Quick Update

I’m in the midst of doing reading for my next class. It covers formative spiritual along with Wesley’s stress on various small groups (class, bands, etc). It is all very interesting and reignites my interests in Covenant Discipleship groups. I had started the groups in one church, but didn’t stay long enough to see how well they worked. Perhaps now is the time to try them again.

I’m also trying to add technorati information to this blog. Here is the Technorati Profile.

 

N. T. Wright on Resources for the Gospel writers

<blockquote>It seems to me that the evangelists may well have faced, as a major task, the problem not so much of how to cobble together enough tradition to make a worthwile book, but of how to work out what to include from the welter of available material. The old idea that the evangelists must have included everything that they had to hand was always, at best, a large anachronism</blockquote>

John, in his gospel, basically says this same thing at the end of his Gospel. “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

 

Contemplative Reading

I’m not sure who this woman is, but she has done a wonderful job describing the process of spiritual or contemplative reading. Her blog post is here. Here is an excerpt:

Many have referred to Lectio Divina as an ancient art. It begins with listening deeply with “the ear of our hearts” as St. Benedict described the process. This means being still, sitting in silence, as the words on the page are slowly read and embodied through the heart and senses. This practice requires quieting down to be fully present to the lectio….reading…of the chosen sacred text.

Once a passage appears that speaks to me in a personal way I begin to meditate upon the meaning that is the beginning of the meditatio…..meditation stage of lectio divina. This is an important step of the process where I open my consciousness to allow the Word I am reading to become personally meaningful in a way that touches and inspires me at the deepest level.

Oratio….prayer…is the third stage. This is the place where I allow what I have been meditating, to begin to create change and awareness within my heart and mind. I have been reading, listening, and meditating and now I open myself in loving conversation with God to fully embody what I have received.

Finally, I simply rest in contemplatio….contemplation of the presence of God who has inspired my heart. I am in silence. I let go into this time of embracing the fullness of the experience.

 

Paper Time

I really enjoyed my last class….and now it is time to do the paper. I’m not sure why, but I always question myself as I write it. I’m never sure what the professor wants. Then I catch myself and decide, it doesn’t matter what the professor wants, the important thing is what I’ve learned and how I’ve been changed through the process and how I can use this in ministry. Then I start wondering what the professor wants.

 

Every Moment

…every moment of our life has purpose…every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may seem in itslf, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding…yet what a terible responsibility is here. For it means that no moment can be wasted, no opportunity missed, since each has a purpose in man’s life, each has a purpose in man’s life, each has a purpose in God’s plan. Think of your day, today or yesterday. Think of the work you idd, the people you met, moment by moment. What did it mean to you — and what might have it meant for God? Is this question too simple to answer, or are we just afraid to ask it for fear of the answer we must give? – Father Walter J. Ciszek, S. J.

It has taken much time, but I’m discovering that Father Ciszek is correct. I tend to view my life as a series of (relatively boring) moments. What if all my moments have purpose? What if even the dull, boring moments are a part of God’s plan?

I’m learning to see that every moment of my life is a gift from God. Not only that, but every moment of my life God is inviting me to join Him and experience His presence. If I don’t recognize that, I will probably miss the invitation and instead of accepting His invitation, it will instead pass me by.

 

The Importance of Silence

Discovered this in one of the books for my doctoral program, Pathways to Spiritual Living by Dr. Susan Muto:

Everyone needs silence: the teacher, the nurse, the social worker; the artist, the poet, the doctor; the lawyer, the housewife, the cabdriver. To neglect this need is to risk living a tense, fragmented, spiritless life. Formation in Christian living is not confined to monasteries; it is a survival measure in the modern world. If we do not nourish our souls, they atrophy as do bodies without food. To maintain any kind of Christlike presence in the world, we need to seek silence and its fruits in the practices of spiritual reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation

As I spend time with Christians I’m discovering that we need to restore Christian spirituality. Muto is right when she says that Christian formation “is a survival measure in our modern world.” Instead of allowing our lives flow from an inner core that has been shaped and formed by Jesus, we allow our culture to shape and form us. We might argue the point, but I’m finding some very “unJesus” like attitudes, characteristics and actions within some of the most “Christian” organizations I serve.

