Podcast: Advent 0.5

Hey friend, welcome to another episode of the Sunday Sit down

and we are glad that you are tuning in on this not quite

Advent. Advent See Christmassy but not

quite Christmas episode. So yesterday for us, this past

Sunday, we began our Christmas series and we did it one week

earlier than normal. Advent, what do you call 0.5?

Advent 0.5 Yeah, which also, hey, we tried to do it at 0.5

speed. Half don't do that.

That's gonna sound terrible. That's not what you meant by

slowing. Down.

No, not quite, not that much. Although for some people they

prefer, you know, like I've, I've heard some people say that

Grant, he's a, you know, a great preacher, but he, he speaks real

fast sometimes. That's cause I gotta get

everything out, Yeah. Otherwise they'll be, we'll be

here for like 52 minutes. Yeah.

And, and so the flip of that is I was with someone yesterday who

really listens to my messages on 1.5 times speed.

Yeah. So you go both ways, right.

I think when you listen to something online, you can tend

to speed it up a bit faster if you're only listening to it and

then you just get into the flow of it.

Whereas in person, yeah, we want to try to slow down a little

bit. I need to slow down a little bit

and just remember to do that. So in the name of slowing down,

what we want to do today is talk a little bit about where we

landed yesterday and our challenge to the congregation,

which is to really do just that. Slow down during Advent and be

intentional about what you're doing, what you're not doing,

what you're spending time on, what you're not spending time

on, what you're spending money on, what you're not spending

money on, all of the things. And just to name attention,

which I named yesterday, which I think is where we're going to

begin today, I, I, I preached on preparing out of Isaiah and the

idea that in Isaiah's language, to prepare doesn't mean do more

things. It, it in many, many ways just

means be different, live differently.

And so we talked about that language, that word itself

meaning to turn, like to turn your face in a different

direction, to turn your body in a different direction, and then

to begin to move in that direction.

In many ways, and I don't have a direct link in the Septuagint to

the New Testament, but it in many ways carries the same

definition as the Greek word metanoia, which is to repent and

to change your. Mind that was like, there's

gotta be a connection. There.

Yeah. So I didn't wanna preach that

necessarily yesterday, but it in many ways it holds that same

meaning. And I remember when I was

preaching on repentance, one day I brought somebody up from the

congregation and said, OK, face this way, now face this way.

Turn 150°. That's what it means.

You're changing your mind in a way that also changes the

direction of your lived experience and trajectory,

right? So to prepare is really to turn

and to be different, to live differently.

And that's our call to you. That's what we're challenging

ourselves with this Advent is to prepare by living differently

and trying to do this Advent season differently.

It's why we started a week too early because we wanted to give

you a full week to, to prepare, to prepare like, you know, don't

be surprised on the 1st Sunday of Advent.

So I think what we're going to do today and what we've been

talking about is just talking through some of these practices

because I left, I said here's the tension.

Uh, do less. Here's a whole list of things to

do. Are correct, right?

Unbelievable. So let's talk through this list

and really wrestle out why it's not simply doing more or adding

more to your To Do List. Because what I don't want you

listener feeling and walking away thinking is, Oh my

goodness. Now on top of everything else

that I have to do, those pastors over there are telling me to do

all these other things as well. And now I'm overwhelmed.

Which which feels, you know, just to kind of call back to

last week a little bit, you know, Jesus critique toward the

the scribes and the Pharisees was often that they were heaping

more laws upon the people, right.

Yeah. And and that is not what we are

aiming to do here, right. And in fact, I mean, I'm, I'm

just even thinking about, you know, my morning struggle to if

I get up, you know, in in good time, which I try to do more

mornings than not to be able to just be still before God.

Like there is always the tension of I could sit here and scroll

whatever, you know, your medium of choices for half an hour or

do something more intentional, right?

Like there is a choice to be made, not an addition to.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the word intentional,

right? I think that's what we're really

challenging ourselves with. So here's the piece with the

Pharisees, right? Jesus says you heap heavy

burdens on all the people and you yourself are not even

willing to lift a finger to do them.

And so I like, I just want to say, and I'll speak for myself

like these are practices that I'm committing to do that are

will be challenging for me to do as well.

So, you know, it's not like this is not coming from a place of,

hey, look at the five practices that I do every year now you

need to do them too. Like this will be a challenge

for me and for my family to incorporate one or two of these

into our intentional rhythms of life for the next 4 weeks.

