Developing a Rule of Life

This week, as we all think about what it means to develop a "rule of life," I've gathered some resources that might be helpful in the process:

The Society of St. John the Evangelist offers a short workbook in pdf format called Living Intentionally: A Workbook for Creating a Personal Rule of Life.  The workbook includes some suggestions for how to approach the development of a personal rule of life, as well as questions (with blank space for writing answers) to help a person walk through the process of thoughtfully developing such a rule.

The C.S. Lewis Institute also offers a guide called Instructions for Developing a Personal Rule of Life. This guide offers some thoughts and suggestions, such as:

Ultimately a Rule should help you to love God more, so if it becomes a legalistic way of earning points with God or impressing others, it should be scrapped. If the traditional, ancient term “rule” concerns you because it sounds legalistic, think of “rule” as a “rhythm of life” or as a “Curriculum in Christlikeness” (Dallas Willard), or as a “Game Plan for Morphing” (John Ortberg).

 ...and then leads the reader through some guiding questions for developing a personal rule of life.

Finally Crafting a Rule of Life is an entire website devoted to helping individuals to develop their own rule of life, based on the book of the same name by Stephen A. Macchia. Particularly, their myRULE page includes resources for writing a personal rule with a downloadable pdf table AND examples of "rules" written by others. Of note, there is a Visual Rule of Life example (see Lisa Forkner's Visual Rule of Life 2014). Another rule is written as a "Recipe for Daily Bread" (see Leslea Linebarger's Rule of Life 2013). Nearly all of the examples have some sort of visual representation - wheels, flow charts, photographs, etc. Lots of creative inspiration there!

Daily/Weekly Practices

On Wednesday, we discussed some of the daily/weekly practices that are already part of some of our lives that help us to stay connected to God. Several people in our group mentioned resources that have been part of their spiritual practice for some time. Among them were:

Jesus Calling by Sarah Young - This is a devotional book, which is available in paper, ebook, and app formats! This devotional has been mentioned and shared at our group so many times, it's definitely worth a special mention. Here is a brief bio about Sarah Young from the above link:

Sarah is biblically conservative in her faith and reformed in her doctrine. She earned a master’s degree in biblical studies and counseling from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. She is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), where her husband, Stephen, is an ordained minister. Stephen and Sarah continue to be missionaries with Mission to the World, the PCA mission board.

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers is a true classic and is available entirely for free online at the link posted here. From the linked website:

Chambers was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1874, the youngest son of a Baptist minister. He spent his boyhood years in Perth; then his family moved to London when Oswald was fifteen....

While studying at the University of Edinburgh (1895-96), he decided, after an agonizing internal battle, to study for the ministry. He left the university and entered Dunoon College, near Glasgow, where he remained as a student, then a tutor for nine years.
In 1906 he traveled to the United States, spending six months teaching at God’s Bible School in Cincinnati, Ohio. From there, he went to Japan, visiting the Tokyo Bible School, founded by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cowman. This journey around the world in 1906-1907 marked his transition from Dunoon College to fulltime work with the Pentecostal League of Prayer.

She Reads Truth is an online community of women, who read the Bible together online daily. Daily devotionals are available on their website or their app, OR you can subscribe to get them in your email inbox. Currently, the site has an Advent study available online for free. Here's what they have to say:

God’s Word is a gift, and reading it is a privilege. She Reads Truth cheers on ministries whose mission is to reach the unreached with their very first Bibles. Our mission is to invite the already-reached to reach for their Bibles—every day.

Discovering the Bible: Your Daily Bible Reading Companion by Gordon Addington takes the reader through the Bible in a year. (The link to this book will take you to a website that gives a portion of their book sale proceeds to charity. A drop down menu when you make a purchase allows you to select a charity of your choice!) About the book:

A respected Bible teacher, Gordon L. Addington, both a medical doctor and a doctor of ministry, wants to take you through this journey in one year. InDiscovering the Bible, he gives insightful notes and the historical background for each day’s reading. See how God unfolds His amazing plan of redemption throughout the entire Bible.

Checklist for Life for Moms is a book specifically for moms and the challenges moms face:

In addition to a brief narrative, each chapter of this interactive handbook features:

• An "I Will" checklist of heart and attitude reinforcements.
• A "Things to Do" checklist of action points.
• A "Things to Remember" section of Scripture verses and applicable quotes from famous and not-so-famous people

For more resources for practicing "Daily Offices" or Fixed Hour Prayer...or whatever you want to call your daily practice of prayer...see this previous blog post: The Daily Office, Contemplative Spirituality, and Fixed Hour Prayer.

If you have more to add, just add a comment. I'll also be adding as things come in to my email! 

Edited to add: Tesha asked about the book our family used a number of years ago. It was called A Contemporary Celtic Prayer Book  by William John Fitzgerald and Joyce Rupp. This book offers a week's worth of morning, midday, and evening meditations following a repeating format. The meditations include traditional liturgical prayers (The Lord's Prayer, The Magnificat, etc...), as well as poems, hymns, and some guided meditations. The latter portion of the book includes prayers for special occasions and holidays. Aurora loved this book as a young child because she learned the format quickly and knew what to expect. She also had many of the prayers and poems memorized in a relatively short period of time! Without prompting, she asked me about this book just a few weeks ago and expressed interest in going back to it!

The Daily Office, Contemplative Spirituality, and Fixed Hour Prayer

For the past several weeks I have been reading from Day By Day by Peter Scazzero at the start of each of our Morning Blend sessions. This is a devotional or daily "office" book written by Scazzero to assist the reader in practicing contemplative spirituality in a rhythmic, twice-a-day manner. To hear more about the premise of this book, you can watch Scazzero's video introduction here:

If you like the idea of introducing this ancient Christian practice into your own life and want to check out more resources, you might take a look at some of the works of Phyllis Tickle, who was a speaker in the Animate: Bible series we studied a few years ago. You can read several excerpts from her book and read more about Daily Offices/Divine Hours by following this link: The Divine Hours.  Tickle includes an article on her own website, About Fixed Hour Prayer, where she also recommends a book by Shane Claiborne, who is part of the Animate: Practices series that we may be studying in the spring. On his website, you can find daily prayers online: Common Prayer.