A child's part in spiritual formation

“Children are our first defense against the deadening and flattening effects of disconnecting God and life.” E. Peterson

This was something to digest, having a one year old in my house seems as if my spiritual formation is at an end! Isaiah said: “And a little child shall lead them” (11:6) and we know Christ’s attitude to children (Matt 18). What children do is they break the divisions between private and public and the temptation to make my prayer life a separate, quite, secluded part of my life. A relationship with a child is all encompassing and everything happens in the moment. Only later do they learn to differentiate and compartmentalize their lives. Children break us out of the secluded routines and help us as the psalmist says: “…walk before God in the light of life.” (Ps. 56:13b) But, I be honest, a child’s screaming tests my ‘harmony’ in a big way – maybe it is helping me live my faith in the raw of the emotional day?

“We can’t master spiritual formation” Eugene Peterson

In a small book released in March this year called: “Living the Resurrection” are a few lecture notes E. Peterson gave at Regent College, Vancouver.

The events of the resurrection found in all our Gospels lead Peterson to the conclusion that meeting with the Resurrected Christ is something that we cannot easily put into tight, easy compartments of spiritual progress. We are quick to formalize and strategize our spiritual awakening into programmes that help us feel a sense of achievement and puts us in control of its making. Meeting with the resurrected Christ may change this altogether when like the early disciples meeting the empty tomb face to face experienced the wonder of things out of their control but regardless, a spiritual awakening.

“The Christ in one’s own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of a brother or sister.”

“The Christ in one’s own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of a brother or sister.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.

This was quoted in Schnase’s book that I referred to in my previous entry. Somehow in the presence of others we are greater. We struggle to do it alone. In matters of importance we will only be able to go so far without the company of others. Their role in our lives is to encourage us when we are slacking, prompt us when we are being insightful and raise our hopes that we will achieve far more than we expected when we began. Gaining willing company in the various activities of our lives will show ourselves to be the people we were ought to be.

Moving toward greater things

“We simply must come to a place in our lives where we agree to give up old securities which bind us, or painful memories which harm us, or dashed dreams which discourage us, or heartaching wounds which prevent us from discovering new dreams and from coming into fuller life.” Joyce Rupp

Letting go and moving on is the most difficult thing for many of us to do. I don’t believe there is ever a time in our lives when we ought not be moving away from something and moving into something greater. It might be my Methodist root system at work here, the belief that God calls us towards Christian perfection. There are always stagnant, dead, decaying, ungrateful, self-absorbed quagmires within us, and the church that need new skies, new country to leap around in.

What do Christianity and a mother in labour have in common?

“… unless we suffer like a woman in travail, we shall not succeed in bringing to birth the spirit of salvation in the ground of our heart.” Theophan the Recluse

We sat, six of us men in meeting last evening. We were missing our fellow leader of the fairer sex who might have given us new light on the subject of Christian suffering. The question before us was: “Does God call us to suffering in our ministry?” The answer was – no, not for suffering sake but in order to fulfill the will of God in Christ we will come to suffering somewhere, somehow. On reflection this morning I am wondering if God has not called us to suffering and we ought not skirt the issue. Theophan the Recluse (A bishop in the Russian orthodox church in the 19th Cent.) makes his point that there is no spiritual salvation without suffering akin to a woman giving birth. The longer I am a Christian the more I realize the importance to be transformed into the likeness of Christ. This will often cost me dearly in my pride, my pocket, my reputation, my time, my patience, my breaking point, and my all. This is no doubt what Jesus meant when he said: “You must be born again.”

Everyday theatrics

I am in one of those twilight moments in my ministry. The moments where one knows something new is about to dawn but you are not sure what it is going to be. Something strange starts to happen to you - the answers about yourself and God are not sufficient and there is the threat of breaking new ground spiritually. They are not comfortable moments, they normally shatter your impression of self and expose the true person beneath. We hide behind disguises of make believe, hoping others will be as impressed as we are with the image we portray of ourselves. Like all theatricals - the music, stage props and costumes wear thin and eventually date. The show is over and the in-between time is a time of waiting patiently, searching persistently, a looking out for new beginnings that will spark the new script, a script that’s matured and deepened its plot, its themes more poignant, its characters more round…..I look forward to opening night.

Disciple Bible Study

This is the fourth time I have run this 34 week programme in a church. For those who endure and make the effort it is a life changing experience. So many folk are wanting to walk a deeper walk and are tired of the pith that is so often given to them as Christian education. This provides a well balanced approach to the study of scripture with a the idea of transformation versus information as its goal. For those interested go here for more information.

The idiot's guide to ministry - I wish

Yesterday I got the greatest response to my blog that I have ever had before. I didn’t realize that my tone may have been a somewhat moaning and complaining one. I was really responding to the book by Trevor Hudson, who was making the same point in an illustration of his life when strangers came to his church looking for the ‘minister’ and the people searched him out and after a long week and night of ministry he was expected to minister to this man whilst everybody else went home. I however do acknowledge that there was some anger buried in my entry. Thank you for your phone calls and emails, I am doing alright ‘really’, but it is as if a huge gong has been sounded. As one email response said “ Empowerment, empowerment, empowerment, delegation, delegation, delegation.” Thank you, you made my day. I had a good laugh, but realized the importance of the training game. This Sunday I am preaching about being Gospel minister’s – all of us. The process of mobilizing people into their ministries is however not a simple ‘tick’ this column and there you go. Ministry belongs to the world of a persons spiritual maturity, past experience, their natural talents, current circumstances and the level as which the church can train, equip and adequately accommodate different ministries. Your thoughts on the subject are most helpful to me as we draw ourselves closer and closer to the service ordained for us.

