{"id":15337,"date":"2013-10-28T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/?p=15337"},"modified":"2024-12-05T15:09:26","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T20:09:26","slug":"organizational-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2013\/10\/28\/organizational-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"Organizational Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"
This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Corporate life as corporate witness<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

Privatization of Faith<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The fourth threat to corporate witness<\/strong> is the most serious because, if it overpowers the culture of the ministry, it will leave you bereft of the most important way of communicating with your ministry’s owner. This biggest threat of all is the privatization of faith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are being conditioned by our society that faith does not belong in the public realm. People of faith are told to keep their faith in their places of worship and homes, to hide it away. Even Jesus said we should hide in our “prayer closets” when we pray, so as not to make a show of our prayers. But Jesus wasn’t saying that we should not have group prayer!! He was contrasting two ways of praying to make a point. Don’t take it too far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is that a surprising number of Christians are not comfortable with group spirituality,<\/strong> sometimes even in church! We are especially not comfortable, it seems to me, with silence in a group situation, one of the central practices in group discernment. Sure we can pray at the start of a meeting that God will guide our minds and the discussion and be with us, but why not then take time together to listen together<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul talks about putting on the full armour of God. Yet when we do not engage in group discernment it is as though we take off our armour, lay down our weapons, and then walk into battle! We’ve needlessly neglected to make use of the greatest resource Christ gave us — his Spirit, our counselor and guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Negative Consequences<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You know you have a problem with group spirituality when people treat the opening devotional and prayer time of a meeting as not the real meeting, but just an optional preliminary. Although the meeting starts at 7:00, some will arrive at 7:30 — in time for when the ‘real’ meeting starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem when people keep their faith private is that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n