"The price of our vitality is the sum of our fears." - David Whyte
resources
- 1 Peter 5:8 & 1 John 4:18
- facing fears
share your thoughts
- What do you think the church, Peace and/or you need to unlearn about following Jesus?
- What's the worse thing you can imagine happening as a result of pursuing emerging ministry at Peace?
5 comments:
Sticking to the questions...
I think that the church is unlearning some of its orthodoxy in the process of following Jesus. I heard a Pastor this past weekend speak of an upcoming crisis in the church -- very apocalyptic and pessimistic. That troubled me. Christ may have asked a lot -- no doubt there is a cost to discipleship -- but considering the alternatives...
unlearning that what I have is from my hands alone -- learning that God gave me those hands, an intellect, reason, love, guidance -- I just have to fill out my warranty card and register
unlearning that there is only one way to know God -- learning that Jesus is The Way that offers eternal life, that God has already found us and never intends us to shut Himself out of our life
unlearning that faith and beliefs are the same thing -- learning that we can have faith in God and doubt what we know about Him, because God is infinite and unknowable
I think that the worst that can happen is we study it as if it were the 29-ByPass, the Meadowcreek Parkway, or Places 29... we forget to act. Luther said to sin boldly, I believe; I don't think that he had sin lying down in mind.
Unlearning ...
unlearn 'depending on our own understandings' and learn faith.
unlearning how we speak with God and learning how to pray (and listen).
unlearn what we know about church as an institution and learn what an authentic Christ community looks like, acts like, and feels like.
I think the worst that can happen is that we allow the combination of change and action along with pent-up frustrations/anger to implode the whole of Peace.
Angela, if you are there -- a broad smile crept across my face when I read from the resource link and came across the story of crazy roosters.
To a city-bred person like me, the stereoptype of a rooster is that they are supposed to be an economical and relaible wake up call. There secondary role in chicken production isn't even given thought of.
The fact that roosters could be non-conformist, choosing to wake us up almost indicriminantly, never occured to me before Honduras.
The roosters were supposed to be on my clock.
So it goes with the roosters in my spiritual life. They seem to work on someone else's clock -- God's?
What do we sound like to one another? When we are convicted by the call of a Brother or Sister in Christ, or as important as that, by someone who doesn't know Christ, or God's love? Do we sound like inconvenient roosters?
Convicted that we are too preoccupied with our own guilt. Or maybe pride. Or maybe in our safety zone.
Unlearning to respond to a call with fear, or worse, indifference.
Learning to trust God.
I have always loved this quote from the book Dune. I try to recall it whenever I feel fear.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." - Frank Herbert, Dune
I faced a very concrete fear this weekend, the fear of heights combined with dangling off cliff ledges. I don't really have a phobic fear of heights, but add being perched precariously hundreds of feet off the ground or traversing a very long, very high suspension bridge, and I've left my comfort zone way behind. What helped immensely is traveling with Tom who was so supportive and had previous experience as well as focusing on just the next step. Tom must know me pretty well, because he didn't give me a lot of details about the Via Ferrata, just the highlights. If I had known all that I would have faced ahead of time, I probably would have chickened out. I guess I'm learning that there is a good reason I don't know exactly where this emerging ministry at Peace is going.
I remember hearing a phrase about the reason why there are bends in the roads we travel.. for if we could see clearly all that lay before un-obstructively, perhaps we wouldn't have the courage to go forward :)
It seems nowadays that faith in God gives me more courage than knowing. hmmm... I just said that for the first time.. I'll have to play with that one.
Post a Comment