Brave Practice (Feb '24) – Exploring Contemplative Practices this Lenten Season

On Being A Contemplative Practitioner

What does it mean to be a contemplative practitioner? I wonder if it can’t be summed up in the way Jesus answered the question posed to him, “What is the greatest commandment in the Law?” His response was one of contemplation and action…of our inner world and its outer expression. He said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Being a contemplative practitioner is a work of love - it’s to love God and love our neighbor. It’s to find ourselves being formed in the loving presence of God toward the likeness of Christ, and expressing that in practices of neighbor love. Both contemplation and practice are essential to the Spirit-animated life of a believer. We will be malformed if we are either merely practitioners or contemplatives. Jesus invites us to whole-life faith rooted in love of God and expressed in love of neighbor. Jesus invites us to be contemplative practitioners.

The Contemplative Practitioner Learning Community

In just 9 days we will embark on the season of Lent – a season marked by practices of interior examination, restraint, and generosity. With a focus on both the inner world and outer expressions of our faith, Lent is a time that holds great potential for shaping us towards maturity and fullness in the ways of Jesus. In partnership with the Movement Leaders Collective, Missio Alliance is launching a brand-new learning community this Lenten season, “The Contemplative Practitioner: An Integrated Pathway of Formation, Justice, and Mission,” to serve you and your team’s pathway to integrated whole-life faith. We hope you’ll plan to join us!

Learn more and register today!

Disabling Leadership moves beyond paternalistic views of disability that seek to extract "inspiration" from another's story without engaging in the difficult work of just and dignifying relationships. When we foster genuinely inclusive leadership teams, the authors contend, our churches will be less likely to treat anyone as a "project" and will better reflect God's love as the body of Christ.

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We so often hear from you that Missio Alliance is the place where “you’ve found your people.” We love creating meaningful spaces and conversations that lead to action, and we want to bring you MORE OF THAT through the Leadership Network. We also know that connecting and collaborating across our membership is crucial to you as leaders, and to our truly being an “alliance.” Being a Leadership Network member gives you access to exclusive Leadership Network quarterly forums that provide essential networking opportunities, and the generative conversations you’ve come to value from Missio Alliance. Leveraging this aspect of the Leadership Network will support and sustain your valuable Kingdom work. Take a look at all the perks of our newly designed Leadership Network, and don’t miss this limited-time annual rate of $99, good until February 15th.

Formation / Mission / Witness

Tired of Feeling Guilty of Feeling Tired

Mandy Smith consistently gives voice to the daily unnamed struggles that Christian leaders face, but fail to name. "Tired of Feeling Guilty of Feeling Tired" takes on Merton, Peterson, Lewis, and her soul, asking how to stay faithful to Sabbath rest when the demands of one's mission do not quite so easily.

Culture / Witness

Politic, Not Party

The US 2024 presidential election season began on January 15th. We invited Jason Barnhart, Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio, to wrestle with core issues that affect our political reality as Kingdom citizens.

Culture / Event Recap

2023: A Year-In Review

Our 2023 Year-In-Review, in which Editorial Director Chris Kamalski makes sense of the year that was while celebrating the significant work that unfolded in and throughout our midst as Missio Alliance. What clarity are you only now seeing as 2023 recedes into the rearview mirror?

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Everyday Mission | Gina Mueller

Episode 42: The Importance of Theology and Practice in Disciple-Making
When it comes to being a disciple and making disciples, what are you? Are you more a theologian or more a practitioner? Most of us are one or the other, but Gina’s guest on this episode helps us see the importance of being both.

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Disruption, Mission, & The Next Generation ($4.99 Awakenings '23 Plenary Video) | Miriam Swanson

The Disruption of Life (Free Article) | Miriam Swanson

There's no denying that the last few years have had a huge impact on our young people in some of their most formative years of development. Has the church been a place of refuge for them in these times? Or are the next generations struggling to find a spiritual home where they belong? It is simultaneously hard and hopeful to become a church that truly reaches and disciples the next generation, which begs the question: Can we afford not to enter the disruption of loving and connecting with today's younger generations where they actually reside?

A BRAVE PRACTICE: CONTEMPLATION AND JUSTICE

Read Isaiah 58:7-9, NIV
The formational desire underneath contemplation is “to wake up to the presence of God in all things” (Adele Calhoun). As Ronald Rohlheiser defines it, “Contemplation is about waking up. To be contemplative is to experience an event fully, in all its aspects.” Contemplation often involves an intentionality with practicing the presence of God through breath prayer, a prayer of the heart, or an increased sensitivity and desire to ask where God is present in one’s day.

The formational desire underneath justice is “to love others by seeking their good, protection, gain, and fair treatment” (Adele Calhoun). One way to define justice is that it “seeks to help others through correcting and redressing wrongs. It treats others fairly and shows no favoritism” (Adele Calhoun). Justice in this manner is personal, and yet simultaneously involves pursuing equitable solutions to systemic injustices, and the dismantling of systems of oppression that are designed to dehumanize groups of people.

Thus, a spirituality that is both contemplative and just is one that awakens to the pursuit of another’s good through the deliberate identification and correction of both systemic and personal wrongs, for the freedom, dignity, and inherent self-worth that all human beings are made as Image-Bearers of God.

As we embark on Black History Month, we invite you to a brave practice of contemplation and justice for and with our African American brothers and sisters. What might it look like for you to invite the Spirit to awaken you to the significance of this month? What beauty and strength can you discover or share from the African American context? What does it mean to seek justice that affirms the imago dei in African Americans, and points to the nature and glory of God’s justice and reign? Should you lead, or should you follow in your justice-seeking? Contemplation and justice are a brave practice, indeed.

~CK