"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Haven out of Hell, a Hell out of Heaven." - John Milton
resources
- Acts 16:22-26
- overcoming adversity
share your thoughts
- How do you feel God is remodeling you for ministry at work, with your neighbors, at Peace, in the world?
- How can we reframe apparent obstacles to emerging ministry at Peace as opportunities?
2 comments:
Re-frame...
Personally God has been remodeling me in so many ways, I have lost track. Transformative faith and growth in relationship with God is outwardly changing and remodeling all aspects of me and my life...
The meeting this morning (Tri-Lutheran) has made me realize that I'm being prepared to engage faithfully in a larger community. I don't know anymore than that.. but I sense it with IMPACT, in thinking about reaching out to the community in whatever way(s).
One my new favorite quotes come from this chapter..
"Maybe our problem isn't our circumstances. Maybe our problem is our perspective."
I still am not sure what the 'apparent obstacles' are... and quite frankly I'm still not sure what we truly mean by emerging ministry. I've heard and read some amazingly passionate ideas, I've heard some far-reaching visioning.. I've read various models that different churches have applied to their growth and change...
the only obstacle I see at this point, is a lack of consensus.
I think I met a prophet last week. You may see him this weekend on the screen at church. Here are his words paraphrased from the video that continue to ring in my ears.
"fear comes when God tell us to do something and we look at it from our own perspective and are afraid to let go, but once we let go, that's when things become all right. Until then, it's a fight, it's a war and the war is the battlefield in our mind. If you want to get to know God, then feel free to suffer, feel free to want to go do something, if you don't go through nothing, how would you know God?" - Seven
I think some of the reframing work I'm going through is discovering that many of the issues I've had with "organized religion" and tried to deal with on an external level are also linked to my fears about faith. My mind is indeed a battlefield and can easily get caught up in useless campaigns for control.
One of those campaigns feels like trying to figure out exactly what emerging ministry means for me, for us, for Peace. I think it looks like our struggles with faith & doubt. I think it looks like our deepest desire to help God save the world. I think it looks like us wanting to "do something" and then stumbling around trying to do it, helping each other up when we fall and reminding each other why we continue to do it.
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