Rule of Life
I recently taught my last class in the Rock School of Ministry certificate program. The class, titled “Leadership Formation,” was an attempt to be the culmination of 2 years of education, ministry, life, and learning for our ministry students. I shared my experience of triumphs and failures as a leader. I shared from my doctoral classes in ministry and leadership, and everything boiled down to two crucial themes: values and character.
We don’t live out our values by accident.
At least in my experience, I have yet to have a day where I lived fully into my values without needing to put forward some thought and intentionality. Another word for this might be discipline but thought and intentionality are two things that require sacred time and sacred space to embody and embrace.
A value of mine is tending to my soul. To sit still, in quiet, and attend to what my body is asking for, what my soul is longing for, and what steps I can take to get there. However, when I wake up, I am distracted by my phone’s notifications and often take a trip from Instagram to email to check my bank account for unexpected charges, back to Instagram, and back to email. Sound familiar?
Before I get out of bed, I am already exhausted. My value is not exhaustion, but my behavior produces it. So how do we get from unintended behaviors to intentional values that drive action?
We need a rule of life. A rule of life helps us discern our core values and, in turn, what our actions in the world become. Congruence between our values and our actions creates our character.
I recently said, “Our true character is revealed when we talk with someone at a call center.” My value of kindness doesn’t always produce the action of gentleness when the on-hold music erodes my patience. Can we take a breath, prepare to be on hold for 2 hours, only to have to be transferred again?
A rule of life is an ancient practice brought into modern spirituality.
It is an exercise of helping us discern the type of person we long to become and provides tangible steps for how to get there. Rules of life can take many shapes, but usually, you identify the daily, weekly, quarterly, and annual rhythms you want to introduce that take care of your heart, soul, mind, and body. Some examples could be:
- Daily walks in creation
- Weekly Sabbath rituals with family and friends
- Quarterly visit to a retreat center
- Annual reassessment of your rule of life.
I’ve created an e-book with an integrated workbook that can be found here that shares more about the role of Spiritual Formation in the life of the believer and how to create a rule of life that is attuned to your values and your soul. I hope and pray it is a life-giving resource for you!