Jared Boyd discovered that children’s spiritual formation is rooted in the imagination.
“When we lead our children through guided times of imaginative prayer, they can experience a connection with God that transcends mere Bible knowledge or doctrinal content.”
Jared noticed that while most parents desire for their kids to learn to love God, it’s hard to have meaningful conversation with their kids about spiritual things and to facilitate real spiritual experiences. Imaginative Prayer helps children connect with God and helps parents to connect with their kids.
“You may find yourself connecting more closely with your child, and your own formation as a parent will deepen into greater awareness of God’s work in your lives.”
This episode explores how imaginative prayer can help parents and churches cultivate the work of spiritual formation in the lives of children. Because the imagination has been held with both awe and suspicion, we explore the history of imaginative prayer in the church and why it sometimes meets with resistance.
Jared Patrick Boyd is the author of Imaginative Prayer: A Yearlong Guide to Your Child’s Spiritual Formation and Invitations & Commitments: A Rule of Life.
Jared is a pastor and sits on the board of directors for Vineyard USA. He’s also a spiritual director, teacher, and founder of The Order of Sustainable Faith, a missional monastic order for the 21st Century. Jared and his wife Jaime have four daughters, and are planting Franklinton Abbey, a new faith community on the west side of Columbus, OH.
Learn more about the podcast at betwixtpodcast.com
————–
If you like this episode, you might want to check out:
Missio Alliance Comment Policy
The Missio Alliance Writing Collectives exist as a ministry of writing to resource theological practitioners for mission. From our Leading Voices to our regular Writing Team and those invited to publish with us as Community Voices, we are creating a space for thoughtful engagement of critical issues and questions facing the North American Church in God’s mission. This sort of thoughtful engagement is something that we seek to engender not only in our publishing, but in conversations that unfold as a result in the comment section of our articles.
Unfortunately, because of the relational distance introduced by online communication, “thoughtful engagement” and “comment sections” seldom go hand in hand. At the same time, censorship of comments by those who disagree with points made by authors, whose anger or limited perspective taints their words, or who simply feel the need to express their own opinion on a topic without any meaningful engagement with the article or comment in question can mask an important window into the true state of Christian discourse. As such, Missio Alliance sets forth the following suggestions for those who wish to engage in conversation around our writing:
1. Seek to understand the author’s intent.
If you disagree with something the an author said, consider framing your response as, “I hear you as saying _________. Am I understanding you correctly? If so, here’s why I disagree. _____________.
2. Seek to make your own voice heard.
We deeply desire and value the voice and perspective of our readers. However you may react to an article we publish or a fellow commenter, we encourage you to set forth that reaction is the most constructive way possible. Use your voice and perspective to move conversation forward rather than shut it down.
3. Share your story.
One of our favorite tenants is that “an enemy is someone whose story we haven’t heard.” Very often disagreements and rants are the result of people talking past rather than to one another. Everyone’s perspective is intimately bound up with their own stories – their contexts and experiences. We encourage you to couch your comments in whatever aspect of your own story might help others understand where you are coming from.
In view of those suggestions for shaping conversation on our site and in an effort to curate a hospitable space of open conversation, Missio Alliance may delete comments and/or ban users who show no regard for constructive engagement, especially those whose comments are easily construed as trolling, threatening, or abusive.