Historic Examination - Spiritual Disciplines

Question: Will you recommend fasting or abstinence, both by precept and example?
Answer: Yes

 One of my areas of interest for the Church is spiritual formation. It lead me to pursue additional certification at seminary and from the general church concerning spiritual formation in congregations. What I have found is there are certain spiritual disciplines that most people are willing to engage in - chiefly prayer, worship, and reading the scriptures. There are some that start to make people uncomfortable - tithing. And then there are others that people simply don't understand so they come up with a long list of reasons not to even engage those particular spiritual disciplines at all - like fasting and abstinence.

When I was in college I took a 3 week course on spiritual disciplines and we had to try them all in a way that was meaningful to us. Fasting from food wasn't a good idea for me at that time, so I fasted from something I did every day - or rather used every day - the media. I fasted from the internet and movies and music for 12 hours one day. It was transformative. We fast and abstain in order to realize how much certain things have control over us, how much power we give to them, and then during the time of our day we would normally spend doing those particular things, we are in prayer.

I have friends and colleagues who fast every week. I have others who fast when something big is happening in their lives and ministries. But notice that there is a second part of this particular question - we recommend both by teaching, but also by example. This gets a little tricky because most people believe in fasting in secret, which is wonderful, but as pastors we need to figure out a way to use ourselves and the spiritual disciplines we engage as an example for our congregation in order to make it more approachable.

At the heart I think this question isn't just asking if we will instruct congregations about fasting and abstinence, but about spiritual disciplines in general, so that we can grow in our faith walk.