But it's a challenge because it's, it's so different from

what we're used to, rather than just, it's a challenge because

it's just how are we gonna make time for all this, right?

Like the time is there, right? And it's just about re, you

know, reorienting, realigning, preparing for it in this way.

Yeah, yeah. So I think the first thing if

we're going to talk about steps like just to get really

practical and, and name, you know, these five practices, what

they could look like. I think the first step before

you even get to these practices is to sit down and either by

yourself, if you have that kind of autonomy over your own

schedule or with a spouse, with your family, say together,

alright, in order to do this, we need to give something up.

What is the thing that we're going to give up?

Might not even be like, what's the thing we're willing to give

up because that gets into a different, but what is the thing

that we're going to choose to give up in order to incorporate

some of these practices? We believe that we want to do

ADVENT differently. So therefore, what needs to be

different? What are we going to let go of?

And you know, you get the easy culprits, right?

The easy quick sort of you've said social media, maybe you

delete all your social media off your phone for Advent.

And that's the I'm going to give that U and I'm going to instead

I'm going to install Lectio 365 and that's going to be my go to

thing. Whenever I talk to people about

habits, like we're really trying to change and form our habits.

You need to replace a habit with a habit.

Like you can't just say, oh, I'm gonna do this new thing or you

can't just say I'm gonna undo this old thing.

So for me, like if I want to spend less time on my phone,

what I do, and I think we've talked about this a little bit,

is I have a pocket sized notebook that's basically the

same size as my phone and it goes into my back pocket, which

is where my phone normally is. So if I want to be intentional

for a day about not reaching for my phone, my phone goes into a

different spot. Usually it's into like I've got

this little tech case that I put it into and zipper it up and

then it goes into my backpack and a zipper that up and I'm

just like barrier after barrier here, right?

And so I'll stash it away somewhere and I still hear it if

it rings, but like, I'll stash it away.

And then instead I'll put a notebook in my back pocket

because what's the habit? The habit is I'm gonna reach for

my phone. And so instead it makes me pull

out a journal. I'm like, well, I guess I'm

gonna write something down like, you know, you need to, you need

to start tricking your brain a little bit in terms of doing

this. So give something up and choose

what that is. So, you know, maybe it's social

media, maybe you put something in its place like 2365, maybe

it's evening, Netflix, Disney, Prime Video, whatever, like

streaming or television. If people still have satellite

or cable subscriptions, you know, maybe maybe you actually

decide to unplug it, right? Or, you know, you put in like

into your router, if you're smart enough to do this, like,

hey, turn off at such and such a time so that you're not gonna go

and stream, you know, endlessly for a few hours in the evening.

Maybe it's video games, Maybe it's.

Stop calling me out, I'm sorry. You know, like pick what it is

for you. Don't let like I think that

there what what I'm trying to say is don't let us dictate what

that thing is. Yeah, I think everybody will

know. Different for.

Everyone, yeah, here's the thing that I could let go of for for a

season and it doesn't even need to be a bad thing.

Yeah, that's the, that's the, I think the other piece right, is

it's just a choice. So yeah, do that first.

A 10.5 step. 1A. Choose what you're going to let

go of. And so like you talked about

like, you know, deleting certain apps and adding something like

like, like your 365, which we've talked about quite a bit.

And that's one, that's one form of like it's kind of a loose

form of Lectio Divina, right? There's, it's not quite the same

as Lectio Divina, but it's, it can kind of get you there is in

a guided sort of way, right? And so like, that's like a,

that's a great way, but it's not the only way to do it, right.

And so you've highlighted in these practices kind of a a

proper Lectio Divina where you are just sitting with a

scripture and you're reading, meditating and praying and

contemplating, right. So when we talk a little bit

more specifically about that practice, yeah.

And just to say, one of the reasons why I like lactose so

much, like the Lecture 365 app, is that it, it actually

incorporates practice 1 and practice two.

Yeah, into its just if you put the app on your phone, what

you're going to see is it's got sorry not to It's it's three

practice 3, the fixed hour prayer more so so practice 1 and

practice 3. But it has this slowed down way

of reading Scripture and then encouraging you to contemplate,

pray through it. And it's going to give you

prayers if you like. I don't even know where to

start. It's so it's such a great on

ramp. And then it's also, you know, it

has it has alarms and it has morning and evening.