I have a feeling that if the issue of silence, reflection and/or contemplation were to come up, many who are a part of those organizations would confess they spend most of their time in a frantic pace to ‘do what Jesus’ wants them to do (This is ironic). They may pray. They might read their bible daily. They perhaps, even have a quite time. Yet, those things have become pragmatic and functional rather than transformational.

We need to restore a spirituality that transforms us at the core so that our actions might flow from a center whose core and King is Christ.

 

Missional Thoughts

As I continue to study the missional church I find myself believing that this is what “church” is meant to be. At the core, being missional is understanding and believing that you are “sent.” (See John 20:21). Yet, I find most of the time my tradition focuses on making disciples (Matt 28:19-20) while overlooking the command to “go.” If Jesus tells us to “go” then that also means that we are “sent.”

The question I’m still working out is how can you move from a framework which believes that the church is a place where people “come” to a framework which believes that a church is a people who “go”?

Still on the journey…..

 

Understanding Modernity

The urgent need is for Christians to debate and become aware of the nature of modernity. Too easily they have accepted the good things which are available wthout being aware of the erosions of Christian faith and truth which are taking place. Jesus rebuked those who could not understand this present time. What is needed is a cultural awareness similar to what we expect of those who go abroad to minister Christ’s word. As we understand the present time, our engagement in prayer and our use of the Scriptures will become more focused. We wll see how congregations can become lights of the Kingdom. A re-born worship and a re-born proclamation bring the believer into the marvellous world view of the Scripture, and place the same world view of Scripture in the midst of everyday life in a secular world.

David Pullinger, Lesslie Newbigin, and John Reid, Book, Modern, Postmodern and Christian(Scotland: The Handsel Press, 1996)

 

That about Sums it Up….

Speaking to the inversion of the biblical vision, the radical missiologist Roland Allen said: “It would be better to teach a few men to call upon the name of the Lord for themselves that to fill a church with people who have acquired a habit of thinking that it is the duty of converts to sit and be taught and to hear prayers read for them in the church by a paid mission agent.” Who could have designed a system, as surely happened, by which people can hear two sermons a Sunday for the whole of their lives and not be able to open up the Bible to others publicly?

- R. Paul Stevens in The Other Six Days (pg 171)

 

Energy Sources

Here is a wonderful quote from Raniero Cantalamessa in the book Come, Creator Spirit. This could be the basis for a whole comparision between why the “world” hasn’t been able to ‘convert” to solar (or wind) energy and why the church has difficulty using the energy of the Spirit for its life and practice:

This is what we need most of all: supernatural power and effectiveness in serving the reign of God. The main problem that the Church is facing is the same as the problem facing the world as a whole, but on a different level. It is the question of the supply of energy. How do we make sure of energy supplies sufficient to sustain life? Where will we find this energy, from below of from above? In the case of physical energy, to seek it from below means to drill wells for oil, but we know that oil not onlyis not a renewable resource, but that its use also causes all sorts of pollution. For these reasons, we are searching anxiously for power “from above,” in this case, how to harness solar energy. the energy that comes to the earth in the form of light is thousands of times better than the energy we get from burning fossil fuels. It has been calculated that the energy of the sun’s rays falling during one year on the roads and streets of America alone could deliver twice the energy derived from all the world’s consumption of fossil fuels in the same length of time. There is no comparison between the one form of energy and the other; the energy “from heaven” is immeasurably more powerful than the energy “of the earth.”

But on the spiritual level too, we stand before a choice: Do we look for the energy we need “from below,” in ourselves and the resources of our intelligence and our entrepreneurial spirit, or do we look for it “from on high,” from the risen Christ, the Sun of Justice? The world is frantically trying to convert from one source of energy to another, from fossil fuels and nuclear resources to solar power which is infinitely cleaner and also free. The church is constantly in need of the same “conversion.

(see Zech 4:6-7)“