Paradigm Spirituality and an Apps Script that helps me stay focused on what matters

Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. --Francis Bacon

I am not prone to journaling or even taking notes. So when my Pastor told us to go write down our 4 Ps, this was not easy or natural for me. How many of us go through life with a detailed specific statement of what we believe and how we live it out?

The 4 "P"s I was referring to above come from the book we are going through in my discipleship class called Conformed to His Image by Ken Boa. They are:

• Presuppositions
• Perspectives
• Priorities
• Practices

These are in an order implying that your presuppositions influence your perspectives, your perspectives drive your priorities, and your priorities should shape your practices. As my pastor says, "You may say you want to be really good at something, but you really don't if you are not prioritizing it and putting it into practice.

You can read more about it on Ken Boa's website or an audio series on Bible.org but I really can't recommend the book highly enough. It covers many aspects of the Christian life, not just "perspective spirituality" and it's one of those books where every page will be filled with notes and highlights (and I don't typically highlight books).

On a slightly related topic, I wanted to share a tool I made to help me stay disciplined about my prayer life and to make sure my 4Ps stay up to date and remain prominent in my life. Praying has always been a struggle for me. I often find it difficult to know what to say. That is to say I pray, but I'm constantly fearful that I am asking God for too much and turning Him into someone I go to ask things from instead of having a relationship based on more than just requests.

I set reminders for myself throughout the day to pray and step away from work for a few minutes and refocus on God. I think this is a wise idea for anyone. I've written a Google Apps Script (?) that sends me a daily reminder of my prayer requests and a weekly reminder of my 4Ps. It also provides an easy form for me to submit my prayer requests throughout the day.

Faith Assistant Spreadsheet

To use the sheet (these steps assume you have a Google account):
1) Click the link above. It will make a copy into your drive folder (thanks Alice Keeler for the &newcopy trick).
2) Change the permissions on the spreadsheet to give yourself edit access.
3) Go to the menu and click Additional Functions --> Run this first. This will check your configurations (set on the Config tab in the spreadsheet) and set everything up.

4) Authorize the script (this allows the script to send you and email and calendar invites, it should look something like the image on the right)





After this you should get an email with a link to a Google Form, save and bookmark this form as you can use it over and over to save prayer requests (I have it bookmarked on my phone as well).

Each day you should get an email/calendar reminder with your prayer requests as well as a prayer from the common prayers tab. Feel free to change the time you receive it in the Config tab. I hope this helps you. If you have any suggestions for the script or issues leave a comment.

I've left many of my 4Ps in there in case it helps you understand each P's purpose but you should delete them and discover your own. There's a tab of common prayers and affirmations I have used in the past, and you should feel free to add your own tabs as you need. In my own version, I have a daily reminder to "Count the Words" because I am prone to talk a lot and needed something to help me track how much I am talking. I've also added a tab for quotes I'd like to keep track of and I've articulated my testimony.