'Mindfulness' is a popular practice in contemporary culture. It's a type of meditation which focuses on self-awareness and still reflection on the world around you, reported by many to be a boon to mental health.
A new Christian book puts a theological spin on the notion: Godfulness: A Step-by-step Guide to Bible Meditation, bills itself as a 'guide to Bible mindfulness'. Christian Today spoke with author Derek Leaf, the leader of the Christian discipleship ministry The Navigators UK about the new perspective of Godfulness, and its challenge to the contemporary Church.
Leaf describes the origins of his book: 'it started with a bit of frustration over whenever I heard Christians talk about the meaning of life, they all went to the Westminster confession of faith – "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever".
'It's a good answer...but I thought, doesn't the Bible have something to say about this? Over the years I was praying through St Paul's prayers, which are for different people in different situations...I began to realise that Paul was praying from a distance, he didn't know people's situations that well...he was praying strategically, about what was of eternal significance in their lives, and thus what has true meaning to life.
'If we're living the way he's praying for them – that is what God is looking for.'
There began a six-year project to try and communicate the heart of St Paul's prayers. When he decided the book couldn't just be 'Derek's reflections', he added real-life testimonies to 'ground' the theology.
'It started as trying find the purpose of life...and ended as a book about meditating on Scripture.'
Leaf doesn't have much to say about the secular practice of mindfulness, though he's aware it's a 'controversial word at the moment'. But his book appears to take its themes of awareness and simply centre them around God's word.
Among various creative suggestions for Bible reading, Leaf invokes the practice of Lectio Divina (Latin for 'divine reading'), a medieval type of meditation that invites slow prayer and reflection around Scripture, drawing one into deeper communion with God. As Leaf describes it, Lectio Divina involves 'reading through a passage several times, honing down on what you think God is speaking to you...what was it that particularly captured you? Pray into that thought...follow how it develops.'
It's one approach, but Leaf is wary of implying that any one path of devotion is the only way Christians can relate to God. To those struggling to find an awareness of God, he says that 'usually, there's a kind a kind of vogue' about how Christians should engage with God, but won't actually connect with everyone.
Subsequently people feel 'excluded...they hear stories of great encounter, and have no connection, I would encourage people to explore different ways of engaging with God. This is one approach.'
Some Christians Leaf knows have never had a tangible 'experience of God...they faithfully walk with him, they read the Bible and seek to put it in to practice and they're some of the most godly people I know.
'So I would not get too caught up in the experience. God works with people in different ways. We need a big enough sense of what he's doing to embrace and welcome all such people.'
Leaf sums up Godfulness: 'Bible meditation is more than just a hobby. It can be a life-changing exercise. Meditating on God's Word becomes a divine partnership! He shows you his heart and then, as you pray about what he has shown, your heart is changed.'
What could the Church learn from Godfulness?
'I see two directions', Leaf says. 'One is encouraging people to meditate and put into practice God's word. I'm hopeful that people see how their lives can be transformed.'
As the popular evangelist J John writes in his commendation of the book, the pace of modern life means that 'Bible reading in particular has become something that is done poorly, if at all. We slot our time with God's Word into spare moments and, reading the text with speed, fail to feed on it properly. It's hardly surprising that spiritual malnourishment has reached epidemic proportions.' Godfulness is a response to that 'epidemic'.
Leaf adds: 'The other direction would be looking at what is really important to God. In the evangelical world, we tend to have a thought that what we value most are forms of worship, evangelism, outward forms of the Christian life. What surprised me looking at Paul's prayers is that those things were almost absent...what he was lifting up was the values of God's work in us.
'How do we express faith, take hold of the promises of God, the hope he sets before us, and how do we live all that out in love?'
Leaf hopes this book will point to 'bigger sense of what God is at work doing...Christian fruitfulness is much bigger than "how many people have you spoken to, what have you done?"'
He concludes: 'It's a different perspective on life'.
Godfulness is out now in print and digital versions. For more information, click here.
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