So you can get into some of the more fixed hour prayers as well.

Say Hey remind me to do this but.

I think this afternoon now too. Yeah, yeah.

So let's just like you said so practice 1.

I often just say lectio, which just that doesn't define it at

all. But in English, sacred reading

is the translation. And these are all, like, the

thing I love about these practices is they're all so old,

like they are ancient. Practices.

They're awesome. And I think the thing, the thing

that I would love for people to realize is like, I didn't cook

these up and, you know, you and I didn't sit and be like, oh,

what, what can we make people do?

Like these are practices. Novel is like sometimes the best

things. Often when it comes to our you

know, our spiritual practice is the best things are the ones

that have been tried, tested and true over generations and

centuries and millennia. Saints have been formed.

Yeah. By doing these practices, Yeah.

And you know, that goes down a theological rabbit trail that

we're not gonna go to today. Yeah.

But like there is there's something good and leaning into

practices that are historical and well trodden.

You know, these are are good ones in that way.

So, Lectio, here's the the, you know, 32nd elevator pitch.

It is going to help you slow down and listen for what God

might be saying to you through a specific passage of Scripture.

Yeah, you're not trying to cruise through it to get done.

It's not about efficiency. It's not, we're not, we're not

enc no. And we're not saying read an

entire chapter or three chapters or a whole book.

We're saying slow down. Read a few verses and allow God

to speak to you. So if you've been wrestling

through how and when and where does God speak to me?

And if you've been saying to yourself, like I really want to

hear from God this season, whatever that season is, right?

Good or bad, Um, this is a good way to do that because one of

the things that I'd like to remind people is, um, I think we

all go through moments where like I just, I want God to speak

to me. I want God to say something like

I wanna hear from God and at the same time we say that and then

are not reading Scripture and they go.

You have in front of you, like so many of the messages and

words and moments where God has shown up and spoken.

Um, and, and, and yet we kind of like leave it off to the side.

We'll say, well, I, I don't want, I don't want to read the

Bible. I want to hear from God.

Yeah, I was like, well, listen, like chances are this is the way

he's gonna speak to you. Yeah.

And so I think it's a great place to start.

So what I would love for people to do is slow down, read the

text. You read it in a way of just

say, hey, what is this text saying?

Simply put, what is it saying? And then you meditate on it.

What is the text saying to me? What's jumping out at you?

What is standing out? What is grabbing your attention?

What words can you not move off from?

Like what's the thing that you keep repeating and rereading?

So what does the text say #1 and then what does the text say to

me? Almost like as an emphasis there

um #3 to pray. What do I want to say to God?

What does this text challenge me to say to God?

What am I bringing as I come? And it's kind of like a shedding

of yourself a little bit like, you know, you get into these

moments where like in prayer, you again, if you want to hear,

but you just can't get out of this like framework of but this

is going on and this is going on, this is going on.

I said like God cares about that.

So bring that and then you get contemplate, like, what is God

trying to say to me in the midst of what I'm saying to God, in

the midst of what the text is saying to me in the midst of

what the text is just plainly saying?

Yeah. And do that a few times.

So you go, you know, go through that kind of three times.

Yeah, if you're if you're someone who's like interested in

diving a little deeper into some of this, there's a really short

book by Eugene Peterson called Eat This Book.

Have you read that one? Yeah, Yeah.

It's a great, it's a great little, just little book that

kind of goes through the different facets of Lectio and

talks about why it is so such a beautiful practice.

And he kind of use otherwise. The reason it's called Eat This

Book is because he kind of uses the metaphor of I think it's

Ezekiel that, you know, that has this image of eating, eating the

scroll and it tasted like honey. And, and, and kind of using that

example of like when we when we slow down and we just savor and

listen, God speaks in pretty amazing ways.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

The last thing that I would add to that is I like to do Lectio

with a journal reopen beside me because again, slowed down.

You're trying to listen. Sometimes it's helpful just to

write things down as you go. So use that as a tool.

That's number one. And that could look like every

morning, that could look like, you know, part way through the

afternoon. It could happen in the evening.

There's no set time where this works better than others.

I think that the challenges carve out the time and commit to

doing it at the same time. That that would be my

encouragement. Cool.

Yeah, alright, practice too. This one has to happen at a

specific time. Yes, yeah.

