The rhythms of spiritual formation in 2022

Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

 

To be cultivated as a humble follower of Jesus Christ and help others experience the same spiritual transformation.

For me, the last week of the year is always a time of rest and contemplation. I enjoy looking back, considering everything we went through, and the many ways the Triune God showed us His faithfulness. Looking forward is exciting, a whole new year full of opportunities and challenges.

Knowing that 2022 will be rather busy, at least in its first half, I have decided to implement some new rhythms of spiritual formation in my life. This is a slight departure from my tradition of setting specific goals for the year. By specific, I mean goals like "write at least 500 words every day." However, I believe these new rhythms or habits will facilitate the management of my time, which will translate - I hope - into a smaller amount of stress while I pursue God's call for me; this call remains the same, and it is summarized at the top of this post.

Then, the new habits I wish to establish are:

1. Weekly sessions of deep work and meditation on God's Word.
2. Shepherding my congregation with daily prayer and weekly inquiries.
3. Weekly work on content creation for my local church and our small business.

How will I know these new habits, plus all my other activities, produce results? How will I know the status of my spiritual formation? At our church, we have developed a personal spiritual assessment tool based on six questions crafted from the mission of our congregation. That assessment tool will serve as my spiritual formation dashboard, telling me how effective my new habits for 2022 really are.

What about you? How are you preparing for the new year?

-AV