For the last year, Copper Hills Church in Peoria, Arizona, has been hosting regular sessions focused on the topic of spiritual practices, with the goal of encouraging congregants to live in a way that more closely resembles the life of Jesus.
Dave McKinley, spiritual formation pastor at Copper Hills, never envisioned himself in a pastoral role, but says that helping people connect the dots between their everyday life and what Jesus is doing has become increasingly important to him over the last decade.
The mission statement for Copper Hills is “to help each other increasingly be with, think like and be mistaken for Jesus.” McKinley says that mission “helped me frame my vocation as a participant in the kingdom of God.”
A focus on spiritual practices
McKinley and lead pastor Brad Klassen thought through how they could help their congregation fulfill the church’s mission and landed on the idea of focusing on spiritual practices. Some of these practices include prayer, scripture, solitude, generosity and sabbath.
“The question is how do we help (believers) love people and care for them?” says McKinley. “If I can get you closer to Jesus, then we could eliminate a lot of problems and have loving, growing communities.”
McKinley says he looks for different people within the church to lead each spiritual practices session based on their own experience with that practice.
“I want multiple experiences and multiple voices to represent the kingdom of God,” he says.
At each session, attendees gather for an hour to share a meal and learn about the history and purpose of the practice, as well as practical ways to implement it into their lives.
Gathering in community
In addition to the twice monthly sessions, the church hosts monthly meetups for participants to come together in an informal environment to talk through their experiences, share struggles, pray and encourage one another.
“To follow Jesus is to live in community,” says McKinley.
As participation has grown, the organizers added meetups so they have three different times available for people to gather.
Dustin and Jennifer Chafitz currently lead the Saturday morning meetup. They first attended Copper Hills for a Christmas Eve service in 2024.
“That actually was the beginning of our walk with Christ,” Dustin Chafitz says. “As soon as we got there, we were greeted with open arms. Everybody was so incredibly welcoming, and it felt like family instantaneously.”
They began attending Copper Hills regularly for services and then the spiritual practices sessions, and eventually, McKinley asked them to consider leading the meetups.
“It was intimidating,” says Jennifer Chafitz of leading for the first time. “But at the same time, it forces you to really lean into the spiritual practice. It helped us grow a lot more in our journey.”
Dustin Chafitz says they usually begin each meetup with a few basic questions to get the conversation going, but then they let things develop naturally.
“We try to build a family-like environment,” he says. “It’s a non-judgmental space, and to see that is inspiring.”
Jennifer Chafitz says it is helpful to hear how others implement spiritual practices into their own lives, and that gathering in community to support one another is vital.
“Just in talking about it, you learn everybody has their own unique way of doing it, and I think that conversation benefits those that might be struggling,” she says. “We need that connection, that motivation.”
Jessica Vix Allen is a freelance writer living in Blue Springs, Missouri. She and her husband, Joel, are both graduates of Tabor College. The couple has three children.
