Solitude, Community, Ministry
October 31, 2008
12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. 17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all. -Luke 6:12-19
Reflecting on this passage, Henri Nouwen points out three distinct disciplines (rhythms) established by Jesus as the order for spiritual work. They are solitude, community and ministry. In solitude we can hear God speak. Out of solitude a community of people is formed to embody the mission. Finally, this community of followers goes out together healing the sick and troubled and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom.
Nouwen writes, “I believe you can look at solitude, community and ministry as three disciplines by which we create space for God. If we create space in which God can act and speak, something surprising will happen.”
How do the disciplines of solitude, community and ministry take shape in your life? Which one tends to get neglected most? What do you think of Nouwen’s ordering of solitude first, community second, and ministry third? What might you do today in an effort to create space for God?
What Is Biblical Hospitality?
October 30, 2008
“We always treat guests as angels — just in case.”
– Brother Jeremiah
“Hospitality begins at the gate, in the doorway, on the bridges between public and private space. Finding and creating threshold places is important for contemporary expressions of hospitality.”
– Christine D. Pohl
“If there is room in the heart, there is room in the house.”
– Danish Proverb
“If you have a hospitable disposition, you own the entire treasure chest of hospitality, even if you possess only a single coin. But if you are a hater of humanity and a hater of strangers, even if you are vested with every material possession, the house for you is cramped by the presence of guests.”
— Chrysostom
“Fear is a thief. It will steal our peace of mind and that’s a lot to lose. But it also hijacks relationships, keeping us sealed up in our plastic world with a fragile sense of security. Being a people who fear the stranger, we have drained the life juices out of hospitality. The hospitality we explore here is not the same kind you will learn about from Martha Stewart. Benedictine hospitality is not about sipping tea and making bland talk with people who live next door or work with you. Hospitality is a lively, courageous, and convivial way of living that challenges our compulsion either to turn away or to turn inward and disconnect ourselves from others.”
– Homan and Pratt in Radical Hospitality
Seeking 3
October 29, 2008
Celtic Daily Prayer’s third opening and arresting question asks:
Do you seek Him with all your soul? and answers with: Amen, Lord, have mercy!
Scot McKnight says that the soul is the seat of our spirituality in 40 Days of Living the Jesus Creed. I understand Christian (The only spirituality Missional Order promotes) spirituality as “The entirety of my lived relationship with God” (Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality, which is a fantastic resource to help us sort through terms like spiritual formation, spirituality, spiritual growth, discipleship, sanctification, religion, mysticism, etc…).
Every particular happening I live through with God, I process it through my soul. Better, God processes it with me through my soul. This means the seeking of God I do aims to discover God in every aspect of my lived relationship with God. Here I ask every time I go through an event or experience, God what is this about? What are showing me of you? The community in Psalm 60 couldn’t help but ask God to interpret their experience. This is seeking with the soul as I am coming to understand it.
There are patterns of lived relationship with God that are common to all God-life practitioners (e.g. prayer, Bible reading, sacred rhythm). But there are particulars that can only be true of each of us bespeaking the uniqueness of each soul design. The soul is deep, deeper than human knowledge can fathom. I enjoy expressing my relationality with God through playing the piano. When I do, say late at night, I experience a real sense of the presence of God touching my soul. But you may do so by jogging, writing, cooking, plumbing, blogging…
Seeking God with our soul, is seeking to understand the entirety of our lived relationship with God. In that sense our “spirituality is local and ordinary” (the phrase is often used by Eugene Petersen). The soul is a mystery. It stands in defiance of understanding life materially or with the lens of consumerism. The soul is THE seeking mechanism of our lives. It takes what our minds think and feel, what our hearts will and spirits experience, what our bodies do, integrating the whole life (The entirety of our lived relationship with God). When the soul is seeking the life is reflecting what is sought.
Amen, (May it be so) Lord, (possessor of my soul), have mercy (for truly I know little of whom I seek, and I seek in such little ways)!