So this one and and admittedly this one is less familiar for

me. So I'd I'd love to hear a bit

more about it. I'm I am vaguely familiar, but

the daily examine. Yeah, so Ignatian, this is

Ignatian practice. Daily examine is out of the

ignition order so originated with Ignatius of Loyola and

again ancient practice it it really is I I think and in my

experience to hone in on that contemplation.

The thing I love about it is that in in a similar way to like

a brother Lawrence practice the presence of God, right doing

dishes do like in the back of the kitchen doing dishes

wrestling out the presence of God in these moments.

I think the thing that I love about this, the daily examine is

that it is very pointed at looking for God in your everyday

life. So what it's not is this super

sacred separate moment where you're doing your devotion thing

and then you re enter back into everyday secular life, whatever

like this one fights that disintegrated life to use some

of our language from the past few weeks.

So the disintegration where you are ripping apart like your work

life from your home life, from your Christian life.

This is God time. This is me time.

Absolutely, like there is no sacred secular divide in Jesus's

understanding of the world. And so this enters into that

frame of mind where there's no, you don't get the excuse of,

well, you know, that's my work life, so I can leave it over

there. Now is my time with Jesus and

I'm going to focus on scripture. Everything of your life gets

brought into like the light of examining before Jesus.

So again, this one's a little bit, a little bit more nebulous,

but you can look so online if you Google like the daily

examine or ignition practice daily examine, you will find

many different resources on these five steps.

But generally speaking, there are 5 movements to the daily

examine. This is meant to take place at,

you know, in the evening after your day is done.

And it's meant for you to look back on your day.

And it's meant to encourage you toward gratitude.

And it's meant to encourage you to name.

The places where you saw God at work.

So sometimes it's hard to do that in the moment.

Sometimes you're in the moment, like I wanna remember this

tonight. So it just helps you name God's

presence and God's acting in your life when you are like,

say, doing dishes or on your commute or at work or at school

or at home, like wherever you find yourself.

SO5 practices or five movements, intentionally placing yourself

in God's presence and giving thanks for his love.

So settling into a place where you can sit and consciously

choose to realize God's presence.

That's not gonna feel like it might.

It might feel like, you know, the clouds parting and light,

you know, shining into a room and like it might feel this

super spiritual. Sometimes it's just like a

stillness. Right.

More often than not, it's choosing to acknowledge the

presence of God that Scripture says is there, as opposed to

wait and be like, OK, God, I'm ready.

I'm ready for you to show up. It's actually like God.

I'm going to choose to believe and trust that you're here with

me. Alright, so you're shifting your

own mind about, you know, the presence of God.

But place yourself in God's presence.

Give thanks for His love. Start with gratitude #2 pray for

grace to understand how God is acting in your life.

Just say, hey God, I want to see you at work more.

Again, I'm going to choose to trust that you are.

Help me to see the ways you are working.

Yeah, and help me to trust that it is you working.

So again, 1-2, place yourself in God's presence, pray for grace

and an understanding of how God is acting in your life, and then

#3 review your day. Think about the things that you

did. Think about the things that you

didn't do. O we use this language in our

prayers of confession, right? Things that we did, things that

we left undone, right? But I think you just think

through the steps of your day and how were you so like getting

your kids out the door, trying to pile them all into snow

suits. And like this very real one for

me, like trying to pile my kids into snow suits this morning.

Like, how was I? And and nice.

Yes and no. Like me.

And it's like no, like, no, like Monday morning snow suits.

It's it's sometimes it's a battle.

Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes I have

patience and sometimes I don't have patience.

Yeah. And today was a less patient

day. Hmm.

For sure. Hmm.

So think through those moments of your day and listen, the the

point isn't to add guilt and shame.

And, you know, not that those things are even the same.

Yeah. But but it's to notice the

notice to to notice and to allow God into those spaces, because

sometimes I think we can just go on autopilot right in our day

without, without self reflection, without looking back

at me, like I kind of was a jerk to my kids this morning.

Perhaps, you know, tomorrow I can be more conscious of my

what, you know, my own emotions in that moment.

What's, what is you know what, what's what's going on with me,

right? Yeah, I the beauty of this is I

get to say, you know, alright, how was I wasn't at my best.

What am I gonna do differently? Yeah, absolutely.

And, and to do that in a place before God is, you know, in many

ways like, hey, if if you know, if you're wrestling at what

confession is like you just, you just made it 90% of the way

there right before God. And so review your day, be

grateful for what you should be grateful for, and then recall

specific moments and then specific emotions attached to

them, Right. So name the wins and also name

the losses and name your motions in and through all of it.

