Spiritual Formation

God, giver of life you alone know how our life can actually succeed. Teach us in the silence of your presence to reverence this mystery: how in the encounter with you, how under your gaze and in your word we recognize ourselves as your image and likeness. Show us how to let go of whatever [...]

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Last week I spent an early morning over zoom with a group of men from Cedar Falls, Iowa who meet together every Thursday. It is a wonderful group who over the last 16 months have become good friends, fellow travelers on the journey. They went through VP3’s The Journey last year and are now working […]

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When I heard that best-selling author and Christian counselor Larry Crabb had passed away last week, I got to some remembering.  I recall seeing in the summer of 1989, a video series based on Crabb’s book Inside Out, in which he argued, if we are going to take seriously Jesus Christ, then we need to move […]

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The highlight of our week around VantagePoint3 was Wednesday’s online conversation, Spiritual Formation: What Matters Most? Dr. Keith Anderson joined Pam Edwards and me as we explored, along with 90+ other friends, the topic of the Spirit’s forming work in our lives and our communities. In preparation for this time I asked Keith for five recommendations […]

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When people have recently asked me this question –“Who is The Journey for?”–I have found myself responding by pointing to this Christian developmental path diagram we have been using around our offices.  We’ve found it helpful (without prescribing a rigidity) to show where our VantagePoint3 Pathway fits within a broader understanding of a person’s growth toward maturity in Christ […]

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In the eighth century, Christian theologians began describing the relationship among the persons of the Trinity as a dynamic communion, a dance of three persons. God’s triune and dynamic presence creates space within that presence, a space into which we can be drawn. The Son, who is both God and human, reaches out to us, taking hold of our […]

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When a group of folks gathered to remember Randy and pray the afternoon before his Celebration of Life service on August 19th, Matthew Burch—a close friend of Randy and VP3—prefaced his thoughts by reading a short excerpt from Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses. Peterson’s observations of a life of faith, shared in the light […]

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We serve a very creative and developmental God who uses the disruptions in our lives to shape and mature us—times of failure and transition, moments of questioning, loss, and possibility. Growing up into Christ consists of both long, slow stretches of continuity and more sudden turns of discontinuity. These turns or detours or sidetracks in […]

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Recently I have been listening to some folks who are getting close to finishing up The Journey and are considering moving along our pathway into the next process A Way of Life. And as I listen to them sort this decision out, I keep on thinking about psychologist Henry Cloud’s words in his book Integrity: The […]

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Growing up into Christ involves far more than acquiring the right information. It requires a deep connection between truth and life, between belief and behavior. And such connection only occurs when we take extended time for dialogue or conversation with others about these things that matter most to us.   Dialogue is a critical gift on the journey. […]

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Friendship does not grow naturally out of the fast-paced, competitive, and isolated lives so many of us live. In reality, our work priorities and our household busy-ness most often stand against the cultivation of deep friendship. Yet it is friendship that most often describes an essential condition for Christian maturity. As we make space for a common sharing, […]

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As I was thinking and praying this afternoon about the many different folks spread throughout North America, walking through The Journey process, being invited to seriously, honestly and courageously seek God’s gracious presence in the story of their lives, I was mindful of writer Madeleine L’Engle’s profound insights drawn from the life of Joseph (Genesis 37-50). L’Engle […]

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