West End United Methodist Church

Centering Your Week Nov. 17, 2021

Speakers:Brandon Baxter

This is a Wednesday evening series that rotates each month through WORD (scriptures for the month), WISDOM (Rev. Baxter interviews a guest), WONDER (exploring spiritual practices), and WAY (the way we live out our faith, ministries of compassion and care).  Tonight’s session is WONDER, and the Rev. Brandon Baxter, our own pastor of Spiritual Formation, addresses the topic, “Setting Intentions in Our Spiritual Lives,” exploring the ways we can open up ourselves to the Spirit.  Part of doing this involves spiritual discipline, and Brandon discusses this term, and also the term, “spiritual practice.” Both terms can be misleading or off-putting.  Brandon would rather think in terms of spiritual play or playfulness.  He refers to and recommends the book, A Play-Full Life: Slowing Down & Seeking Peace, by Vanderbilt professor, Jaco Hamman, and he offers some of Hamman’s advice for looking for God in the midst of life’s travels, distinguishing between being a tourist and being a traveler.  He also goes through some factors that help with the setting for one’s spiritual practices, prompting us to consider what of these things will work and do work for us.  He ends by offering a recent experience of his own as an example.

Audio