Reflect on what you did, what you said, what you thought.

Were you in that moment moving closer to God or further away

from God? So that's the fourth one.

I think that's where you, you, you are challenged to be the

most honest and raw. Be like, yeah, my commute this

morning was not moving closer to God, did not reflect Jesus.

Well, that I'm not saying that about my day today cause I've

got the greatest commute in the history of commutes.

One minute. Yeah, if I walk like it's, it's

so, so, you know, there have been days though, where I had

like hour and a half commutes, absolutely frustrated and

stressed out and not in those moments moving closer to God.

So how am I gonna do that differently?

Again, don't beat yourself up. But just this gives you an

opportunity to be honest and then #5 look forward to

tomorrow. How might you partner with God

and invite him into your day? And I would say like, invite him

into your day in a different way.

Like, what steps are you going to take to just say, hey, I'm

choosing to be more conscious out of you showing up and how

I'm leaning into that or running away from that.

Help me to do that better tomorrow.

Yeah. So it it here's one of the wins

of this thing. So if you go to bed and you find

yourself waking up thinking, Oh, I didn't do this.

I gotta remember that tomorrow. I can't believe I left.

Like, ohk, OK, gotta run down, figure that out.

I left an e-mail and like unresponded to or I got text

this person. Like if you find yourself waking

up with that jolt and going, oh, like this is a really good

safeguard against that. And what a what a great way to

slow down this Advent just to reflect on every single day as

you move toward Christmas. And I bet you're going to see a

massive change in a whole lot of different things, like you might

start sleeping better, you'll probably have more patience.

You might feel a little worse about yourself for a little

while. Yeah, but gives you a chance

maybe to repair some things that have been, um, you know, broken

to some degree or fractured. Those are not insignificant

changes to think about over the course of a month just simply by

reviewing your day before God and saying, God help me to be

different tomorrow. Like I'm going to choose to be

different. So give me what I need again,

like the invitation into Jesus prayer guy, give me, you know,

give me today what I need for today.

So you go to bed starting to pray that prayer, God for

tomorrow. Give me what I need just for

tomorrow. As you as you unpack some of

those, it is, you know, going back to like your like your 365.

The evening one does incorporate quite a bit of this as well.

It does. So that is you know, if if that

if you need a bit of guidance with that.

I love, I love the evening one because it it almost puts me to

sleep in like the best way. Yeah, like so.

Absolutely, Yeah. I think what we're just saying

is if if all you did was download like 2365 this Advent

and committed to opening that app once a day, your life would

be better for it like that. What a what a beautiful.

This is not paid. This is not a paid sponsorship.

Nothing. No.

No, but I think we use it right. Yeah.

And like that, I think that's, that's probably the number one

indorsement is yeah, yeah, absolutely only endorse the

things that we know. So OK, so that's practice one

and two practice 3 fixed hour prayer.

Hmm. Or what's often been called

Liturgy of the Hours. Again, just this.

Really, this one may be the most structured in terms of your

entire day. And where your technology might

come in handy. Yeah, because you can actually

just like put a little alarm on your phone or watch or whatever,

just to remind you. So what I would do here is

exactly that I would set an alarm for three times a day, and

that the first one might be the alarm that you set when you wake

up and you just go. I'm going to commit to not hit

snooze. That alarm is going to go off

and I before my feet hit the floor, I am going to say a

prayer, right? Don't light a candle before you

get out of bed. Probably not safe because that's

what I included for the morning. Like light a candle and read the

day's Advent reading. These are these are examples of

what you could do. You could you could sit up in

your bed if you had a candle on your night stand.

Just saying. Yeah, listen, that's do that at

your own risk. No, but I I think here's here's

the point. Morning, midday, evening, set an

alarm and choose a practice. It could be to pray the same

prayer you you could literally pray the Lord's Prayer three

times a day and that will begin to shift and change your

relationship to Jesus and others like it.

It. It doesn't need to be this fully

formed practice with candles and readings and it can be but if

well, I wanna be careful with this, but like if all you did

was three times a day prayed, the Lord's Prayer leaps and

bounds ahead of not doing. It.

Like can't even begin to say. So yeah, set an alarm for three

times a day and then choose a practice.

It could be the same practice that you do every single time,

or it could be a different practice at each point.

