| In spite of the fact that personal spirituality is central to the life of faith for Seventh-day Adventists, the preparation for membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church has traditionally given relatively little attention to cultivating spiritual practices as the containers which hold spiritual lives, shape identities, and provide the lenses through which doctrine is viewed and understood. Instead, it has tended to rely upon approaches which focus primarily on conveying information, especially that which is distinctive to Adventism, leaving spiritual formation to somehow occur as a by-product. This project proposes a practice-based approach to the process of preparing people for membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This approach is primarily designed around spiritual practices, but it also provides for the full engagement of the church's fundamental doctrinal beliefs.; Drawing from the works of Clifford Gertz, Alasdair MacIntyre, Craig Dykstra, Dorothy Bass, Miroslav Volf, and their colleagues, a model of spiritual practices is developed and explained. This model is then placed in conversation with approaches currently in use by Seventh-day Adventists. As a part of this dialogue, pastors in the Southeastern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists are surveyed to surface areas of concurrence with, or resistance to, the idea of a practice-centered approach. Next, possibilities are explored for developing an approach that would suggest a list of practices central to Seventh-day Adventist experience, which, when engaged, would also provide a context for reflecting upon the fundamental points of church doctrine. Finally, a description of what this approach might look like in the context of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is suggested, based on the practices of engaging scripture, awareness, Sabbath observance, wholeness, anticipation, worship, discernment, hospitality, service, and community. |