Seeking 2
October 27, 2008
Celtic Daily Prayer begins with a reading from Psalm 27, which is followed by a series of pointed and arresting questions. The question about seeking God with all my mind arrested my attention the other day.
Here is the CDP opening:
One thing I have asked of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life;
to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to seek Him in His temple.
Then the call to seek God in the participant is put in relief:
Call: Who is it that you seek?
Response: We seek the Lord our God.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your heart?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your soul?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your mind?
Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Call: Do you seek Him with all your strength?
Response: Amen. Christ, have mercy.
The pray-ers who graced the Church with CDP felt they could equate seeking with loving (a la Shema). A fine equation it is, I believe. We seek what we love and we love what (whom) we seek.
I know I desire to seek God with all my mind. Yet how can finitness seek infiniteness? How can what is limited seek the Limitless One? Answer: As best one could. Particular seeking is unique to each of us. Some seek by prayer only, others by reading Scripture, others by observing the actions of God in their lives, or by means of other disciplines. Yet all Christ followers are all one in our seeking.
The rational part of us, the things we have come to believe, what we think about, urges, images, impressions, what we know, what we feel, all of them are filtered through and some come to reside in our minds. The mind always seeks to make sense of things. This mind of ours has a lot of control over most of what we do. And one thing we are free to do is to seek God with the mind.
One thing I have to be careful about (how about you?) are things that impress themselves upon my mind, my mind like yours is impressionable. I am discovering that age and past wisdom are no guarantee against the onslaught of impressions. I am thinking it will always be that my mind is susceptible to impressions (even the bad ones) and that seeking God is the antidote.
One of the benefits from practicing sacred rhythm is the shaping of our minds in the likeness of Christ. Engaging in Sacred Rhythm is imitative of Christ’s behavior. It is the one of the means that the Holy Spirit uses to transform our minds. In comparison to the constant bombardment of impressions from evil elements in the world, the short times of punctuated prayers gains in importance. It is in this practice that we bring much needed balance to our minds. In Sacred Rhythm we are letting the holy Spirit through whatsoever is lovely, good, faithful, of good reputation etc… have a go at the renewing of our minds.
The arresting questions of CDP make the all-encompassing subject and object of our lives to be seeking God. It is good that each time our mouth engage in prayer for these questions of life to be foremost in our minds. We are born with a seeking mind, we live by a seeking mind, we hope and anticipate the future with a seeking mind, and we love Him with all our mind.
What Time Is It?
October 24, 2008
Not all time is created equal. The Bible distinguishes between kairos and chronos. Kairos is significant time: meaningful, in the present, quality time. Karios time is where Jesus lived. Chronos is clock time: linear, chronological, sequential, measurable, quanity time. This is were we live.
Busyness, hurry and productivity are usually activities of chronos, while reflection, relationships and spirituality are usually activities of kairos.
Do people need help managing time because they are too busy? Or do people need help managing time because they have lost the sense of the meaning of time?
Author Ben Patterson writes, “The Bible calls us to live first by kairos (significant time) and to let kairos dictate to chronos (clock time) what we will do and how we will live.”
I find Patterson’s word to speak to the disperate need of an order. Should we not understand the daily pattern and rthytm of prayer as karios time (meaningful, relational, quality) that will, or should influence and determine the chronos time of our day?
Radical Hospitality
October 23, 2008
Hospitality, rather than being something you achieve, is something you enter. It is an adventure that takes you where you never dreamed of going. It is not something you do, as much as it is someone you become. You try and you fail. You try again. You make room for one person at a time, you give one chance at a time, and each of these choices of the heart stretches your ability to receive others. This is how we grow more hospitable — by welcoming one person when the opportunity is given to you.
– Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love by Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt
(In light of Luke 15:1-10)
Our God, we ask that we too would be accused of being a friend to sinners. May the seats around our table always be filled with sinners! Shape us into a hospitable people—a welcoming people who are always willing to leave the ninety-nine for the one.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
– Closing Prayer, Thursday Morning, October 23rd, The Missio Dei Breviary
The Rhythm of Real Life
October 21, 2008
Ora et labora
… so says the great motto of the Benedictines. “Pray and work.” The life of the Benedictine is punctuated by a rhythm of praying through the Psalms coupled with a life of work. So often maligned for distancing themselves from the “real” world this group of praying monks and developing saints may be more in tune with the “real” than those of us robbed of their cloistered lifestyle.
More than any other time in history men and women have both the freedom and opportunity to escape the “real”. Whether it be through consuming media, acquiring wealth, or self-indulgent individuality the temptation to avoid the “real” is greater than ever. Beginning with the industrial revolution and bearing full fruit in today’s information age, humans have become increasingly separated from work within the natural world and, as a partial result, relationships with God and one suffer. Our careers suffer as well.
This “real” world includes the daily and mundane tasks of our work. Sometimes The press of our daily lives combined with the frustrations involved in our work can easily lead to cynical attitudes toward our careers. As this happens our careers and jobs are divorced from our spiritual lives. Work becomes a trial to endure rather than a place of meeting God.
Into this sterile experience breaks these words from the “Aidan Compline” in Celtic Daily Prayer:
May the virtue of our daily work
hallow our nightly prayers.
May our sleep be deep and soft
so our work be fresh and hard.
With these words we witness a reconnection between work, whether it be work in the field or the office, and the sacredness of prayer. The link between these two remind us that not only is prayer a sacred enterprise, our work is too. “May the virtue of our daily work…” (work is good, virtuous even?) “…hallow our nightly prayers.” Our work assists in making our prayers holy. No one denies that prayer is sacred, holy work. But let’s ask ourselves: can our work be sacred, a form of holy prayer?
Prayer leads us to our work where we can engage God’s world and people with a new love for both. Our work brings us back to prayer where our praying both deepens and enriches our work. Entering into a sacred rhythm of hourly prayer provides an arena for our prayer life and what is often the most mundane aspect of our daily life, our work, to touch and be transformed by the other.
This is the rhythm of real life. Ora et labora.
On Your Mark…
October 20, 2008
To relish the presence of God, a way of slowing down is necessary. I use these steps in preparation to pray.
Space/Place: I have created a space that helps me be present. While many people can focus on what is going on internally while in high traffic areas, I prefer a quiet, comfortable, and free of distractions spot, at least for one of the 4 sacred times of prayer in my day. Nothing elaborate here. Could be as simple as a well-placed chair at home or office. Naming a place is a way of sanctifying it (a common biblical tradition). I take no chances of being disturbed. I have removed all the hooks that lure me in the direction of the tyranny of the urgent.
Posture: I position my body and my self in a way that maximizes paying attention. I keep my back as straight as possible so that breathing is not labored. Crossing legs or arms restricts the flow of blood. Body posture carries symbolic overtures to know the presence of God and to be present to God. By adopting the right posture I declare my readiness to have an audience with the King. Recliners are death to prayer. I know. You know.
Pace: Slow down the rate of your breathing. This is the most helpful step I take in preparation for prayer. It has a way of slowing me down like no other. By slowing down I send a signal that I am ready to listen. It’s my way of saying: Speak, Lord, for you servant is in hearing mode. I want to let God know I am not in a hurry. I want to tame my “hurriedness”. I try to take no more than 4-7 breaths per minute. I breathe deeply and rhythmically by holding my breath to the count of 4. I concentrate on inhaling and exhaling which to me are symbols of taking in the presence of God and offering my presence to God.
Perceptions: The fourth thing I do is to become aware of my surroundings and my inner self. What is my body touching, what am I smelling, seeing, hearing? I pay attention to my breathing, what my body is touching, what I am wearing. I listen to what my soul is saying. Am I anxious? Tired? Joyful? Expecting? This is good because it helps me be and stay in the present moment. Seek depth of awareness not analysis.
