Tag Archives: confession
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (4)
“Confession.”
That’s a word I hate to use because of the images I know it conjures up. If we grew up Catholic, we see images of boxes and priests telling us to say “hail-Mary’s.” If we grew up Protestant, we see ourselves telling our dark sins to the preacher or the accountability partner. It’s all about ‘fessing up; saying out loud the bad thing we did.
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Posted in Community in a Mid-Size Church
Tagged confession, prickly people, self-awareness, self-disclosure
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Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (5)
We finish our look at the ancient practice of confession with the practical how-to’s of making a confession. In this lesson I lay out six steps to making a thorough, fearless inventory of our souls, helping us develop the self-awareness necessary for a healthy soul. The first several weeks of this lesson were necessary context and environment-making to be able to do this, but now that we’re here, I hope you see how this will benefit your spiritual life. Continue reading
Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (4)
On how to receive a confession.
Before we can talk about the self-awareness required of making a confession, we need to understand the context in which we’ll be making that confession. Trust, confidentiality, encouragement, and the affirmation of our basic Christian beliefs that we are not defined by our sin… these are critical elements required for a confessorial community.
In today’s lesson, we talk about creating just that environment. Continue reading
Posted in The Art of Humility
Tagged confession, humility, penance, spiritual community, trust
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Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (2)
We continue our introduction to the ancient practice of confession; rooted in the ancient virtue of humility. (Next week we’ll get to the practical how-to’s.)
We human beings are in a protracted struggle with existential shame, and before we even get to the issue we confess, the very act of revealing our weakness deals a blow to the control shame has in our souls. But if we don’t address our framing worldview (mostly inherited from the Greeks), we’ll never prevail in this struggle. Continue reading
Posted in The Art of Humility
Tagged Carl Jung, confession, coping strategies, humility, shame
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Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (1)
For those present on Sunday, I didn’t use the word “confession” until the last few sentences of the lesson. We have such a limited, skewed, and religiously ritualized idea of what it means, I wanted to tell a story first. … Continue reading
Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 4)
We conclude looking at the art of confession with this lesson on two themes…
1. what is penance, and what is it’s value to our souls?
2. how do we receive a confession well? Continue reading
Posted in Friends for the Fray
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, community, confession, penance, spiritual friends
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Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 3)
So, after a few weeks championing the benefits confession affords our souls, we come today, to the practical “how-to’s” of this ancient practice.
We look at making a good confession in three parts,
1) self-awareness,
2) thoroughness, and
3) penance
(Only some beginning remarks on penance; just enough to let you know it is probably not what you think it is. We’ll finish up next week)
Have a listen. Continue reading
Posted in Friends for the Fray
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, character, community, confession, courage, journaling, pain/suffering, penance, prayer, spiritual friends
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Friends for The Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 2)
After last week’s digression to reinforce the importance of making for ourselves a healthy spiritual community, today we resume looking at the practicality of this ancient spiritual spiritual practice, confession.
The themes of this lesson are very personal for me. The bulk of last week’s digression-lesson was a personal story, and this week is too. It was embarrassing 15 years ago, now it is one of my most cherished memories. Continue reading
Posted in Friends for the Fray
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, community, confession, greed, Love, lust, pride, spiritual friends
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Friends For The Fray: A Digression to Reinforce
This digression will expand what I said last week, and I’ll spend the lion’s share of our time telling you a story from my own life. It’s a story of love for people, and how without it, we cannot give our gifts to one another, and consequently, we fall short of our destinies. Continue reading
Posted in Friends for the Fray
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, breathing groups, community, confession, greed, Love, lust, pride, spiritual friends
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Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 1)
The ancient art of confession is lost to most Christians today. It is a loss that causes great peril to our souls. In this lesson, we talk about the importance of this ancient practice, and some of the reasons we tend to resist it. Continue reading
Posted in Friends for the Fray
Tagged ancient spiritual paths, breathing groups, confession, forgiveness, grace, greed, lust, prayer, pride, self-awareness, shame, sin, spiritual friends
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