Spiritual Nurture

During the Spiritual Nurture for Children workshop, one of the discussions focused on being intentional in integrating Spiritual Nurture in every activity of the organization. One of the struggles most Christians encounter is the inability to see our daily activity as a Christian spiritual activity or any ounce of spirituality. We always separate our daily chores as nominal activity distinct from our spirituality as Christians. We have a clear black and white distinction of what is spiritual and what is not. We compartmentalized things into spiritual, physical or mental or social. For example, when we take our meals, we pride ourselves in praying before and after meals and point to them as our Christian spiritual activity. But the activity of eating and the things that take place during the meals is no longer spiritual in nature for us. Thus we limit our spiritual nurture into nothing but mere activities and programs like praying, reflections and worship.  

A great deal of research and new knowledge about spirituality has transpired in the last twenty years. Scholars and experts have agreed to describe spirituality as intrinsic human capacity in the search for the meaning of life, discovering self-identity and strengthening relationship with other humans and the divine. Our spirituality is a lifelong journey and these scholars have also agreed that spiritual development takes place in things and activities we do. The problem with most Christians, especially in our country, is that we do not intentionally perceive our daily activities as a venue to nurture our spiritual development.

The Holy Bible reminds us in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that “whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” The Bible is clear that all our activities, even our thoughts and words should glorify God. All the things we do, think and say from the moment we open our eyes in the morning, the time we take our bath, whenever we prepare our clothes for work, the way we eat our breakfast, our travel going to our meetings, the job we do in the office, the break we take until the moment we rest our bodies at night are all venues for our spiritual development.  And as Christians, we are expected that all these things we do are venues for our Christian formation and nurture.