With the slow and subtle collapse of local community and thinning volunteerism, you'd think the local church would be throwing everything it has into this window of unprecedented opportunity. If disciples of Jesus know how to do anything, it is to call community into being and to equip, organize and lead volunteer teams.
We're letting this opportunity slip, too. We're still focused inwardly except when we occasionally dip our collective toes into real mission.
For the first time in recent memory, local and regional emergency service planners and providers are ready to welcome leadership from local religious communities. Safety and security are front-burner in the national psyche.
Send me an email and I'll attach a PDF proposal we are working on in Cameron to take advantage of this. The plan is easily adaptable to any community.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
On Roles and Relationships
How did it happen that over time we stopped being a tighly knit band of adventurous disciples and drifted into membership of religious corporations led by paid professionals?
Recent and decent histories of the Church in North America abound these days. I won't attempt to address the "How?" question here.
I'd rather focus on how to recover that sense of adventure and purpose, the collegiality and high mutual regard we all once enjoyed at some time on our pilgrim journey with Christ.
If you are reading this, you already have more than a passing interest in the quality and efficacy of your discipleship. Do you also have more than an occasional twinge of longing for connection with disciples who really believe that living the good news was the intent all along of our hearing it?
I'd like to propose a Fifth Sunday reunion of disciples of Jesus to meet, pray, study and be studied by a few of the more challenging texts from the Word, to share table fellowship and renew our sense of individual and corporate focus.
Who's interested?
Bill
Recent and decent histories of the Church in North America abound these days. I won't attempt to address the "How?" question here.
I'd rather focus on how to recover that sense of adventure and purpose, the collegiality and high mutual regard we all once enjoyed at some time on our pilgrim journey with Christ.
If you are reading this, you already have more than a passing interest in the quality and efficacy of your discipleship. Do you also have more than an occasional twinge of longing for connection with disciples who really believe that living the good news was the intent all along of our hearing it?
I'd like to propose a Fifth Sunday reunion of disciples of Jesus to meet, pray, study and be studied by a few of the more challenging texts from the Word, to share table fellowship and renew our sense of individual and corporate focus.
Who's interested?
Bill
Monday, April 9, 2007
Easter Monday
Today is Easter Monday and I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing difficulty keeping up the level of focus and energy we did during Holy Week?
The resurrection was an accomplished fact before our celebrations of rememberance. The stunning reality of the resurrection of Jesus should have the power to lift and focus life every day, no?
If I learned anything this Lent it is that my spiritual disciplines are lacking the substance and frequency of a champion. To put this in athletic terms, it is as if my prayer life is just strenuous enough to prepare me to be a cheerleader and little more in the vineyard.
What I would not give for a group of nearby disciples of Jesus who who desired to work out in earnest for the race Christ called each of us to win.
The resurrection was an accomplished fact before our celebrations of rememberance. The stunning reality of the resurrection of Jesus should have the power to lift and focus life every day, no?
If I learned anything this Lent it is that my spiritual disciplines are lacking the substance and frequency of a champion. To put this in athletic terms, it is as if my prayer life is just strenuous enough to prepare me to be a cheerleader and little more in the vineyard.
What I would not give for a group of nearby disciples of Jesus who who desired to work out in earnest for the race Christ called each of us to win.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Why Do You Follow Jesus?
Tom Bandy, writing in the Fellowship of Prayer Lenten series devotional, includes a prayer following his reflection on the story of Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It goes something like this: "Jesus, I've followed you for all the wrong reasons. Thank you for chasing me for all the right reasons."
That prayer sparked a long time of reflection in prayer today. I guess I'd never really given much thought to how self-centered the practice of Christianity has been for most of my life.
Perhaps it is impossible in this life to be one hundred percent about the mission of Christ but surely the percentage can be a lot higher than it is now.
How much of my spiritual discipline is, ultimately, about me - about my comfort levels with God and the human community? How much more different am I in my practices of faith than a benign, neighborly atheist?
Is being Christian like being Roman or Greek or Hebrew or Chinese? Differences galore but one no more human than the next? If being Christian is being about the focus and work of Jesus, then I guess that a lot of my life does not qualify as Christian. Christendom, perhaps, but not really Christian.
Fortunately, that can change. The same one who began this work in me will complete it in his time (or so I seem to recall avery reformed rabbi Paul once write).
What about you? Why do YOU follow Jesus?
That prayer sparked a long time of reflection in prayer today. I guess I'd never really given much thought to how self-centered the practice of Christianity has been for most of my life.
Perhaps it is impossible in this life to be one hundred percent about the mission of Christ but surely the percentage can be a lot higher than it is now.
How much of my spiritual discipline is, ultimately, about me - about my comfort levels with God and the human community? How much more different am I in my practices of faith than a benign, neighborly atheist?
Is being Christian like being Roman or Greek or Hebrew or Chinese? Differences galore but one no more human than the next? If being Christian is being about the focus and work of Jesus, then I guess that a lot of my life does not qualify as Christian. Christendom, perhaps, but not really Christian.
Fortunately, that can change. The same one who began this work in me will complete it in his time (or so I seem to recall avery reformed rabbi Paul once write).
What about you? Why do YOU follow Jesus?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)