Phase 1

<<back to Journey home page

Where you begin a journey will dictate the path you must take to reach your destination.  In Phase 1 you will get your bearings with a "Spiritual GPS" system that asks:

• What is Your Worldview?
• What is Your Personality Type?
• What is Your Pain?

The answer to these questions will dramatically help you in mapping out an efficient path for spiritual growth.

Explaining the chart.

Now that you are ready to begin the journey it is time to figure out where you are.  The mistake that many people make in the area of spiritual formation is that they first focus on the destination.  Someone sits them down with a little pamphlet and spells out the mysteries of God in three easy steps.  Then they start reading their Bibles, going to church, serving in a ministry, and doing all the ‘good things’ that Christians do.  After a few months of this they can’t figure out why they are still very empty inside.  They can’t figure out why all the other people in their church “get it” and they still feel in the dark.

This unfortunate scenario happens to many people because they have made one simple mistake.  They have assumed that everyone is on the same path and will follow exactly the same route to get to the destination.  Think of it this way.  Let’s say that two people wanted to go to Chicago .  One person was in New York and the other person was in Los Angeles .  Would their paths to Chicago be the same?  Of course not.  Each individual is starting from a very different place.  Their destination is exactly the same, in that there is no fluxuation.  Yet, their paths to get there are radically different.

The same is true in Spiritual Growth.  Our destination is the same.  We are all seeking a dynamic personal relationship with our creator God.  In phase two we will explore, at some depth, what that destination really is.  However, it is important to begin with understanding where you are starting.  Each person is in a very different place.

Notice the image of the island in fig. 1.  Imagine that the island represents all of humanity and human experience.  In the middle of the island there is a mountain range.  The mountains represent spirituality, or the spiritual realm in which humans can interact with the spiritual realm of God.  The surrounding lowlands of the island represents the physicality of human existence, as we plod around in the physical world, separate from the spiritual realm.  This island can be divided into three basic regions that are based upon the three basic sections of the Worldview spectrum.  On one end of the spectrum there is Pantheism, or the Pantheistic Worldview.  In the Middle is the Theistic Worldview, and at the other end is the Atheistic worldview.  These regions will be explained in the next section.

Within each region there are sub-regions that are based upon personality types.  Each person has a particular personality type that governs they way he interprets and interacts with the world around him.

Finally, within each personality region there are various types of terrain that represent what we will call emotional baggage.  Some of us are stuck in the tar pits of emotional or physical abuse.  Others are stuck in the briar patch of addiction.  Many of us are stuck staring into the reflecting pool of self-love and narcissism.

As you look at this island you will see that it is surrounded by water and forms concentric circles centered on the mountains and radiating out and away from them.  The further away from the mountains a person is the further away from reality they become.  People who are out on the sea have even lost touch with the notion that there is even such a thing as dry land, let alone a mountain range.

The goal of Spiritual Formation is to discern a) which mountain is the one true mountain of God and not a false spirituality, and b) how can I get to that mountain from where I am.  In order to answer those two questions we must first take a GPS (God’s Positioning Survey) in order to find out exactly from where we are starting.  This will then allow us to determine our most effective path.