Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

ocial, moral, and ‘epistemological weight’; their exercise may lead to new knowledge, or new understanding of God. 7 Their excellence is not achieved quickly, but requires ongoing deliberation of their meaning and continual social embodiment. Practices are far richer than casual activities. In a work directed specifically to young adults, Dorothy Bass and Susan Briehl refer to practices as ‘the way of life abundant’: To embrace a way of life abundant requires us to be attentive. No one can live this way in isolation from others; life abundant depends upon and arises within life together. It does not lead into a fantasy future or purely spiritual realm but into the real world. There, Christians practice these practices not for our own sake but for the good of all, and not by our own power or vision but in response to God, whose grace and call provide this way of life. 8 A Christian practice is a significant and meaningful activity performed by the community. Its value is found in the process itself as it supports and deepens relationships between the individual in the community and God. The 5 Frances Blomberg, Forming and Sustaining Christian Community in a Consumer Culture (unpublished doctoral thesis. International Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015). The five practices are: contentment, stability, hospitality, commitment, and communal discernment. 6 My description of practices combines aspects of the definitions given by Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3 rd edn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), p. 187; Craig Dykstra, ‘Reconceiving Practice’, in Shifting Boundaries: Contextual Approaches to the Structure of Theological Education, ed. by Barbara G. Wheeler and Edward Farley (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1991), pp. 35-66; and Dorothy C. Bass, ‘What Is a Practice?’ (March 2004), <http://www.practicingourfaith.org/what-christian- practice> [accessed 20 January 2017] 7 Dykstra, ‘Reconceiving Practice’, p. 45. 8 Dorothy C. Bass and Susan R. Briehl, On Our Way: Christian Practices for Living a Whole Life (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2010), p. 12. Bold italics in original. 42 Journal of European Baptist Studies 17:1 (2017) internal benefits of the practice also generate a desire to extend the practice to include others as part of a living and growing tradition. A virtuous character is carefully and repeatedly fostered through the community's practices; the practices, in turn, done with intention and meaning, lead to the development of a virtuous, or morally excellent, character. N.T. Wright notes the predilection in contemporary western societies and churches to live for experience, what ‘feels good’, or feels ‘authentic’. Rather, the Christian should recognise that life has a goal or purpose, a telos, which is writ by God and involves the transformation of the believer’s character into a Christ-like one. This transformation is not ‘natural’; it involves the habit