Yesterday I attended at New Wine Networks meeting. I used to belong, but had let my membership lapse when it changed from free to subscription. I also haven’t been able to have much to do with more charismatic Christianity since coming to Chelmsford. Meantime, I have been developing my already-existing interest in missional church. The two are quite different – can they hold together? Can they hold together in me? Each appeals to a different side of my personality and convictions.
In some respects, I’m a misfit in charismatic circles. I am an introvert, and much charismatic worship is not for people like me. I’m not one to shout or dance. Years ago a friend asked me whether the Lord had ‘released me in dance’. No, he hadn’t. He still hasn’t. In the eyes of some, that probably means I’m in spiritual bondage. But in terms of my general musical taste, I rarely listen to danceable music. It doesn’t fit and introverted and reflective person like me. I also want preaching to go beyond sloganeering and cheerleading. Even when I did visit the famous Toronto Airport church at the height of the so-called ‘Toronto Blessing’ in the mid-1990s, the sermon I lapped up was an hour’s exposition of the Trinity. Others who had been exuberant in their praise a few minutes earlier fell asleep. Not me. There is also a stupidity in charismatic circles that defies belief. The rule seems to be, the more off the wall, the more likely it is to be from God. No wonder (as my reader will have noticed) I have recently been enjoying the popular books of Jeff Lucas, a charismatic himself, who has no patience with this nonsense, and regularly deflates it with humour.
And yet, and yet … I can’t get away from the biblical base for core charismatic spiritual practice. For all the nutty stuff, the foundations are still there for me. so when I ended up at this meeting of similarly-inclined church leaders yesterday, it all came flooding back as if I’d never stopped moving in such circles. As we prayed for each other, I as much as anyone else shared things in prayer that were relevant to them in ways that couldn’t be explained as coincidence. The same happened as they prayed for me.
Of course, my introversion has consequences in other respects, as an ordained minister. It goes against the popular image of the minister. I recall the college tutor who told us that we should visit five different people every afternoon (if they weren’t in, they didn’t count towards the five), spending twenty minutes on each call. Not long ago, a retired minister told me of a minister who organised a sports/social event for children, with an open day for parents. This minister glad-handed all one hundred parents, apparently – and this was told as an implied criticism of my model of ministry. Those models may work for extraverts, who enjoy meeting many people, but it doesn’t work for introverts, who would rather spend in-depth time with a few people (which is what I do on a pastoral visit).
Temperamentally, I probably belong more in missional circles. I love the emphasis on reflective and contemplative spirituality. The writings of Eugene Peterson and Dallas Willard (neither of them strictly part of the ‘emergent’ clan, but deeply loved within it) connect with me. They are sane and spiritual. They remind me not to make my prayers a to-do list for God. I appreciate the profoundly biblical analyses of Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. Incarnational mission, as opposed to ‘attractional’ (get them to come to us) makes huge sense to me, biblically and culturally. I welcome the desire to incarnate the Gospel in postmodern culture. I have long believed that even in Scripture there are many ways in which the Gospel is presented, and often it is presented in different ways for different cultures.
Having said that, I have my reservations about where the emerging church goes awry. Doing yoga is a no-no for me, even though I want to reach out positively to spiritual searchers. Some of my critiques would sound altogether too conservative to some emergent ears.
So I’m not a complete fit in either camp. I want to take the best of both, as I believe some people are doing: the 24/7 prayer movement, and some of the examples on the Expressions DVDs. It is an awkward calling to straddle the two, and I do so clumsily, lurching more onto one leg and then the other.
Here I am, then, continually feeling uncomfortable – but also suspecting I am far from unique.
Technorati Tags: ministry, leadership, personality, NewWine, charismatic, missional, emergingchurch, TorontoBlessing, EugenePeterson, DallasWillard, MichaelFrost, AlanHirsch, 24-7Prayer, FreshExpressions
Big Circumstance 
A good post, Dave – you are not alone!
Every blessing,
Brian
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I’m an introvert, on the border of Myers/Briggs Introvert / Extravert. I’ve found the model especially helpful because I’ve found I do some things in an extraverted way (one of my biggest struggles as a new minister has been trying to work alone in the house and without anyone else to bounce ideas off of) and some in an intraverted way (I can do the glad-handing of lots of people at a reception but then I feel totally exhausted afterward).
But one thing that makes me actually feel wound up and angry is the idea of visiting someone for 20 minutes. I would feel hugely insulted if a minister visited me for 20 minutes; it’s patently obvious that you are being ‘ticked off’ as a box and not being treated as a person. May God bless and keep your pastoral studies tutor far away from me. (To paraphrase ‘Fiddler on the Roof’)
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I’m an introvert, on the border of Myers/Briggs Introvert / Extravert. I’ve found the model especially helpful because I’ve found I do some things in an extraverted way (one of my biggest struggles as a new minister has been trying to work alone in the house and without anyone else to bounce ideas off of) and some in an intraverted way (I can do the glad-handing of lots of people at a reception but then I feel totally exhausted afterward).
But one thing that makes me actually feel wound up and angry is the idea of visiting someone for 20 minutes. I would feel hugely insulted if a minister visited me for 20 minutes; it’s patently obvious that you are being ‘ticked off’ as a box and not being treated as a person. May God bless and keep your pastoral studies tutor far away from me. (To paraphrase ‘Fiddler on the Roof’)
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“Here I am, then, continually feeling uncomfortable”- yup me too! 🙂
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Dear Brian, Pam and Sally,
Thanks for all your comments.
Brian – sorry it took three days to validate your comment. Unfortunately I didn’t get the usual email from Typepad to alert me that a comment was awaiting approval. Which also means I didn’t get to capture your current email address – are you still in Canterbury? Would love to know how you and Anne are.
Pam – you’ll be relieved to know the pastoral studies tutor has retired, and most of the students thought the idea was ridiculous.
I also have found Myers-Briggs useful in understanding my personality. I took at test sponsored by my previous District in my last circuit, and did so in the year before I took a sabbatical. An observation of my ‘type’ (INTJ) was that although we like to be linear and logical, there is often a suppressed creative streak. That fed indirectly into my taking a creative writing course during the sabbatical.
Sally – great to hear another voice affirming that people like me are far from unique, despite the aspirations of certain people. I think I once read that introverts are a majority in the ordained ministry – if so, that would be one significant reason for friction between people who have a genuine call of God and congregations who don’t welcome what they offer.
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