The Joining Jesus in a New Missional Age Spiritual Practices initiative engages the work of small teams within parishes, mostly laity, who, through the assistance of a coach, to learn together how to listen to God through scripture and in the community. Beginning with listening to God in scripture, the teams begin to recognize and trust God’s voice in their shared life within the neighborhood where their parish is planted. Through a variety of actions and the discipline of deliberation, the teams try on a variety of ways to deepen that experience even more.
These five spiritual practices — listening, discerning, trying on, reflecting, and deciding — are the transformational steppingstones for a community learning together how to walk The Way of Jesus. Discovering these practices as a way of life deepens over time as the team develops an increasingly authentic relationship to the neighborhood in which the parish is planted and within the places where each of them live their daily lives.
