Darn. I just thought I'd got a handle on things, but it's all been shaken up again. I'd been settling into a conviction that I was heading for some creative\leadership role in some "fresh expression" of church, but it feels like that's back on the drawing board again.
I'm just back from New Wine North 2007, where a great deal of shaking up went on.
But then I shouldn't be surprised, should I? How often did God move his people on once they'd got settled?
The big things that hit me at NW this year were ...
- God's heart for the poor and broken, and for people on the margins
- Jesus' longing to be united with his bride, the church, and his heartache over all the pain and division in the body of Christ.
- God's desire to heal all of creation, including the environment
- A renewed invitation to live a life of radical surrender and devotion.
- The call to "minister from the dirt" - to serve from the ground up, not from the platform down.
- A sense that this might all take me overseas at some point.
Sheesh. Big stuff. But it kind of rings true as well. So I hit the road once again, and ask "Lord, where is the ark going?"
"I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness, but I know I can't turn back ... I don't rightly know what I want but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, Sir, if you understand me"
(Frodo Baggins; LOTR p100)
"I have not yet done that for which I was made"
(St Anselm of Canterbury, 12th Cent.)
