The Sacraments and Liturgy in Embodying Spiritual Practice:
The Sermon:
Using cues of touch, taste, and smell all increase brain activity,helping the congregation remember the message. Dr. Richard Cox’s Rewiring Your Preaching is loaded with tools and resources to help both pastors and congregants get more from sermons. The brain is attuned to act on information that brings healing and is useful for imminent survival.
Preaching mixed with youth and adult formation will also help the congregation retain what they have learned so that they can live in and for God’s purpose. Mission and ministry are essential to any church so that members can be involved and formed through discipleship. If a church does not give its members opportunities for mission, ministry, or formation, it is likely that sermons will be forgotten.
Post Communion Prayer:
“Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen” (Book of Common Prayer, 365).
The Sacrament of Baptism:
“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving
your neighbor as yourself?” (Book of Common Prayer, 305)
Scripture Reminding us of Our Spiritual Embodiment:
“do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)
“the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things” (Galatians 5:22-23)
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26)
“You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16)
“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 15:16)
“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body” (John 2:19-21)
“It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but that by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body” (Philippians 1:20)
Psalms:
“One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)
Insula and Somatosensory Cortex
[i]Richard Cox, Rewiring Your Preaching: How the Brain Processes Sermons(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2012), 96.