The Spiritual Disciplines Of God

Loving and worshiping God began to be more and more part of my daily thinking, motives, actions, and decisions.

While reading the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, I did not expect to come across a spiritual discipline that would be a perfect combination of my own idea of spiritual formation, and a wonderful way to connect with the Lord. What I mean by this, is that I was wanting to create a gratitude journal, but I wanted it to be deeper than just a list of things that I was thankful for. That is why I fell in love with the idea of writing responses to the questions that were posed in the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, but still taking a few minutes to write a list of things that I am grateful for! A journal like this is also a great way for me to see the strong points in my day or week, and the areas where I need improvement. Since journaling has always

McMinn unveils the realism of what essentially happens in the counseling office. He dives into the fitting together “Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling”. McMinn explains how “those who enter therapy in the midst of their pain experience a restorative counseling relationship that brings acceptance hope, and meaning into their broken lives” (McMinn, 2011, p. 20). There are various questions surrounding Christian counseling that McMinn faces head on in this book when it comes to the challenges counselors face as it relates to integrating religion and spirituality in their sessions. Life on the frontier as McMinn puts it, is where counselors face six basic challenges. Challenges such as moving from two areas of competence to three, blurred personal-professional distinctions, expanded definitions of training, confronting dominant views of mental health, establishing a scientific base or even defining relevant ethical standards (McMinn, 2011). Personal journey’s that McMinn has taken throughout his career provide him with the knowledge, skills and abilities to depict how we should face these challenges. McMinn talks about how many counselors have a need to interpret studies, have good psychodynamics and figure out which cognitive therapy is right for their counseling. As he states, “Christian counseling is more complex than other forms of counseling because our goal are multifaceted (McMinn, 2011, p.

In recent days I had the opportunity to go back to North Carolina for a few short days. There, with a heavy heart from a loss in the family, I had nothing else to look towards. I’ve always heard of individuals finding peace, faith, blessings, and love of Christ from attending church. I’ve never been a person who put their faith into a higher power. As I was growing up my parents never wanted to force me into any religion without me knowing everything about it and choosing which route to take on my own. As the years treaded on, I never bothered myself to learn about the many different religions and what each stands for. So I used this opportunity as mine to attend church for the very first time. I attended the Roman Catholic services held

In the book, Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling, McMinn expands upon the theory of integrating psychology and theology by providing the reader with concrete methods to utilize in counseling. His approach to integration is filled with helpful guidance for any counselor striving to strike the appropriate balance in their sessions. McMinn divulges into how and when to use scripture, prayer, confession and redemption. He advocates for utilizing these methods on a case by cases basis to ensure the client’s best interest. Overall, the book provides a tangible understanding of how to integrate theology and psychology into different counseling sessions.

When I was about 12, I started to drift away from God. I had a whole new world of temptations to face. I always just figured if I sinned all I would have to do is tell God I was sorry and ask for forgiveness. The problem was I wasn’t being sorry in my heart, I just did it because that’s what church said to do. When I was 15, I renewed my faith in Christ and I have been going from there. Mere Christianity has really helped my walk with Christ over the summer. He showed me the wrong in the daily stuff I did. I started to change my life and fix what I did

I'm being raised in a Christian home by two incredible parents who have taught me to hold on tight to my faith and morals. In today's society, I've discovered that "holding on tight" isn't enough. I have to grip even tighter to where my knuckles are white because it's so easy to conform to the ways of the world and drift away from God. I think that's why it was so refreshing to step back and disconnect from the world for the 8 days I spent in Guatemala. My understanding of how great Gods love increased. My prayers were more sophisticated, I witnessed with more eagerness, and my relationship with the Holy Spirit became finer. I'm blessed to have carried back home more confidence and openness about my beliefs.

I was sitting there as a 15 year old girl in an auditorium that was scared just because I was away from home for more then one night. Even though I was at church camp I was terrified, I was terrified that people would find out of past mistakes and doubt that I had. At this point in my spiritual journey I had many doubts in if God actually cared about me after I had messed up that many times. The first day I listened to men speak all day about how being catholic is a gift in itself and how with God everything else will fall in place. At this time in my life this all felt like a lie because I had tried praying and nothing was getting better. It wasn’t until the first women of the day got up on stage that I actually could listen and connect with the

Mark McMinn is a trained psychologist who is known for his book that was written in 1996 called Psychology, Theology and Spirituality in Christian Counseling. McMinn had advocated for the Christians who are counselors for many years. McMinn is very experienced in the work and in his field of study. One of the biggest things that McMinn stresses is the importance of establishing and maintaining a good trustworthy relationship with the client and showing ways of how to confront the client as a therapeutic approach.. The major purpose for this is to create and achieve a lasting change to the client so that the counseling process can be effective (McMinn, 1996).

Spirituality and religion hold different values and truths depending on your personal beliefs. Being religious is a belief or practice that contains certain values one should follow. When looking deeper into religion you can find spirituality which is the part of religion that effects our spirit and soul, it is not tangible. “The Sacred within” is spirituality and pertains to God dwelling inside of our heart and soul. When looking at “the sacred within” there are certain senses that we can tap into so, we may obtain that sort of spirituality. Through solitude, silence, imagination, and nature, we can have a better sense of spirituality.

Mysticism, mystic experiences, and encounters with the divine are important—and even integral—to many religions throughout the world. Mysticism, defined as experiencing the divine, should have a special importance in Christianity. Christianity posits a God who is transcendent, yet immanent, and as Christians we believe we can have a relationship with the Deity. Because of this we should have a unique conception of mystical experiences as significant to our spiritual lives.

When I was a sophmore, I went through a period of time where i stopped going to church as much as i had before. After a while i found myself questioning where i stood in my faith. I would always become angry quickly and shut everyone out, soon i realized that i needed to go back to where i started. That same night i fell to my knees in prayer asking the

In my given faith exposure to the Spiritual Disciplines was rather limited; there was fasting that we did during Lent, and prayer that was for a lack of a better term, scripted. Intercessory prayers were made mostly to the venerated saints instead of directly to Jesus Christ. In fact, two of the most common intercessory prayers I said to the saints were to St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Hopelessness and St. Michael, the Archangel, who is the Patron Saint and protector of those in public safety. For many years it was understood that if you needed something in prayer, you prayed to the appropriate saint in ritualistic prayer.

“The three steps of study, prayer, and realization are spiritual aspects of your endeavor, but all your physical, emotional, and intellectual activities also have their share in bringing into your experience the desired good which, in this case, is the unfoldment of your inner spiritual nature.”

Growing up I always lived in a religious household. We always prayed before we ate, prayed before we went to bed, and always went to church on Sunday and Wednesday night. While I never questioned these actions and never tried to rebel against them, I still didn’t understand the importance of them either. I was merely walking in my parents footsteps, doing what my parents told me, singing along to the children’s songs in Sunday school, gave a tithing of my allowance every Sunday, but my life was void of the real meanings of my actions. This went on for years. Because I had not yet read through the Bible to understand why these actions had any meaning, they were just things I did all the time and I thought that was normal and that was what it meant to be a Christian.