And I would say this is a great practice if you are not doing

anything right now, this is a great practice to start simply

by praying the Lord's Prayer three times a day.

If you have a daily prayer rhythm and you're like, I want

for something different or more, turn your current rhythm or

current routine into a fixed hour routine where maybe you're

already fantastic at giving up every morning and having quiet

time where you're praying in your reading scripture.

Great. So that's your morning.

This is an opportunity to add a midday prayer and then an

evening prayer, and maybe that evening prayer is the examine

and maybe your midday prayer is something like a Lectio 365

where you're listening. So that that I think is it this

is a really good practice for people who have a, a more fully

formed prayer life. And it's also a great practice

if you're looking for like just one kind of crazy.

And I'm doing air quotes here. But like, I know for some

people, in order to set a goal, it, you can't set a wimpy goal.

It's gotta be like, I'm gonna set a goal for 30 days to do

something a little, that sounds a little bit crazy because

that's the motivation, right? Like that's kind of the, the,

the reason behind it. So it's like, well, I'm not, I'm

not running at all. I did this one year.

I hadn't run in months and I was going on vacation.

So a sane goal would be I'm gonna run three times a week

while I'm on vacation. I said I'm going to run every

day and it didn't matter how far I ran, what mattered what.

So what qualified as a run? I could run to the mailbox 100

meters there and back. That counted.

If I got changed into my running equipment, like into my like

into my shorts, T-shirt, whatever, shoes, if I actually

gotcha. So running to catch my kid

because they're just like goofing off didn't count.

It had to be the intention, had to be there.

And then if I ran a block, fantastic, that worked.

That's a crazy goal after it had not running at all, right?

Were you sore? Yeah, it stunk, but I but I did

it because it was just a little bit crazy.

So the intention, right? The intention of it, it could

be, I think for midday I included a one minute silence

and then a simple three word prayer.

Come Lord Jesus, you might read that and go like that's that's

nothing. Don't like, but it's not

nothing. It's not the intent, It's the

intention. It's placing yourself before

God, right. We're talking about how do we

make ourselves available? Yeah, it literally a minute plus

3 words. See what guys gonna do with it.

One thing I love about all of these so far is that they're

just like we talked like them being like a little weird, like

this is like this is and as a church to like encourage

ourselves in this way. It's it's a little weird.

It's a little kind of counter cultural in like the best kind

of way. And that it that it pushes up

against the the tendencies of our world in in ways that that I

think are the most important for Christians to do.

Yeah. And that I think is the next one

as well for the the 4th practice of silence and solitude.

And I mean, I think this one is gaining more traction in, in

kind of pop psychology and culture, the, the, the

importance of like just being still and breathing and, and

even just like being bored, you know, and, and yeah, allowing

your mind to, to be distracted and then to return to, you know,

like, like there's, there's something that we're hearing a

lot more about the importance of, but you know, Christians

have been doing it for, for centuries.

Yeah, I almost called this practice.

Be bored. Yeah, like that is the like.

Choose to make yourself board again, like it is a gift.

Boredom is a tremendous gift. Why is it when I tell my kid

that it's not it's not well received?

Well, because you didn't receive it well when you were a kid.

It's only on the other. Side of it that.

You know, you come to realize I think creativity is born in

boredom. Like I I think what is This is

why I'm so leery of AI and generative, specifically

generative AI. Yeah, because what we're doing

is we're not allowing ourselves a couple of things.

We're not allowing ourselves to be bored because you can always

fill your space and time and mind with things, which was

stuff. Usually it's often it's garbage

stuff like just not good, right? What do we call it now?

Like brain rot brain. That's a.

Word. That is, That is a thing, yeah.

So that's number one, but I think #2 and, and I, I'm

starting to wonder and believe that this second one might be

more detrimental is the more, so there are now studies showing

that the more students, young students use AI to help quote,

like do research, the less they're able to think and

process, hmm, what it is they're doing right?

So when it comes to writing an essay, like, hey, give me an

outline for an essay, well, what have you not had to do?

Learn how to put together thoughts in an organized way

that that logically makes sense and takes somebody from here and

I'm pointing, you know, from here to there instead of not

knowing the answer to something and having to sit with that.

Oh, I don't know, like, what is it?

Could it be this? Could it be that like you're not

problem solving, so we've removed like there's there's no

need to problem solve anymore because you can go straight to

ChatGPT and say, help me, help me figure this out.

