Reflections on STORY: Part 2 – John Ortberg
I’ve been teaching from John Ortberg’s book The Life You’ve Always Wanted for several years. I use it in complement to Gary Thomas’ book The Glorious Pursuit. Between the two of them, I have created an introduction course to Christian spiritual disciplines where our success is measured not by the length of our devotional time but by growth in the practice of the virtues demonstrated in Jesus’ life (humility, love, discernment, etc.). This semester my class includes a number of students still completing their recovery program at our church and it has been a rejuvenating experience for me to learn from them.
Can you imagine how excited I was to get an invitation to a free luncheon at Story where John Ortberg would be the featured speaker? Free food + John Ortberg = PERFECT!
And the experience (hosted by the Monvee group – more on them another day) was all that I hoped it would be. Maybe more, except since we had to eat at the same time I felt a little bit blasphemous letting mayo and tomato juice drip down my hands while Ortberg shared his generous thoughts on spiritual formation. He doesn’t know who I am, but I was embarrassed anyway. I ate as quickly as possible so I could start scribbling down notes.
Here is a great picture taken during this lecture as well as one of my favorite quotes from the luncheon:
“We must aim at the transformation of people’s actual lives, not merely their devotional practices.”
I’ll be thinking about that one for awhile! And I’ll share. I have some ideas. : )
What an internal struggle I’m dealing with on this very topic right now! I’d love to chat with you sometime when we can both “take a lunch” at the same time maybe.
I’d love that, Carol. And I actually try to take a lunch everyday. Thursday is the only day that doesn’t work. Send me an email.
Do ALL Christians struggle with this? 30+ years serving Jesus, and I still do. I appreciated your Wednesday night teaching for just this reason. Thanks again.
Fascinating thought – and definitely worth mulling over.
Really enjoyed this post and looking forward to the opportunity of reading his book. Loved the transformation quote! Thanks for sharing this Felicity!
Heya, Simply wanted to let you know that the web site is not launching correctly on my i phone. Are you aware if there may be some setting I have to use to make it display properly? Almost everything is out of line.
Thanks, Norfolk Church, I’ll look into it. I used to have a re-direct for mobile access.
I live with the administrator, so I’ll have him look into it, ASAP. He’s not well paid, but he’ on-call 24/7, and he usually fixes things when I ask nicely.