Please turn your Bibles to John chapter 21.

John chapter 21 as we continue our practice of naming your stage of apprenticeship.

Recommended reading to go along with this week's teaching in particular. Two of my favorites, Sacred Fire by Ronald Rollhizer.

Do you know about this book? Rollhizer is hands down my favorite Catholic writer and just a sharp as a tacked mind.

And this book is in my top 10 books, maybe my top five. I read it at least once a year, sometimes twice.

I think I'm about read through 10 or something like that. And it's about apprenticeship to Jesus in the middle years of your life.

So if you're anywhere between the age of, say, 30 and not quite dead, this is worth your time.

You interpret that to me and what you want it to. This is really in those long middle years of your life.

It's all about that. I can't say enough. Good about it. I pass it around to all my 30 and 40 something friends and it's like Christian crack or something.

What am I saying? I don't know, but it's really good. And then more recently, the second mountain by David Brooks who, it's not a Christian book.

He's a public intellectual. He has recently become a follower of Jesus, but it is about kind of the subject matter of tonight.

Can't say enough. Good about that to catch you up to speed the basic idea behind our spring practice is called stage theory in academia.

And it's an attempt at spiritual cartography. Just an attempt to map the journey of apprenticeship to Jesus over the arc of a life.

In order to better kind of plot ourself on that map and better name Jesus invitations in the here and the now this evening is our last stage theory paradigm in our practice.

Before we begin though, let me just address one question that we field on a regular basis. And it's basically, all right, how this is fine. Okay, but how is any of this biblical and does this belong more in a therapist office than in a church.

And short answer to that question. Don't have time for the long one. First off, thank you that you care about fidelity to the Bible in our progressive city and in a progressive generation that you would even ask that question.

Like you're already on my nice list. Now I'm Santa Claus. What am I saying? Sorry, but well done. Thank you for that. Secondly, that is a valid critique. And you should know it's actually on purpose.

We no longer just teach the Bible, but rather oscillate back and forth between teaching from the gospel of Matthew and a practice. And some of our practices are spiritual disciplines that are straight out of the life of Jesus.

Matthew chapter, whatever, verse, whatever most of them are, but a few of them are out of the world of spiritual formation, which is a blend of biblical theology, spirituality from down through church history, kind of the accumulated wisdom of sages in the way of Jesus over the last two millennia.

And the best of the human sciences, in particular psychology from a faith based perspective. And the reason we do that from time to time is all because of our working theory of change, which I don't have time to reteach it takes about four or five hours to do it well.

But if you're new to our church, usually people ask me that question, they are newer. And I appreciate the question. But you should know that we're two and a half years into a four year long journey on practicing the way, which is an in depth kind of dive into spiritual formation.

And if you want to know the why behind all of that go back, listen to the vision series, the beginning of it, which is fall 2017 now, where there are I think 12 teachings in depth on our working theory of change and how we got to it.

...