Sacred Roots Workshop

Preface

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• Give outline and explanation of the origin, use, and benefits of the Apostles and Nicene Creeds in baptism, worship, and leadership training. • Highlight the key lessons associated with a biblical retrieval of tradition in general, and the Great Tradition of the Church in particular. • Distinguish between the three key senses of tradition in the contemporary Church. • Outline the steps and rationale of the Church Year, explaining the meaning and significance of each season and feast as they relate to the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth in the Bible. • Defend and give evidence for the necessity of shared spirituality for tradition, identity, and community development among the poor in the city, and show how that spirituality can legitimately spring from spiritual formation guided by the Church Year. • Identify and explain the meaning of the contemporary icons associated with the key critical themes emerging from the Sacred Roots workshop. • Memorize a selected Scriptural passage on the Story of God in Christ. • Develop a personal and/or congregational plan to apply the teachings to enhance the spiritual formation pilgrimage and discipleship under your care. In order to renew and revive the Church today, we must rediscover our sacred roots of faith and devotion, referred to in this study as the Great Tradition. This rich canonical and authoritative understanding of our faith is rooted in history, centered in Christ, and based in the canonical Scriptures. Indeed, it is apostolic (flowing from the apostles’ testimony regarding Christ and salvation), and is that same faith that has been defended from the beginning by the guardians of the faith as articulated by the Fathers of the Church. Nothing can deliver us from the idiosyncratic and fragmented spiritual practice in our churches today but a joyful return to the ancient consensus of the one, unified, universal, and apostolic church. May the Lord grant you grace to rediscover our shared Great Tradition, and in that retrieval, be trans- formed as you learn to cherish again that which Christians have always believed from the beginning, the orthodox faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. ~ Don Davis