Public money

When writing about money it is like sharing about ones sex life? You don’t talk about it in public. What we do with our money is our business and nobody else’s and maybe if this attitude changed we would find spiritual release. If fellowship groups would allow members to express how they spend their money, how they struggle with what to purchase, and how purchasing may have become an end in itself, it may help us realize the struggle we all face. To spend money can quickly become an addictive means of satisfying us, but only for a temporary measure. A crime situation helped free me from what I owned. They wiped me out of all the usual things in the Pretoria manse and we had to claim from insurance to get all the appliances etc. back. Every item I replaced in that house I felt I would never be able to own. There was no saying when the next burglary would be, and when I would have to replace it all again. There are some positive things that come from a crime epidemic? To serve God or to serve money was the choice Jesus asked his disciples to make. To be disciples of Jesus one has to make this choice. 1 Tim. 6.9 speaks about those who want to be rich. This is a choice that is not exclusive to those who have lots of money. The don’t haves can just as easily place all their hope on material things and fall prey to the same temptation as the haves. The “kingdom of God” that Jesus warns is difficult to enter if we are money obsessed. This kingdom is not something that is realized only one day in ‘heaven’. It is a reality being realized everyday through our faith that can be experienced by the wealthy and not wealthy. That is if our focus is not on material possessions but on the God in whom we love and the people whom we are called to serve.

Heaven’s garden

Turning points are important to recognize, register and rejoice over. God moves the impossible away for us. The disgraceful parts of ourselves are rolled away by mightier hands than ours. Disciplined hope depending on better places to live. New ground growing sweeter with thanksgiving charming the budding path . The stone once rolled sits there in view, a reminder of past lives that were lesser than now. Our garden with stones, some moss ridden once moved and others freshly chiseled and waiting to be rolled. Our gardens of worship growing from glory into glory.

Ashes to ashes

I must say that Ash Wednesday was for me a very deep and spiritual growth point. When I placed the cross of ash on the forehead of the worshiper's with the words, "From dust you came, and to dust you will return," it turned something inside of me. The power of that truth called mortality. Coming to terms with our tangible nature is the cornerstone of spiritual health. It said to me, Get down to basics. Get down on the ground and humble yourself before the living God your Creator. Stop all your pretentious self-confessed wisdom and your high and mighty ideas of the world and how it should be run. Stop with your self-righteous parading and throw yourself rather into the hands of a God who brings about results as God desires. You are not going to change the world. God is going to change the world through you. If there is to be any judgment it will be God who passes judgment. All I ask is that I may be saturated with the nature of God as I love people to the point of death. May that be my only measuring rod, my only scale of justice, my obession, and cause for self evaluation.

Today’s potential

There is great hope in knowing that every ounce of work I do for God I sow potential life. Who knows what the plant will turn out like? That is not in my domain but in the one who formed it all. What farmer knows the outcome of a crop she sows day and night into upturned soil? The work is divine. The drudgery, a divine goal in itself and not a means to an end. Too often it is seen as the slog before the results, the part that must be done, the chore in order to achieve - but who knows maybe it will result in failure. Who cares about the results when you know the potential of the seed. All people are worth the effort. All work done for the glory of the Creator is worth the effort. Not one seed we hold is without hope, all have the budding joy of becoming. Help us plant just because it has potential, not because we can predict its future.

Weaning by Dr. J

A child is cherished when they are slowly weaned off their parents. The act is a moment of key-making, a twenty first celebration that marks the era of doing your own thing. Coming home late and not disturbing the folks. Taking yourself to work and back in your newly bought or pass-me-down family car. “Free to be me” at last, no teacher’s to infringe on my spare time. I am the manager of my life, to choose and imbibe all that I choose. It wasn’t so for the adolescent God-man. It wasn’t so for the middle-aged God-man either. The sign of his maturity was marked by the increasing dependency on his parent. He was given more because he listened more. Held more authority because he obeyed more. It is a weaning process the spiritual journey is, but not from one parent to oneself, but from one parent to another.

Bird logic

They walked with bird like astuteness down the lawn toward the house. Three well adorned ring neck doves. They had found some bread crumbs that were thrown out the night before and were enjoying the early morning breakfast. Then in succession they took to flight and disappeared over the roof of the house. I was unaware of the lesson I would learn when they returned. It was not ten minutes later and with a rustle of wings they landed near the bread but this time there were six well adorned ring neck doves with prestigious collars and well groomed chests. It could not be helped, the thought that in this simple avian moment the truths of the Church lay exposed. At the table of the God-man their lies a broken loaf of bread, a loaf shared, a life shared, a message waiting to be devoured. The earlier worshipers having eaten their full went off fulfilled to share the news with all. They returned with more, and each day the Church grew double score.