Pilgrim's Progress

The Father and Mother Love of God

I've been reflecting on the different kinds of love that God shows ... and how these kinds of love are reflected in human love:

1. Sometimes the Bible talks of God's love in what might traditionally be called a maternal way i.e. protective, covering, enfolding e.g. longing to gather up his people as a hen gathers her chicks under its wing. (Luke 13:34).
2. At other times, his love is portrayed in a more traditionally paternal way i.e. the kind of strength-giving, rugged love e.g. "you are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased". (Luke 3)

I stress "traditional"! Western culture is so confused and uncertain about sexuality and gender identity in our day. What do you make of the following passage in 1 Thess 2 ...

Changing Down a Gear

Time for a change of scene again ... partly due to boredom, but maybe it reflects a change of pace too ... The driven red makes way for a chilled-out blue. Life has slowed down a little bit in the last 3 weeks since posting on Mary & Martha, maybe just enough to hear God's voice a little better.

Wise Up!

Am enjoying the teachings of Richard Rohr at the moment, especially about masculine spirituality. You may have heard him at Greenbelt this year.

Here is his "Starter Kit for Wisdom" (found here):

1. There is a lesson in everything that is going to happen to you. Let go of your need to control, fix, or even understand anything.
2. Until you have lived through it (which means to have died in it), it is not yet true.
3. Every decisive victory is born from an equally decisive defeat. Learn from the defeats.Success has very little to teach you after 30.
4. Great wisdom is always both/and and win/win. Little mind is always either/or and win/lose.
5. It all starts with forgiveness. Let go of your need to punish anybody, including yourself, including the world.
6. You can do none of the above by yourself. We are here to find the Friend and Companion.

Drive, Strive & Connive

I forgot again.

And I had forgotten it so well that I've ended up pretty exhausted and feeling the approach of burnout (again). But God has been good to me. A surprise phone call last week triggered a chain of events that began to open my eyes. It's been going on for quite a while and I might just have caught it in time.

I forgot that God desires my fellowship and friendship before he desires my service. But in my drivenness I had turned it the other way round. I forgot that Jesus called the 12 "that they might be with him" before he sent them out to preach and cast out demons (Mark 3).

Dryness and weariness ... maybe others are in a similar sort of place, for different reasons.

In Luke 10 we find that Martha was "pulled away by much service" (literal translation). But for those few moments, only "one thing was necessary". But her drivenness pulled her away from the one place where her true need could be met, where her dry and weary soul could be renewed and refreshed.

I like to think the story continues as follows ...

Emerging Church: The Shape of Things to Come

For a number of reasons I'm thinking a lot about Emerging Church again after not blogging about it for almost a year:

1. Have been to several large-scale events over the summer (New Wine, Merseyfest, and Greenbelt), and found myself having quite different reactions to each of them
2. The approaching end of my curacy means the next step is on the cards - will it be some "fresh expression"?
3. My own journey - what kind of disciple\leader am I really, deep down?

To help fire up some discussion, here are some of the tensions I perceive amidst the birth-pains of the emerging whatever-it-is. They are shameless charicatures, and extremes, but it's something to get started ...

1. Proclamatory ("here is what we believe") <-----> Exploratory ("what do we believe?")
2. Conservative (new ways of expressing core beliefs) <-----> Liberal (beliefs themselves open to question)
3. "Intact" Leadership (get sorted out then help others) <-----> "Broken" Leadership (heal as you get healed)
4. Alliances with existing denominations & movements <-----> unable to form such alliances (too different? lack of willingness on either side?)
5. Tidiness vs. "Messiness"
6. Holiness as "apart-ness" (keep a distance from the mess) <-----> Holiness as "distinctiveness" (in the thick of it")
7. Tried & Tested (leaders, practices, worship forms, topics, venues ... anything) <-----> Experimental (leaders, practices, worship forms, topics, venues ... anything)
8. "One man band" (pyramid model) <-------> Collaborative (team model)