Finding your pathway to God...

A problem that I often face in my preaching is that one has to try to find some way of presenting integral Christian truths in a manner that will appeal to, inspire, comfort, and challenge, many different persons.

Personalities are wonderful things! Some people like noise, others like quiet, some like dirt, others like to be indoors, some people like to stay up late, others like to go to bed early (the two people usually marry one another...)

At Bryanston Methodist Church we have just come towards the end of a series entitled 'Discovering God's Guidance' - the end of this series brings us to our preparations for Christmas. In the series we have tried to help our members understand just how much God longs to reveal God's love, God's purposes, God's will, and God's guidance to us through varying sources of revelation (these have included such elements as scripture, relationships, of course the person of the Holy Spirit etc.).

However, if the truth be told, we all discover God's guidance in different ways - there are some things that switch us on to God, and some that turn us off. That is where this great little resource comes in. It is from the Willow Creek association by John Ortberg. I have enjoyed his books a great deal! They are well written, have a sound theology, but don't bludgeon you to death with boring and unnecessary depth. They are intended for people who wish to learn about their faith in a manner that is engaging and applicable - there are other books, by other authors, to help you delve a more deeply into certain doctrines and approaches to faith.

So, this evening I shall be concluding the service, sharing with Christopher Harrison and our team, in an experience of the 7 Spiritual Pathways that Ortberg has identified. Of course there are many more, but these 7 are pretty wide ranging and helpful.

The 7 pathways to connecting with God and discovering God's guidance that we will talk about are:

1. Creation
2. Worship
3. Contemplative
4. Intellectual
5. Relationship
6. Serving
7. Activism

If you're interested to discover more about these then why not get a copy of Ortberg's book?

I have also attached the experiential liturgy that we shall use the evening, and here's a copy of my sermon (with due diligence paid to the sources from whence it comes).

I hope it will be of some use!

Blessings,

Dion

Click here for the participative and experiential liturgy for the 7 Pathways service.

Click here for the sermon notes for the 7 Pathways/a> service.

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