One of the great problems in our contemporary spiritual formation is the sheer number of diverse, non-integrated ideas, resources, and themes in the ongoing lives of Christian communities today.  It is easy to get lost amid the hundreds of ideas and topics covered within a calendar year: weekly homilies, Sunday School units, small group series, pastoral preaching topics, personal devotional guides, and media posts (to name a few).  This patchwork of disconnected approaches and ideas rubs against our natural disposition to focus on an idea, one big, integrated idea for an extended period of time.  For those of us who see Christ Jesus as the source and center of the Christian experience, this recurring focus on dozens of disconnected ideas sabotages effective, biblical spiritual formation.

 

The anthropological response to this whole phenomenon is for us to learn to focus on a single, big, integrated idea.  The key to character and discipline is focused attention, effort, and energy. Whatever subjects or directions upon which we concentrate our energies and efforts in a deliberate and disciplined manner, we grow and deepen. To use an analogy, honey is gathered by the bee, who draws out of a single blossom all the sweet nectars which it has to offer. The butterfly, however, which flits around from bush to bush and plant to plant, may cover ground but gathers nothing sweet. In all things spiritual, we ought to strive to be like the bee and not the butterfly!  It is both bad pedagogy and ineffective pastoral strategy to give people dozens of unique, disconnected themes per year to think about and apply.

 

Perhaps the greatest disadvantage these multiple themes produce in our lives is the lack of connection we find with others with whom we share a spiritual walk and journey.  If it were possible for a community to share the same spiritual ideas, themes, and resources together for, say, an entire year, their ability to share a spiritual journey would be multiplied exponentially.  The same prayers, readings, memorization, dialogues, disciplines, and experiences could enhance our ability to share a spiritual vision and journey together.  The same theme could fund a shared spirituality.

 

For years now, the faculty and staff of the Institute have shared spirituality, i.e., we have communally embraced a common theme and focus around which we organize our efforts and energies for the sake of our growth and maturity.  We share the same resources in similar disciplines on a mutually-committed theme.  Through that theme we integrate our devotions, preachings, lectures, worship liturgies, book readings, and spiritual exercises for and entire Church Year.  The theme becomes our touchstone, the one centralizing element from which all our shared spiritual pursuits emerge, the starting line for the specific missional projects and events that we sponsor and host.  The resource which explains that annual theme we call our "TUMI Sacred Roots Annual," a simple name we give to the overarching concept that will shape and give substance to our personal and corporate practice of the spiritual disciplines.

 

Of course, this annual emphasis is not based on the calendar year (i.e., from January to December), but the Christian Year (from the celebration of Advent around December to the Season after Pentecost at the end of the next year's November). As followers of Christ, we without fail focus the first part of every Church Year on the Story of God in Jesus Christ through the Cycles of Light (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany) and Life (Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Season after Pentecost).  Then, during the extended period of Ordinary Time in the Season after Pentecost, we drill down into our theme for the year, which the Annual is named for, year by year.  Starting on the week after Trinity Sunday, we concentrate our meditation, reflections, readings, study, and dialogue on the theme that we have chosen, and integrate that focus into our book readings, bible homilies, small group dialogues, and spiritual disciplines for the majority remainder of the Church Year. 

 

This dual focus allows us to stay in sync with the Church Year celebrations of the assemblies of Christ throughout the world, of whatever tradition, who are formed by the rehearsal and reenactment of the Jesus story in the major seasons of the Church Year.  Still, with the nearly 27-30 weeks of Ordinary Time that follows, we can center on a single theme that provides us with a cache of common spiritual resources and a common journey, permitting us to concentrate on an idea we are passionate about and eager to grow in. 

 

The power of thematic focus touches every dimension of our lives.  We are reading the same books, hearing the same sermons (all on a single idea), engaging in small group dialogue where the theme is dissected and explored, all for the purpose of being enriched in a theme that means much to us, and that we believe God wants us to be deepened within.  This focused approach is definitely more spiritually vital than the current practice of jumping from theme to theme, idea to idea, in every spiritual meeting and encounter we have.

 

It is our conviction that God can deepen us in a single spiritual concept for an entire year, with focused disciplined study and reflection for most of it.  As you participate in this shared spirituality, we trust that you will find, as we have, that centering your lives together around a shared theme for the entire journey of the Church Year can help your family and community center down, grow deeper, and enrich you around a significant biblical theme that the Spirit wishes you to know, feel, and experience together.