Spiritual & Religious Chart

When people say they are spiritual not religious, they are often indicating that they do not hold the “beliefs” purported/preached/encouraged (or forced) by religion. What they are trying to verbalize is their journey of faith, and the importance of it.

Here there is a little known dichotomy between belief and faith. Church should be a place to nurture faith, but spiritual people often see belief as getting in the way. (note epistus în the New Testament is often translated as belief, but it really means faith. “Belief” is only present in 2 Tim 13:11)

Belief                                                                 Faith

•Telling Our Story (our picture)                   •Telling God’s Story (God is bigger)

Belief                                                                 Faith

•tenants that help us frame the world         • the seed that can grow                              (                                                                                 (Mustard Seed of Faith Luke 17:3-6)

                                                                  Belief                                                                 Faith

•as far as humans can go: stretching to limits       • letting go—> to who God is                                                                                                       (Where were you when earth was formed Job 38)

Belief                                                                 Faith

•individual                                                        •communal                                                                                                                                           (Why church? so that the community can support you with faith even when you can’t)

Belief                                                                 Faith

•something we hang onto                                •what holds onto to us when we are lost                                                                                        (Prodigal Son Luke 15:11-32)

Belief                                                                 Faith

• things we say to define ourselves                 •something to come home to                                                                                                             (Heaven is like…Matthew 13: 31-32)

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword