Spiritual Fitness Training

BECOMING THE PERSON & PEOPLE YOU WERE CREATED TO BE

Introduction

Becoming the person and people we were designed to be does not happen by trying.  It only happens by training. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4,

[T]rain yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The question is, "What does training in godliness look like today?"  Spiritual Fitness Training is a contemporary, contextualized and decidedly Bible based system of training in godliness.  It focuses on training people in their God-given identity as lived out in God's Story.  Because of sin, all people are in various stages of an identity crisis. Basic questions to life are often met with blank stares of confusion and ambivalence. Even long time "churched" people often have great difficulty in adequately answering or understanding who they are.  And this should not be surprising.  According to George Barna's research, only 9% of adults and 2% of youth in America have a Biblical worldview.  That is, they know, understand, believe and respond to what the Bible says about the basic questions of life.  The result of this lack of a biblical worldview is devastating.  While spirituality is flourishing in North America, Christ exalted living is deteriorating.  While we are hurrying to gain more in life, we are losing the very essence of life - to love and be loved.  Consumerism is consuming us.  Individualism is isolating us.  Materialism is distracting us.  All of them are reducing us so that few people both understand and live a Christ exalting life as image bearers of God in a post Christian culture.  

Spiritual Fitness Training is a method of spiritual formation that seeks to shape our stories as image bearers of God through hearing and responding to God and his Story (the Bible).  We hear and respond to God and his Master Story according to our unique experiences and God-given design and by engaging time tested spiritual exercises that result in a Christ-exalting life.  Spiritual Fitness Training is a wholistic and comprehensive approach to spiritual formation.  It is the lifelong process of becoming more Christlike in our thoughts, words and deeds beginning with our first breath and ending with our last.  Spiritual Fitness Training then, is a way of life.  It seeks to provide training in the fundamentals of living as the person and people God designed us to be so that as we continually gain skill and experience in them, we might have increasing freedom living as image bearers of God in all situations, at all times and in all places.