Purpose: I remind myself that the purpose of prayer is to enter into a deep conversation with God, and to keep his company. Personal transformation that leads to world transformation may happen as a result of prayer but the focus is on the One who transforms.
I need not take long in preparation but I need to take the time I need to prepare.
Do you have some ways you prepare yourself to enter into the presence of God?
Abide Then Abound
October 17, 2008
The meditation for today’s morning prayer (day 17) from Celtic Daily Prayer reads:
Here am I, Lord,
I’ve come to do Your will.
Here am I, Lord,
in Your presence I’m still.
This is perhaps the shortest and most simple of all of the morning meditation, yet it is one of most difficult, at least for me. First I ask myself, do I really come each day open and prepared to do God’s will? And second, am I truly still and present before God?
These questions led me to read again the two previous posts this week. Both Paul and Georges wrote about the necessity of slowing down and being fully engaged in the present. I would highly recommend reading “Present to the Present” and “Be There.” However, the meditation this morning also led me to consider the relationship between being still before the Lord and being prepared to do His will.
I remember hearing a message many years ago by John Ortberg where he talked about the biblical teaching to “abound” in God’s will for our lives (1 Cor. 15:58; Col 3:23) and to “abide” in his presence (John 15:4).
I remember struggling (in my head and in my life) as to how to find “balance” in these two exhortations. I came to realize, by experience, that the only way to discover the appropriate “balance” is to begin with abiding.
Now that may sound obvious, but rarely do we really live that way. In the past I have almost always started with abounding (especially in church planting efforts) and then I have tried to find some way to squeeze in a bit of abiding. Well, needless to say, working from that direction doesn’t work. When we start with abiding we will gain the energy, motivation, and most important the wisdom to know where, when and how much to abound.
Therefore, as we strive to live missionally in our workplaces, schools and neighborhoods we must begin by developing a rhythm that puts us in the position to first hear from the Lord. Our hope and prayer is that Missional Order can be an encouragement in helping you create such a rhythm.
Present to the Present
October 14, 2008
I cannot recount all the times I wished I could time travel. It’s tempting to go back in time to those important and interesting moments of history. To see first hand the American West before Louis and Clark or to see the birth and growth of the Early Church or even the first moon landing. However, as I suspect is true for most of us, I am less interested in going back to view events in our corporate history than I am in changing some of my own. How far back would I go? In some cases ten minutes or even ten seconds would be enough. Other times I think that ten months or ten years ago would allow me to do everything over again the right way.
Alas, God doesn’t give us time machines. In fact, he doesn’t seem interested in changing the past. However, God does seem especially interested in the redemption of our present. How can we remain present to the “present”?
Scripture teaches that we only have this day. James tells us that we should make our plans for the future carefully in order that we not be trapped by our plans when they get changed. So the present is what we’ve got to work with. The “now” is the only place (Or should we say time?) where we are going to experience God. If there is no going back how shall we make the best of the now?
“Oh, satisfy us early with Thy mercy,
that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days.”
This little phrase from Psalm 90, and repeated in the Midday office of the Celtic Daily Prayer, teaches us to seek our satisfaction with God early, whether early in the day, early in our lives, or, more appropriately: right now! Enjoying the mercy of God, his manifest love through Christ, orients us in such a way as to remove regret.
As Georges related on Monday, being present is the essential component to making the most of the repetitive nature of the CDP. The repetition of prayer becomes a beautiful and valuable thing when engaged in fully with one’s heart, soul and strength. One is present by being fully and completely in the here and now. In the rush of our lives we miss out on our relationship with God because we are living too much in the past, too much in the future and not enough in the now.
Slowing down, three or four times a day, entering into the “sacrament of the present moment” allows us to be where God is once again. In the present enjoying his presence and participating in his work of redeeming and remaking creation. Redeeming our time by being present to God in time.
