Centre Church

Most people have routines. That may be a gross overgeneralization – a rhetorical fallacy for certain. After all, I bring no research to the table. Still, I have eyes to see and I have observed:

Students attend the same classes week to week. People come to church and sit in the same seat week after week. We take the same route to work, apply make up in the same order, and even organize our social media sites according to routine.

Even my Bernese Mountain Dog has a routine. Each night Hero begins his sleep pattern on, yet at the foot of the bed. Within an hour he becomes too warm and moves to the cool wooden hallway floor outside the bedroom door. Around 3 am he awakes with night terrors – he is afraid of thunderstorms (among other things… we should have named him Adrian Monk). It doesn’t matter if it is raining or not. Even a clear, starry evening will bring him panting, wide eyed, shivering to the head of our bed, where, ironically, our own heads are sleeping. He sits and shakes the bed for a while, turning it into a retro-fitted Holiday Inn massage bed. Then he lays prone between Jonathan and myself… finally he crawls onto Jonathan’s pillow, placing himself perpendicular to his now pillow-less master. It’s like clockwork. We can count on him.

Which brings me to our question of the week… What is your quiet time routine? I am fully aware, mind you, that this is likely to be where my fallacy about “most people have a routine” is likely to catch up with me. One thing we are learning in our early days of DC Culture (our Centre Church accountability groups) is that we may need to use this first go-around though the book of Mark as a routine building exercise. Many of us, it turns out, do not have a routine when it comes to spending time in God’s Word.

I have a simple suggestion – give it a try and let us know how it works.

1. Identify the first element of your daily routine. Perhaps it is a cup of joe, a shower, walking Fido, or hitting up your social media network. Once upon a time for me it was the daily crossword puzzle.

2. After you have identified your morning go-to, make this simple covenant: Each morning, before embarking on step one of your morning routine, you must first spend time alone with God. No crossword before God’s Word. That was my covenant.

3. Share your intentions with one or two other people. Give yourself a few months to truly fall into ROUTINE. And don’t pull out the monk costume and self-flagellation tools when you miss a day. There is no condemnation in this, only promise for a healthier, more fruitful you.

Routine up! And like Hero, go ahead and hit it no matter what the sky looks like.

God decided to take me through a parable today in real time.