Godgrown

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  Mark 9:27 am on February 1, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

  The Strands in Your Web 

  We’ve all been there.

  Look back over your life and remember the last time you fully experienced passion - something that caught your heart by surprise, gave you purpose – a sense of mission and higher calling.  Put that feeling of conviction and excitement in your mind?  Okay – good, read on…

  Now, if you can, think back to the moment when that passion was first doubted.  When did you go from pure certitude to…maybe an unmet expectation, or conflicting evidence of how you understood how things should work?  When, after receiving that divine sense of calling, did you run up against someone of importance in your life who disagreed with you or even sought to stop you in your tracks?  Maybe it was a parent subtly but condescendingly pushing you away from your intended college major and into something they wanted for you.  Maybe it was a boss dismissing your dreams for the future of your business as misguided.

  How did you respond to that first bite of doubt?  That sting of original uneasiness with your own beliefs?

  Hebrews 11:24 –

   By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27†By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. 

  What happens to a person who has seen “him who is invisible?”  For Moses, it was after 40 years of shame and isolation, away from his Israelite family, exiled from Egypt — an exiled prince! — he had every right to be in the royal family, but he has a passion - he had a reason to buck the trend…

  …and it cost him all the status quo due him in life, but that made all the difference.

  He was not focused on the anger of the king, on the doubt of his Egyptian subordinates, or his Israelite brothers, sisters, cousins… He was fixed on the passion, the original passion that found him in the wilderness – he had such a sense of his own calling, of his own intimacy with that calling, that nothing and no one would stir his fear or doubt.

  We all go through life with a web of convictions – some stronger than others.  As we learn more about the world and how it works, certain strands in the web are broken, new ones are formed (i.e. as a child, we learn that we cannot fly when we jump off the stairs in a cape).  This process continues all throughout life, and its an important part of building a cohesive sense of TRUTH in the world.

  But what strands CAN’T be broken?  Are they all susceptible to pressures from the outside – from the wind and debris that inevitably blows through our fragile webs?  I feel that I want to be stronger than that – on certain things – I am learning what those things are – and resolving myself to those certain strands help me allow less important strands to be let go of – opening my heart and mind further to the truth of things.

  Its all about becoming passionate about the right strands in your web – choose wisely, and you’ll have passion your whole life long.

  
   

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  Mark 11:45 am on February 22, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Saint Benedict ( 2 )   

  Dwelling in the Word Together 

  How often does the word “dwell” show up on your personal calendar?  If you are like me, it is exactly never.  But consider the word for a moment.  Dwell. It can mean to “think deeply” about something, it can mean “originating in” a certain space, it can mean “to inhabit or find your home” somewhere, and it can mean “a place to come back to often.”  It is a rich and potent word to “dwell” on.

  So how does someone dwell in a text?  How does an entire community dwell in the Word? Here’s an idea:

  Whenever you meet, as an family of faith, house church, leadership team, training group, work team; spend the first 20-30 minutes dwelling within a particular scripture.  I recommend starting with the text Luke 10:1-12; it is a text of mission, of being sent out with the most basic of instructions, dependent upon our receivers’ hospitality, proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near!

  As you listen to the text being read, consider how the text impacts you personally, at a family level, at a congregational level, and how it impacts our world.  Let God speak in the silence, as well as in the written words.

  As we consider our decisions and actions in congregations and church bodies, in creating partnerships, in venturing out in mission… this text speaks to us, sometimes moving us forward, sometimes making us think differently about what is happening to us and how we should respond.

  You can have this habit, too.

  1. Choose a passage - perhaps a lectionary text for this coming week, perhaps a passage already meaningful to your group, and read it aloud.
  2. Read the passage 2-3 times, preferably read by different readers each time, and optionally changing translations.
  3. Between each reading, sit silently for 3 minutes, letting certain words, phrases and images to surface in the minds of the participants.
  4. Sit together with the passage, in silence, or in conversation, sharing with one another where your imagination was caught or where a memory was triggered. Let the passage draw you together as a group.
  5. Bring the passage up throughout the day, or when you’re trying to make a decision. See what it says to you then.
  6. Close with a prayer of thankfulness to God for what was revealed.

  Bring up the passage again during the next meeting, in the same manner.

  Live in the passage for several months. It will bring more and more to you as you revisit it!

  Some other Scriptures to get you started in Dwelling in the Word (also known as “Lectio Divina“)

  God “dwells in light” (Ti1 6:16; Jo1 1:7), in heaven (Psa 123:1), in his church (Psa 9:11; Jo1 4:12)

  
   
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  Mark 1:29 pm on February 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Gathering the Fragments 

  Worship is the substance of life within a church body. It gives meaning and purpose to the individual disciple, as well as the community as a whole. But assuming that worship is more inclusive than just a weekly corporate event, what shape might worship take?

  Worship is the cleansing of toxins in the Body of Christ, creating a semi-permeable membrane that holds tightly to the essential DNA of Christ; his message, his lifestyle, his resurrection, but filters out the lies of the world and the Evil One.

  Worship is the evaluation of God in the presence of a community; publicly affirming that God is good and is the center of the community’s identity. The nature and function of that worship will always be centered on God, but its shape and expression will be wildly diverse.

  The Church is built on the trillion cells of local churches scattered throughout time and space. Each local community of faith must find worship not only as an event, but as a way of life. Throughout the week, each follower of Christ is attentive to the guidance of Christ in prayer and in Scripture, and then gathering with other disciples to discern collectively what the Lord might be saying to them, as well as to collectively express heartfelt devotion to him.

  Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

  The Apostle Paul saw worship as participating in the life of the next age. At the apex of time, Paul conceived of the Church as God’s new humanity, and believed that Christians in worship was the realization of God’s eschatological work, where worshippers can actively participate in the new aeon to come. Under the influence of this new age, the worshipping Christian will be transformed; a complete metamorphosis of thinking, willing, and conduct. This change is external (lives) but springs forth from the internal (renewing of one’s mind). As children of God, the mind is no more ruled by the present world but by the will of God…

  …And God’s will is to be discerned by the community, and becomes one of the centering practices of the Church. Paul is mysterious about the process of communal discernment, but denotes the adjectives (good, pleasing, and perfect) that sum up the transformed life of a Christian community that focuses on worshipping God and discerning his will together.

  Implied in this text and other Scriptures is that while the Christian is engaged in worship and discernment all week long, it culminates in the gathering of the community. Each person having been listening and responding in worshipful action to the direction and inspiration of the Lord throughout the week then brings their discoveries to the common worship event to share. In this all parts build up the body, edifying and strengthening the whole.

  Learning God’s will happens when the lives of a community of believers meet together to share the fragments of God they’ve discovered throughout the week – instead of creating a culture of consumerism (where each person comes to receive the latest and greatest spiritual resource) each person brings a new picture of the Gospel and listens for what God is whispering to the group.

  What group couldn’t try this? I can imagine a house church making this their weekly practice, but I can also see organizing an event with hundreds gathered together to listen to God and share what they’re hearing.  World Cafe is a good model of this practice.

  The Anabaptists had a saying,

  “We don’t want to get rid of the clergy…we want to get rid of the laity!”

  Learning to worship in community and to discern God’s will in community can be a project in dismantling passivity in the church – and inviting each follower of Jesus to be a “priest” of God to the world…

  1 Peter 2:9 …For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.