Cultivating The Spirit

Cultivating the Spirit THIS GROUNDBREAKING WORK IS BASED on a five-year study of how students change during the college years and the role college plays in facilitating the development of their spiritual qualities. Students, the authors argue, grapple with the big questions in life: Who am I? What are my values? Do I have a mission in life? Why am I in college? What kind of person do I want to be? What sort of world do I want to help to create? Their answers to these questions help determine their academic and career choices and are tied to the development of personal qualities such as empathy, caring, and social responsibility. The study finds that, while students' religious engagement declines during college, at the same time they become substantially more caring, tolerant, connected with others, and actively egaged in a spiritual quest. Spiritual growth also enhances academic performance, leadership development, and satisfaction with college. The study provides strong evidence pointing to specific experiences during college that can contribute to students' spiritual growth. The need for spiritual development in college is apparent. Two-thirds of the students in the study express a strong interest in spiritual matters, well over half report that their professors never encourage discussions of religious or spiritual matters, and about the same proportion report that professors never provide opportunities to discuss the purpose and meaning of life. Cultivating the Spirit aims to raise the awareness of academic administrators, faculty, and the public at large to the vital role that spirituality plays in student learning and development. Throughout the book, the authors identify strategies for enhancing students' development and encourage the academy to give greater priority to the spiritual aspects of students' educational and personal development.

How should Christians live? On the one hand, some very legalistic Christians stress the importance of keeping all the rules—that you must do this and never do that if you want to prove you are really a Christian. On the other hand, there are those who reject the whole idea of rules or traditions in the church and see the point of the Christian faith as setting us free from the institutionalized religious burden. But Paul addresses these two competing views by showing us a far better way—a truly Christian way to live our lives. It is the way of the Spirit of God given to us through Christ: "Walk by the Spirit . . . led by the Spirit . . . live by the Spirit . . . keep in step with the Spirit." That is the heart and soul of Christian living. It is the center and secret of what it means to be a person who belongs to Christ. Pastor and scholar Christopher Wright invites us to live a life in step with the Spirit by cultivating the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These nine chapters, each addressing a different fruit, each conclude with questions for contemplation or discussion. Feed on the Word of God, grow in Christlikeness, and live a fruitful life.

Raising Spiritual Children is a practical resource for parents who want to raise their children to be whole, healthy, and capable of using their spiritual gifts with wisdom. What does it mean to have spiritual gifting? How can we help our spiritually gifted children's stay on the right path? What do our children's dreams mean? This book answers these questions and many more. Book jacket.

Philip Kenneson digs into the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, combining rich, theologically grounded reflection on Christian life and practice with analysis of contemporary culture. He explores what each fruit means in its biblical context, then investigates how key traits of late modern Western culture inhibit the development and ripening of each fruit.

Provides a guide to developing serendipity of the spirit in an effort to balance structure and spontaneity, harness time rather than manage it, and provide a bridge to God

"Cultivating sent communities reimagines spiritual formation through the lens of mission, covering such topics as the role of Scripture, congregational discernment, and short-term missions and drawing on case studies from diverse contexts including Ethiopia, England, Leipzig, and San Francisco."--Back cover.

Mushroom Wisdom explores the universal aspects of the psilocybin mushroom experience as it relates to spirituality. Author Martin Ball explains how mushroom use can lead the spiritual seeker to profound states of self-awareness and radical understanding of the nature of the self, reality, and the sacred. Topics include looking into the spiritual mirror to uncover an authentic sense of self, developing “witness” consciousness to overcome self-limiting concepts and judgments, and removing obstacles of ego and self-induced suffering to trigger the rich experience of “spirit flow.” The book also addresses the creation and use of ritual, sacred objects, and the importance of sound and silence. Ball distinguishes between using mushrooms in spiritual work as opposed to simply having a pleasant psychedelic experience. Not a guide to how to have “fun” with psilocybin mushrooms, Mushroom Wisdom is a serious investigation into deep spiritual nature, drawing on both a wide array of scientific disciplines and ancient shamanic practices.

Discover the fruit of the Spirit in the context of your parenting, learn how to cultivate growth in your children, and explore practical ways to live out the fruit of the Spirit together.