And you might get there faster and it might even be the like

you might get to a good logical place.

You might not AI is wrong. And we don't talk about that

enough that AI does make mistakes.

But what we're doing is we're not allowing ourselves the

challenge of thinking. We're not allowing ourselves the

challenge of being bored and going how, what, what could I

fill this space with? So we're going to lose, we're

going to lose problem solving and we're going to lose

creativity. And that worries me.

Yeah, and in a world that demands, you know, expediency

and efficiency, being bored and, and slowing down and being

silent for, you know, some people like you, I think you

wrote 5 to 10 minutes. My, my one professor who

doesn't, he wrote a book on like centering prayer and, and, and

that kind of thing. And he, he, he's like, I, I

encourage people to work their way like 30 minutes.

I'm like, who that's like that's, that's a lot.

That's a lot. But it's, I mean, it's changed

people's lives. There's a trend, there's a

there's a trend now where people are like, I'm gonna fly from

like Toronto to wherever, Vancouver, and I'm not gonna

watch anything and I'm not gonna.

Listen to anything you use that No but.

Yeah, it's, it's crass, but but there's a trend now of people

realizing and actually celebrating when you can sit

there without a screen in front of you for an hour, for two

hours, for three hours for A5, whatever it is.

I Yeah, there is something to be said about doing a full like 24

hours of silence and solitude. Like a full day, even a day like

a, like a, you know, 8 hour, like morning to evening kind of

thing. Yeah.

And I think that that probably terrifies a lot of people in

seasons where I've had to discern sort of large things,

Um, I've, I've felt that call to how you gotta get quiet before

God. And it's gotta be, it's gotta be

big. Like it's gotta be not the, the

normal sort of, yeah, I'm going to slow down for, for half an

hour, for an hour. Um, but yeah.

What could it look like to go away for a day, for a weekend?

Zechariah, he had to be quiet for a real long time.

Yeah, absolutely. That's just to tie in the the

biblical, you know, the the Jesus birth narrative.

Struck mute, right, Because he questions, he doubts.

But. Wonder what God did in that like

season there. Must have been wild.

Absolutely in his life. Yeah, I so just in the tie back

to Isaiah, right? He says in the wilderness, O

what you know, what wilderness might it be beneficial to

intentionally enter into? Hmm.

So silence and solitude, Yeah, I said, you know, can you get can

can you get 5 to 10 minutes a day?

Maybe incorporate some other things into it as well, but try

to be as. This is where I'll say try to be

as rigid as possible with this. Like try to be as even like

legalistic as possible 100% like your kids gonna run in and jump

on you and. That's that's very different

from so many other things that could be distracting you though.

Like that's like a good distraction. 100% yeah,

absolutely. Don't turn yourself into a jerk

by doing this. Yeah, you know, so I for for me,

for silence and solitude to what I have found is I tried to

incorporate silence and solitude into my morning prayer routine.

And what would happen is like my kids would join in and, or want

to eat because they're hungry, right?

Like I'd get up at 5:30 and they'd tear me up and so they

come downstairs and. You know, I'd start getting

frustrated, be like, well, I really wanted to get, you know,

like 1/2 an hour of silence before like assuming they wake

up at six and et cetera. And so I had to let just let go

of that because it, it becomes counterintuitive or

counterproductive rather. Hmm.

And so now I, I don't pretend that I can do that in the

morning when I also need to be a dad.

I need to be on call for whatever's happening that has to

happen at a different time during my day when I don't have

that imminent sort of immediate responsibility.

So yeah, be careful about how you schedule it, but I think

this is the one where you can, you can convince yourself for

sure to try to be a little bit more specific and even rigid on

it and see what happens. These other ones like again,

we're not, we're not trying to add burden to you, but there's,

there's some fun in trying to be like again, a little bit crazy

with. It and I think one thing worth

noting that you've talked about before, but just worth saying

again is that when we talk about silence and solitude, it should

not be confused with sort of like a modern notion of like

meditation, which is a different practice and one that often asks

us to sort of like empty our brains, which we're not called

to do as followers of Jesus. Yeah, that that we are taking

the moment to be still and to, you know, receive God's love and

to, you know, even some of these other things that are described

here that can be done in silence.

We're sometimes in something like centering prayer.

Sometimes there's a when you find yourself distracted, they

encourage like a kind of a phrase to return back to you.

