This evening some friends are coming round to my flat for our weekly group Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is different from a Bible study. It involves a lot of silence and it's about 'sinking into' a short Bible passage, letting the Holy Spirit work as we 'sit' with the passage or with a word or phrase in the passage that stood out to us. It's about engaging with the Bible at a much deeper level than our heads. We're not trying to understand the Bible passage with our intellect. We're trying to let it enter into us deeply and change us. I'll do a post on individual Lectio Divina some other time but here's how we do it as a group:
We choose a short passage, usually the day's Gospel passage (see post entitled 'The Day's Gospel Reading' if you're not sure what this is).
We begin by praying that we will encounter the living Christ through what we read, and that the Holy Spirit will be at work in us as we sit in silence with the passage.
The Bible passage is read out loud, slowly, twice. We then go round in a circle, each saying which word or phrase stood out most for us. We don't explain why it stood out for us and we don't enter into any discussion. We're here to listen to the Holy Spirit rather than each other's comments or opinions.
The Bible passage is read out loud again and then we sit in silence for some time - around 10mins. During the silence we pay attention to the part of the passage that stood out to us. We pay attention to our emotions, and we pay attention to any questions or thoughts or pictures that arise. Sometimes we use our imaginations to put ourselves in the story as if we were really there... At the end of the silence, we take it in turns (if we want to) to share our experiences of what happened when we sat prayerfully with the passage. We don't discuss each other's experiences and there is no 'right or wrong' experience. We try to keep talking to a minimum.
The Bible passage is read out loud again. We have a short time of silence to respond to God individually in whatever ways we feel led to. Then those who want to, pray out loud. Our prayers are in response to the passage we've been sitting with.
The steps up until now are more the 'Lectio Divina' part of what we do, but we combine this with something a bit more similar to a evangelical cell group. We therefore add two more 'steps'. We read the Bible passage out loud one final time then sit in silence asking God how He wants us to respond to the passage and how it relates to how we should see and treat others. We then share anything we want to share on that subject and perhaps have a very brief discussion about 'living out' the passage.
Finally, we ask each other what we would like prayer for and we pray for each other, whether out loud or in our hearts.
With four people taking part most weeks, the whole pattern takes around one hour, with the majority of that hour being prayer rather than discussion.