Be There
October 13, 2008
I heard Leonard Sweet lecture on the idea of Being There. He meant that in our work of ministry and in life in general we ought to be fully engaged or present. Being there to those we serve and to God in prayer. At missional order we are committed to pray four times daily. Praying the liturgies of Celtic Daily Prayer is our chosen way of doing that. This is sacred rhythm. The challenge is to be there every time we pray.
Another challenge in Celtic Daily Prayer (this is also true of any other prayer book) is to work through the repeated or written prayers without redundancy. No doubt repetitions in CDP are intentional. But how do you avoid the danger of “vain repetition” as Jesus warns? While this is not easy it is possible by simply choosing to be there.
While some believe repeating prayers is futile, at missional order we don’t. We believe that the key to saying the same prayers in a sacred rhythm fashion or reading prayers is to be present. Being all there. With undivided attention.
If you haven’t noticed yet the Morning Celtic Daily Prayers for example are the same day in and day out. This is also true of all midday prayers, and all evening prayers. I believe there is only one way to deal with this way of praying and that is “to be there.” By that I mean: Pause before you start to pray. Consider what you are about to do. Knowing that we are about to intentionally engage the Divine Presence by being present to Him is sobering.
More Making Room
October 9, 2008
Hospitality is not optional for Christians, nor is it limited to those who are specially gifted for it. It is, instead, a necessary practice in the community of faith. . . . Several aspects of early Christian life combined to make hospitality central to Christian practice.
First, shared meals were a significant setting for struggling with cultural boundaries in the early church, especially in working through the incorporation of Gentiles into the early communities. At meals together, tensions surfaced between rich and poor believers; meals provided the context for instructions on equal recognition and respect. Hospitality practices in the Christian community were to portray a clear message — that of equality, transformed relations, and a common life.
Second, the gospel initially spread through the ministry of believers who traveled widely and depended on the hospitality of others. Hospitality to those first missionaries and the reception of their message were very closely connected. . . . Hospitality was the practice within which early Christians met the needs of traveling missionaries and leaders, religious exiles, and the local poor.
Third, the early church regularly met for worship in the households of believers. In such a location, hospitality was a natural and necessary practice. It helped foster family-like ties among believers and provided a setting in which to shape and to reinforce a new identity.
For the early church, then, hospitality both participated in and anticipated God’s hospitality. Christians offered hospitality in grateful response to God’s generosity and as an expression of welcome to Christ “who for your sake was a stranger.” For them, hospitality was connected to the promises of God and to the presence of Christ. It condensed attention to spiritual, social, and physical dimensions of life into one potent practice which was fitting conduct within the household of God.
- Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition by Christine D. Pohl
Clinging to God in Solitude
October 7, 2008
“When we enter into solitude to be with God alone, we quickly discover how dependent we are. Without the many distractions of our daily lives, we feel anxious and tense. When nobody speaks to us, calls on us, or needs our help, we start feeling like nobodies. Then we begin wondering whether we are useful, valuable, and significant.
Our tendency is to leave this fearful solitude quickly and get busy again to reassure ourselves that we are ’somebodies.’ But that is a temptation, because what makes us somebodies is not other people’s responses to us but God’s eternal love for us.”
- Henri Nouwen
Making Room
October 2, 2008
A vital aspect of living missionally involves embracing biblical hospitality. Over the next several Thursdays (because Thursdays are for focusing on the “Participation in the Missio Dei ” aspect of the Missional Order) I want to share those resources that have challenged my understanding of hospitality. The first being the excellent book “Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Chrsitian Tradition” by Christine D. Pohl:
“Hospitality should be understood as a way of life rather than as a task or strategy. It is easy to slip into viewing hospitality as a strategy for reaching migrants and refugees, or for that matter, for reaching postmodern youth or homeless people. But such an approach misunderstands the basic orientation of hospitality. Hospitality is not a means to an end; it is a way of life infused by the gospel.”
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