Spiritual Formation with Dr. Brian Fast

The Healing Ministry at Christ the King Center is pleased to offer you this series of webinars featuring Dr. Brian Fast from CCAHope.  While each webinar stands alone very nicely, they intentionally build on each other.  We recommend veiwing them in order.  You might want to consider watching and discussing these challenging interactional messages with a group of spiritual friends.  Enjoy!

Webinar #1:  Grace and Your Calling (Pre-recorded on November 21, 2020)

• Grace: How does the Spiritual Life Start? What is spiritual formation? Why is grace “amazing”? And how do we regain and stay amazed by grace all our lives?
• Relational Implications of being made to "Image" a Trinitarian God .” If God is primarily relational – if there is a Relationship at the center of the universe characterized by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in other-focused, self-sacrificial, unconditional love – then reflecting or “imaging” Him on earth must have something to do with relating to others the way He relates. A significant implication for our understanding of spiritual formation is that it must be primarily relational formation. So we ask the question: what has God done to make it possible for us to relate with each other the way God relates to us and within Himself? The practical implications are far reaching. We will consult Scripture and authors such as Larry Crabb, Richard Rhor & CS Lewis.
• Discussion and application for life and ministry: The above has special implications for spiritual leaders who are often vulnerable to puttng more energy into loving the church or their ministry more than they do their spouses or closest family and friends. But this can change. The ultimate success of our ministry will be in direct proportion to the intimacy (health) of our closest relationships.

Webinar #2:  Independence vs Intimacy (Pre-recorded on May 9, 2020)

• Navigating an internal Copernican revolution in our souls as we walk together through the 4 stages of Christian maturity taught by Bernard of Clairvaux: “I love myself for my sake”, “I love God for my sake”, “I love God for God’s sake”, “I love myself for God’s sake” (i.e., out of gratitude to God I embrace my life circumstances as an opportunity to respond in a way that delights and reveals Him).
• Pour vs Pull How to recognize our characteristic “pull” in relationships and our unique version of the internal battle between the flesh and the Spirit. Paradoxically, our independent insistence on defining life on our own terms and justifying to ourselves that our demands should be met makes intimacy with God and others impossible. Learn to identify and lay down your false definitions of “Life” and “Death” and answer the Lord’s invitation to become a source of living water for others (John 7: 38-39): pull/take/consume vs pour/give/provide.
• Humility and the “exchanged life”: Learning to trust Jesus (Beatitudes) and the Apostle Paul (2Corinthians 12: 7-10) that God’s power will be most on display in our lives when we realize that on our own we are poor and weak and inadequate, i.e., that on our best day in our own strength we’re a mess, but “with God all things are possible” (Matt 19: 26).

Webinar #3:  From Demand to Empty Longing: Learning to Trust God in the Dark (Pre-recorded on June 6, 2020)

• Holy Indifference: Detaching from everything which is not God in order to Attach more fully to Him alone. Another way to understand spiritual formation is detaching ourselves from everything but God as a source of soul satisfaction in order to attach ourselves in more settled fashion to Him alone. We will look to Scripture and to Ignatius of Loyola’s Principle and Foundation, Thomas Chalmers’ “expulsive power of a new affection” and CS Lewis for help turning from idolatry toward true worship and availability.
• Thirst: Trusting what God is doing in the Dark. As we let go our idols and addictions, we learn to trust the painful experiences of longing, emptiness and ache in our souls as indications something good is happening inside and not that something is wrong (Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, St. John of the Cross).
• Discussion and Application for Life and Ministry. The above has special implications for spiritual leaders who are often vulnerable to putting more energy into loving the church or their ministry than they do their spouses or closest family and friends. But this can change. The ultimate success of our ministry will be in direct proportion to the intimacy (health) of our closest relationships (intentional repeat). Opportunity for questions and discussion and integration of entire morning content.

Webinar #4:  Four Uncommon Sources of Energy for the Spiritual Marathon (Pre-recorded on September 19, 2020)

• Authenticity and Vulnerability in the life of the believer. We will explore excerpts from the Psalms, Lamentatitons, the life of Jesus, current research from Brene Brown on vulnerability and wholeheartedness, and discover that "God meets us where we are rather than where we pretend to be" (L Crabb, CS Lewis).
• Spiritual Friendship. The place of a Spiritual Friend or peer in your spiritual formation, as distinct from a spiritual director. We will see the importance of becoming more discerning and intentional about the number and types of relationships we have in our lives at any given time. We practice authenticity and vulnerability through finding and being a spiritual friend.
• Self-care and Tools. Sometimes our greatest spiritual need is sleep!... or exercise or a quiet walk in a beautiful place or a hobby. We need to know ourselves well enough to understand what keeps our souls well and then give ourselves permission to build these things into the regular weekly schedules and seasons of our lives. A practical tool and help will be offered as we seek regular trips to green pastures and still waters and the careful tending of our souls (Ps 23, Prov 4:6).