{"id":9571,"date":"2015-02-11T20:32:35","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T04:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=9571"},"modified":"2015-02-12T14:35:51","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T22:35:51","slug":"spiritual-formation-our-search-for-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/spiritual-formation-our-search-for-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Formation:\u00a0 Our Search for Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow can we make disciples if we don\u2019t know what one looks like?\u201d
\nRetired Pastor<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t hope to transform the world until we ourselves are transformed.\u201d
\nConference Lay Leader<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

By David Reinholz\u00a0|\u00a0Associate Conference Lay Leader (PNW)<\/h4>\n

Lately I have been pondering the question \u201cWhy Spiritual Formation?\u201d\u00a0 By spiritual formation, I am talking about Christian spiritual formation, or the process of learning to follow the way of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 But, I think the term \u201cspiritual formation\u201d works equally well for other faith traditions, and even those who claim to be \u201cspiritual, but not religious\u201d.<\/p>\n

Spiritual formation is our search for meaning.\u00a0 We ask the big questions, like \u201cwhy am I here, how shall I live, or what\u2019s my purpose in life?\u201d\u00a0 For me, it is a search for God, or the Divine. I have discovered that in my search for God, I discover myself, or at least the person God hopes I\u2019ll become.<\/p>\n

Spiritual formation is a continuing process, a journey \u2013 one that lasts a lifetime.\u00a0<\/strong> No quick fix here.\u00a0 Equally frustrating, we must learn to be content with mystery and not having the answers.<\/p>\n

Something else I\u2019ve discovered along my spiritual journey \u2013 we are not meant to go it alone.\u00a0 We need fellow sojourners, we need community. We need others to listen, hold us accountable, and accept us in love.<\/p>\n

I invite you to participate in Sacred Encounter: The Journey from Contemplation to Action, the next 5-day Academy for Spiritual Formation<\/a> to be held in the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area (WA, OR, ID, AK). Suzanne Seaton and Paul Jeffrey will guide us to encounter the Divine through contemplation and to see the divine spark in \u201cthe other\u201d. The event is to be held from February 21-26, 2016 at the Archbishop Brunett Retreat Center at the Palisades in Federal Way, Washington.<\/p>\n

Click here to download the 2016 Five Day Academy Brochure.<\/a><\/h4>\n

Or visit the following pages for more\u00a0event info: PNW Calendar<\/a> \u00a0| \u00a0Facebook<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow can we make disciples if we don\u2019t know what one looks like?\u201d Retired Pastor \u201cWe can\u2019t hope to transform the world until we ourselves are transformed.\u201d Conference Lay Leader By David Reinholz\u00a0|\u00a0Associate Conference Lay Leader (PNW) Lately I have been pondering the question \u201cWhy Spiritual Formation?\u201d\u00a0 By spiritual formation, I am talking about Christian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":9579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[93,115,233],"tags":[362,330],"class_list":{"0":"post-9571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotional","8":"category-resources","9":"category-training-2","10":"tag-spiritual-depth","11":"tag-spirituality"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Well-photo-2.jpg?fit=700%2C685&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-2un","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9571"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9589,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571\/revisions\/9589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}