[Here's another blast from the past, July 13th, 2006 to be exact!  Enjoy!]

Over the last few years I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about how to structure our spiritual lives. Being a Baby Boomer I grew up predisposed to reject any kind of formal structure in favor of the seeming superiority of
spontaneity.

Exactly why this should be so, or what it is about being spontaneous that elevates it above structure was never exactly spelled out. My generation tended to (and still does to a large degree) be reactionary. Reacting against dead formality, we rejected structure as carnal or worldly.

And what did we put in it’s place? A new structure of our own, that’s what! A structure that isn’t really new for the most part. Given the state of my generation (divorce, addiction etc) I think you could say there’s a huge amount of evidence pointing to the fact that our structures aren’t any better than the ones they replaced.

So what’s the answer?

I don’t have one – that’s what!! But of course I haven’t come this far just to leave you hanging! I do have a few thoughts on the subject.

This has all come about through my involvement in Celebrate Recovery, my study of discipleship, and in particular the writings of Dallas Willard, who points out in one of his essays (I don’t remember which one but check out the link and you might find it!) that a system or structure of discipleship might look something like AA.

I have to admit that the structure I’ve found in CR, which is very similar to AA, has been a big help to me. Of course I wasn’t thrilled about that, since I guess I’m still trying to hang onto my status as “Mr. Spontaneous!”

Which leads me to this passage of Scripture. Could this be a hint of Apostolic Structure?

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8 (NIV)

I preached an entire series of sermon out of that passage, the idea and title I swiped from someone else. I’m not sure now who it was, might have been Chuck Smith, but I’m not sure.

It was titled, “How Not To Stumble Or Fall. When you look over that list of qualities, you can see that by trying to add all these things into our lives we would have to create some structure to make it possible.

I hope to follow this up – but for now I’ll leave at this. We all need some structure, some discipline, if we are to make it work and to add these Christ-like qualities into our lives.

Let me know what you think!