But like, you know, the one that the one that I'm familiar with

is, you know, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a Sinner, something

like that, right? Yeah, and you can incorporate

some like breath prayers, right, what what the traditions have

called like breathing prayers or breath prayers.

Again, this is another ancient practice, but where you breathe

in and as you breathe in, you say like a couple word prayer

and then breathe out. Yeah, and Justice use that

because again, like, great point, You're not trying to

empty your mind where you're not trying to find this like divine

nothingness. Yeah, that's not the point.

What you're trying to do is eliminate the external noise.

You're going to find it's actually not quiet inside your

mind. No, and that's the battle.

And then you go into these intentional things, so silence

and solitude pick a place and you know, no music, no podcast,

no plan and see, you know what, what will happen as you wait on

God to show up. So practice for practice 5 And

Advent wreath is, um, kind of maybe the most modern of these

practices. This one's not like the ancient

of ancient practices, but this one, I'm, I'm looking forward to

this one. I'm going to try to do this one

with my kids and I'll just say this much this week I am gonna

go and try to find some. You can get these like flat

sheets of beeswax and we're going to make these, we're going

to make our own candles. And I'm sure they're gonna like

fall apart and we're going to like, I can't, I can't, I don't

have, I don't know how to make a candle.

But we're gonna, we're gonna try to find these flat wax sheets,

roll them up into candles and make some sort of wreath that

then we can use through this practice.

So. You've inspired me.

I'm going to do that with my family.

Yeah, this one, I think it's like for a family.

This is the one that I was, I was picturing.

Hey, what a great way to start to pass on some traditions to

your kids and start to create some memories with them that I

remember every year before it was even Christmas, you know, we

made these ugly candles and then recited some prayers together.

Uh, that's what I'm looking forward to in this practice is,

uh, yeah. The, the kind of messiness of

doing this as a family. Yeah.

Together with other people kind of sounds to me like a good way

to prepare for, for Advent. So I would say if you have kids

and you're trying to find something to do with them or

grandkids and you'd like something to do with them, this

is the one that that I, I really think you could have some fun

with. Absolutely.

Yeah. So then I think the the last

piece is about that one. Commit to doing it on a day.

I think we will. We'll do Sunday, you know, we

might there's there's an argument to be made like if you

do a Sabbath practice kind of Friday to Saturday, incorporate

this into that and then use a prayer to pray and just make it

simple. It doesn't need to be

complicated, but read the story of Jesus's birth, kind of break

it up into four, four or five chunks and say a prayer together

as a family. Use it as a time to reflect on

your day. We ask our kids what's not like

a OHT? What's something that went

really well today? What's something that really did

not go well? And did you see God doing

something? Hmm.

So there's three kind of three simple questions to ask around

the table as you do something like this, So.

This is awesome I I'm excited for what God is going to do in

our church in this season. It just feels the the

anticipation for me is is increasing more than other

years. I would say it's always a

beautiful season. It's always a wonderful time,

but for I think just as we, as we bring this level of

intentionality to not just the, the services, which are always

wonderful as well, but just what God is doing throughout the week

in our lives. And some of the practices that

we're building in that are going to safeguard against, you know,

cause it's one thing we always say almost every Christmas, we

always talk about, well, like that.

Don't be so in a hurry. Like don't like slow down, savor

the moment. Like, but this gets at like

these these are practical, actual things you can do to make

that happen rather than just this nebulous sense of just

don't give in to the consumerism and business.

So I do hope that we as a as a church by and large take

advantage of this opportunity and and to enter in well.

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That's my prayer as well is, you know, I got tired of not tired,

but like you get tired of in your own life saying I'm going

to slow down and I'm going to ever pay more attention and

instead go, alright, what do I need to do to push against the

hurriedness? Yeah, or the business or all of

these things. It really is, you know, just

jump forward. I think we'll do a similar thing

around Easter where we talk about intentionally practicing

our way toward these moments. So we, hey, we're praying for

you and I hope you can hear that and know that.

And also we'd love to hear some of your stories of how you

implemented these practices and what you saw God do on the other

side of Christmas. So.

In fact, maybe that'd be a good thing like to send in like to

the questions at coreychurch.org, like just like

send us some of what God has been saying and doing your life.

So does not be a question, just like share what you're noticing

and seeing SO. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So we'd love to hear from you and we will see you in the next

episode.