Introduction to the DNA Spiral - Twelve Practical Projects to Encourage Spiritual Growth

Welcome to practice! Consider the attached booklet as a kind of coach whose purpose it is to guide you through some fundamental drills and exercises of the spiritual life in order to help sharpen you for the race that you are running: the race of being transformed into the image of Jesus. The DNA Spiral identifies twelve classic Christian disciplines and proposes simple, concrete, tangible projects in which these disciplines can be practiced and experienced. These 12 projects are rather elementary, straightforward, measurable, and will definitely take time and effort. A sincere and open engagement with these exercises will most certainly impact you in an incremental way. They will deposit in you some new skills, some strengthened godly instincts, and some new grooves in which godly habits can settle. Always keep this in mind, however: an athlete does not do numerous drills just for the sake of doing drills, but rather does drills so that when game time arrives, he or she will be able to naturally and successfully perform what is necessary in the critical moment. Drills and exercises simply prepare us for the moments in life that count . It is the same with the “drills” in this booklet. The point of the DNA Spiral is to give you exposure to and experience of these wonderful and proven practices that Jesus Himself modeled for us. If you are already engaged in some of these practices, you might consider counting what you are already doing in a particular discipline area as fulfilling the Red Level requirement. You will need to purchase a journal notebook in which you will interact with many of these projects. As you finish each project, note the date on the back page. Complete the Red Level with a debriefing interview with a member of the Hillside pastoral staff. Enjoy the experiences. Don’t rush to get through the checklist. There is no time-line implied. Enjoy getting practical!

Before You Begin the Red Level

Before you begin to tackle this DNA Spiral program, it is important that you understand why we are going about spiritual growth in this manner. We introduce the DNA Spiral with a six-sermon course entitled The DNA of Spiritual Growth . If you did not sit under this sermon series at Hillside Covenant Church (Jan/Feb 07), we recommend that you do not proceed into this booklet until you have listened to the six sermons that comprise this course. You can access these sermons through our website at www.hillsidecovenant.org, or via a CD or DVD that can be ordered at the Hillside Information Table. This Red Level is the first of five levels in the DNA Spiral program.