New book helps busy people enjoy God
VANCOUVER, BC—Ken Shigematsu describes himself as someone who’s easily distracted. “At any given time,” he says, “I can feel like there are a thousand chimpanzees jumping around in my head.” To help himself overcome this personal weakness, he spends a few minutes every morning in silent meditation.
“And when I’m through with my brief time of meditation,” he says, “I feel a little more relaxed and throughout the day a little more focused and a little more conscious of Jesus.”
For Shigematsu, the Japanese-born senior pastor of Tenth Church, a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation in central Vancouver, meditation is part of his simple rhythm or “rule of life.” It is a concept he learned from the sixth-century monastic practices of the followers of Saint Benedict while on a pilgrimage to Irish holy places some years ago.
Shigematsu’s other practices include a 24-hour weekly Sabbath where he “unplugs” from everything work-related, and exercise—in his case, running, cycling, and sailing.
“A rhythm or a rule of life,” he says, “is simply a support structure that enables our life to be pruned and simplified and guided so that it produces more of the fruit of God’s love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, and self-control.”
As Shigematsu shows in his new book, God In My Everything: How An Ancient Rhythm Helps Busy People Enjoy God, any Christian can develop his or her own rule of life.
Developing a personalized rule of life may not come easily at first, since it involves consciously putting aside unhealthy lifestyles. Shigematsu suggests people “start simply and build slowly” until they settle on those practices that they find energizing.
“If a spiritual practice makes your life feel heavier, then it’s self-created, not Spirit-birthed,” he says. “If it’s Spirit-birthed, over time your life will feel lighter, because your rhythm actually supports you in your relationship with Christ. It’s not a burden.”
“Start,” he adds, “maybe with three simple practices—one practice that connects you with God, another that feeds or restores you, and another that connects you to other people, either in relationship or service.”
“It’s not what in former years I would have expected from an evangelical,” writes retired Anglican priest and university professor Donald Grayston in a book review, “but it is clearly part of the phenomenon of evangelical interest in a movement known as neo-monasticism, with its emphases on community, daily worship, and the union of contemplation and action.”
Shigematsu is donating all his royalties from God in My Everything to World Vision.
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