Under The Surface Of The Lent Course

I’ve just completed running the same Lent course on prayer in two different churches. For most of the five weeks it has felt like a slog. Comments on the suggested prayer patterns such as, ‘No, that did nothing for me’; struggling with the usual small group issue of who is confident to speak and who isn’t; and finding that people haven’t done the suggested prayer exercises in between sessions (the book says the success of the course depends on this).

So imagine my surprise in brief feedback sessions last night and this morning to hear a raft of positive comments. Some couldn’t pinpoint anything but knew the course had done them good; some had never engaged at this level with how to pray before and they were glad they had; a couple mentioned specific prayer exercises that had been significant for them.

This was greatly encouraging but also raises various questions: was it all just building up under the surface until at the end the benefits became clearer? Was I desperate for some kind of human affirmation rather than divine, given that in one of these two churches it’s hard to get feedback most times except when someone wants to moan (not that I’ve had any of the standard moaners in the groups)? Had I not trusted the Holy Spirit to be at work?

I don’t have the answers, but I’m grateful. Ironically some of the course material might help me explore that. Two of the highlights for me were the way the book expounded both the lectio divina method of praying the Bible (helpfully expressed not in Latin headings, which I’ve never studied, but as ‘read, reflect, respond, rejoice’) and the examen method of examining where God has been at work in the previous day. I suspect I might need to do an examen of the entire five weeks, because clearly God was at work and I didn’t notice at the time, just as it’s possible with a daily examen to review the day’s activities and realise God was up to something under my nose but I missed it in the busyness of life.

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Australian Pastors

Wayne Field posted a comment on my piece yesterday about ministerial stress. It appears Wayne is part of a team blog of Australian pastors. This post in particular caught my eye about how a church may find vision for mission – an intersection of the leader’s passions, the church’s gifts and the community’s needs. Sounds simple and obvious, doesn’t it? Until you think, why didn’t I see it before?

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Ministerial Stress

Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, has addressed his Diocesan Synod, having noted that nine of his clergy resigned on health grounds between 1999 and 2005. He plans to bring in health checks. One of his clergy said these checks should include not only physical but mental health, since anxiety and stress were major issues today.

I found it interesting to read this today, when I have been to see my GP this morning. It was a follow-up appointment, having seen him last month in the wake of … a health check, which this Methodist District pays for every two years. Although my recent urology appointment cleared me of anything sinister in that region, there remained the questions of my raised blood pressure and cholesterol.

The bad news was that the hospital had failed to report my cholesterol score in the blood test report, so I’ll have to waste another morning returning to have the test again. (Not that my GP is too worried, though.)

My blood pressure is a bit higher than he would like it: not so much as to need tablets, thankfully. He said that two things were needed to reduce it: one was that my new régime of regular exercise will help bring it down, the other was the stress of my work. ‘Get rid of the stress,’ he said. ‘More like deal with the stress,’ I replied. I could of course get rid of the stress but that would involve the nuking in Christian love of certain select individuals, and the consequences might hamper my ability to minister and be an active father and husband.

One in particular took special trouble to be rude, hostile and pejorative yesterday at an annual General Church Meeting. Fortunately many in the church know what this person is like. I don’t know how this person squares their behaviour with Christ, but I must quickly add a cliché about how we all fall short.

As to dealing with the stress, from the spiritual side some of that will come from the persistent discipline of forgiveness and from allowing my belief that I am made in the image of God and redeemed at immense cost reminding me how loved and treasured I am by God that I can have confidence in him. Moving that from head to a body that seems to go into a reflex stress reaction is something I haven’t solved yet.

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Fred Peatross

Fred Peatross will no longer be sending out his regular emails. His writings are now only available at New Wineskins. I’ve subscribed to the feed from that site instead, but it’s a tragedy about his decisions, because it sounds like it’s to do with misunderstandings and criticisms.

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links for 2007-03-24

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links for 2007-03-24

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What Is Missional Church?

What Is Missional Church? An Introduction To The Missional Church Conversation is a downloadable pamphlet in PDF format by Alan Roxburgh. It summarises the main issues of missional church as being about seeing western culture as a mission field, mission as the missio dei where the Gospel focusses on God and God’s salvific acts rather than being human-needs-centred, and the church as a ‘contrast society’ who can only get her values from the Gospel, not the surrounding culture. He thus draws on Lesslie Newbigin‘s famous call for a conversation between the Gospel, the church and the culture. You may need to register at the Allelon website to access the download, but that’s a good thing – it’s an excellent site for missional leaders.

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