1995 by Steve Harper.

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information, write Upper Room Books®, 1908 Grand Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212.

      Upper Room Books® website: books.upperroom.org

      Upper Room®, Upper Room Books®, and design logos are trademarks owned by The Upper Room®, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.

      Unless otherwise designated, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations designated RSV are from The Revised Standard Version, copyright © 1952 (2nd edition, 1971) by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.

      Cover Design and Photograph: Steve Laughbaum

      Interior Design: Charles Sutherland

      Library of Congress Catalog Number: 95-60923

      ISBN: 978-0-8358-0740-1

      Printed in the United States of America

      For Jeannie,

      My wife, best friend, and spiritual guide

      On the occasion of our twenty-fifth year of marriage

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Week One

      John Wesley: Man of Devotion

      Week Two

      Constant Company with Christ

      Week Three

      The All-Sufficient Word

      Week Four

      Food for the Journey

      Week Five

      Hunger for Righteousness

      Week Six

      Life Together

      Week Seven

      Into the World

      Introduction

      Millions of people, longing for something more, hunger for God. This hunger is as evident in the church as it is in the culture. Christians are tired of playing church and believe that the time has come either to get with it or get out. The desire for solid, spiritual formation is greater now than at any other period in my lifetime. Institutional religion has proven itself impotent to provide abundant life. We desire something more.

      We are people of the Book. We take our cues and receive our marching orders from scripture. We believe God speaks the ultimate word (revelation) and we respond. We are not interested in a spirituality foreign to or isolated from the Bible. At the same time, however, we believe God has spoken through tradition. We believe the great cloud of witnesses is filled with saints whose lives and teachings illumine our path and help us interpret the Book as we apply its timeless truths to ourselves and our situation.

      One such person is John Wesley. By examining his life and ministry we can uncover rich, practical ideas for strengthening our devotional lives. This workbook is designed to provide you with personal enrichment as you use Wesley as a window through whom to view the spiritual life. If you stop with him, you will miss the point. If you pass through him into Christ, you will be blessed. If you use him as a guru, you will be disappointed. If you use him as a guide, you will find yourself delighted.

      If Wesley could say anything about the spiritual life to contemporary Christians, it might well be, God does not call you to have a devotional time; God calls you to live a devotional life. A look at his massive writings reveals that, for him, the devotional life was much more related to the entirety of his experiences than to specific prayer times. Without question Wesley observed fixed times of devotion—and did so for more than sixty years! But to define his spiritual life by those times alone would miss the full picture of his spirituality. For him, every moment was a God moment, an occasion for God to reveal and for him to respond. As you begin this workbook, you will have many moments in which to reflect personally and deeply on your spiritual life.

      A word of caution: One of the greatest dangers in contemporary spiritual formation is the temptation to turn it into another program. We are so good at this in the church. But if we attempt to make the spiritual life an event, it will die. And it should. For we will have reduced the life of God in the human soul to rules and regulations, fads and emphases, lists and techniques. We will have forgotten the key element Wesley would want us to remember: the spiritual life is not a part of life; it is life.

      So use this workbook as a means, not an end. Use it as an opportunity, not as a compartment. Use it as an avenue of grace, not a measurement of maturity. Only then will you know devotional life in the Wesleyan tradition.

      The Formative Process

      Spiritual formation cannot be programmed, but it can be directed. This workbook is designed to encourage and facilitate a formative experience for you. It is contemporary in format, yet related to ancient practices that have proven their value. Each day will follow a fourfold path of reading, reflecting, recording, and relating.

      You will begin each day by reading a brief text that highlights some aspect of devotional life in the Wesleyan tradition. The reading is intended to center and focus you in a rich, but limited, aspect of the spiritual life. It will normally reveal some insight from Wesley, but its primary purpose is to enrich your walk with God. As you read each day’s text, be constantly reading through or beyond it. Put yourself into the material; do not read it merely as the witness of a Christian who lived more than two hundred years ago.

      Following each day’s reading, various exercises will guide you to personal reflection. This is closely akin to biblical meditation that ruminates and walks around a text until a particular God word emerges. The reflection exercises are designed to help you answer the question, What is God saying to me through what I have just read? Do not force this. Do not try to make something happen. Reflection is not magic or automatic. On some days, the personal God word will not surface. That is okay. In fact, if you try too hard to find it, it will only elude you more. Relax. Accept the absence when it occurs. It too is part of the formative process. True spiritual formation says, God’s word, at God’s time, in God’s way.

      On most days, however, the reflection phase will yield some meaningful impression. It may be an idea or an emotion; it does not matter. It may emerge rather complete in itself, or it might appear quite unformed and fragmentary;

      either way is all right. The time for recording is at hand, and this is the third step on your daily path in the workbook. One writer has called a journal or workbook a blessing catcher. That is the point of the reflection phase. It provides you the means to store the impression so that it is not lost. At a later time you can reflect further on the impression.

      Some people record in prose, others in poetry. Still others will draw a picture or write out a personal conversation with God. Styles to record your impression are many. Use what works best for you. Be creative and experiment with new ways of recording. You may find along the way that you have some fresh ways to reflect and record your experiences with God. Recording is simply the phase in which the insights (the God word) are captured and considered.

      The final phase is relating. It reminds us that we do not come to any moment with God empty-handed. We always have something worthwhile to share. The relating phase occurs in two ways in this workbook. First, each day’s exercises will lead you to relate what you have just experienced with some previous discovery. Think of it like adding links to a chain. Each day’s emphasis is part of a larger picture and progression. By relating your present discovery to your past experiences, you allow the Holy Spirit to unify and harmonize your spiritual growth. You allow God to set your experience in its proper, larger context of formation and maturation.

      The second aspect of relating is the weekly group meeting. You do not have to form a group to use this workbook, but I hope you will. John Wesley called this Christian Conference. He believed God uses community and interaction to instruct us in ways that would not occur if we kept things to ourselves. At the end of each week, a guide for the group is suggested.

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