The Oboedire blog is designed to encourage you in your journey of spiritual formation.
Spiritual formation begins with becoming attentive—primarily attentive to God, but also to the whole of life as well. Richard Foster has recently written, “we have lost the ability to attend to God in the inner sanctuary of the soul.” The Oboedire blog is one means to encourage attentiveness in relation to key issues related to the spiritual life.
The heart of Oboedire is its daily postings, with a specific day of the week devoted to a particular theme related to Christian spiritual formation. These postings appear at 1:00 a.m. (Eastern Time). The current posting schedule is as follows:
Monday: “Listenings”—-this is the basic Oboedire blog, a kind of “mini school of spiritual formation”–an orderly progression and study of the Christian spiritual life. If you’re new to the site, you may want to go back and read previous blogs in order to better sense the journey this weekly post is providing.
Tuesday: “Desert Wisdom”—-teachings from the desert fathers and mothers (c. 200-500 a.d.) will be posted, with brief commentary related to each week’s quotation. We need to stand on the foundation of classic Christian spirituality.
Wednesday: ”Shepherd’s Care”—-topics particularly related to clergy formation are posted here, but even if you are not an ordained person, you will find transferable concepts for your life. You may want to tell your pastor about this weekly post.
Thursday: “Ministry Musings”—-this weekly post will reflect upon actual ministry engagements and experiences Steve is having (e.g. retreats, conferences, local-church ministries). It is a means of continuing the conversation with people he has met in these engagements, but also a way to invite you into the conversation.
Friday: “Benedict’s Rule”—-we’re making a sustained exploration of this classic document. If you want to be fully engaged, get a copy of the Rule. You can find an inexpensive edition by Timothy Fry (RB 1980) on the internet.
Saturday: “The Holy Gospel”—this post provides an opportunity to read and reflect upon the Sunday Gospel lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary. It posts on Saturday as one means to help you prepare to worship on Sunday.
Sunday: a “sabbath day” for me in relation to this blog. You may want to use it as a day to catch up reading posts, or to go back and reconsider something you’ve read earlier in the week.
If you are new to Oboedire, you can go to the first post in any of these categories, and you will find one entitled “Introduction.” It will tell you a little more about the category, and why I have chosen to include it in my weekly postings.
Monthly: on the first day of each month a posting entitled “First Day” appears at 7:00 p.m.. It is a kind of “community meeting” where ongoing readers of Oboedire explore things together that relate to the good of the online fellowship that has formed in relation to this site. It’s a gathering to facilitate our discernment of how God wants to use Oboedire especially with respect to the “life together” that it provides. We want to be the best “digital fellowship” that we can be.
Occasional Posts: In addition to these regular posts, we have these occasional ones as well…
“Followership” is a periodic posting of insights from and reflections upon Leonard Sweet’s book I Am a Follower. This is a very important book for the revitalization of discipleship and the renewal of the church.
“Connections” is a way of letting you know about a spiritual formation resource that will be beneficial to you.
“In-Sight” is a meditation about the spiritual life that does not fit into one of the weekly themes. It’s more like a traditional blog with random, occasional posts.
“Gleanings” passes on to you a quotation from someone else, something that will be helpful and edifying to you.
Occasionally, you will find a post entitled “Site Update”—it’s intended to give you information related to the site itself that will hopefully make your use of it more informed and beneficial.
The Oboedire site is not designed to be a forum for conversations. I hope you will comment on any blog as you like, but I will not respond to most of them. However, I read and learn from them all. But the purpose of Oboedire is not to create a thread of ongoing comments, but rather to invite you onto a contemplative journey—into a deeper, broader, and richer spiritual life—not to add one more “chat forum” to your life.
Most of all, I pray that this blog will be a blessing and a means of grace to you. Perhaps you know others you’d like to share it with. Thanks in advance for your help in expanding the readership.
Blessings! Steve Harper
