Trust in God

TRUST IN GOD

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability . . .

And that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually; let them grow, let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could today (become) what time (that is, grace and circumstances acting on your own goodwill) will make tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of your believing that his hand is leading you,
and of your accepting the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Teilhard de Chardin

(Priest and paleontologist, written during WW11 where he chose to serve on the front as a stretcher bearer.)

The Cost of Non-Discipleship

A friend regularly comments to me that she is convinced that it's no harder to choose well, in lines with discipleship, than to choose in unhealthy ways; we just pay the cost in different ways and at different times.  Given this repeated conversation, I was struck by this great blog post.  The post speaks about someone's paraphrase of Dallas Willard in words that speak so strongly of what has been God's statement to me for some time now: “If you think it’s hard being a disciple of Christ, you should try living the other way.” 

One Thing Remains

On yet another long drive, I was listening to the song "One Thing Remains" this afternoon and reflecting on it as one of the key songs of the last year.  While many other things have changed, one thing remains: God's love.  It's been a precious year of having a deeper lived understanding of that as once again much else has changed.  I wouldn't trade that lived understanding and knowledge for the world.

Getting to the Core

How do you know the core of the message you are trying to communicate?

That's a question that I have been pondering in numerous guises over recent times.  As I ponder, I'm conscious that it feels hard to work out the core of what you are trying to communicate - it feels like it's often too hard in fact.

But I'm reinforced in the belief that it is important.

Ideas that stick according to Dan and Chip Heath are ones that are simple (though often profound): they get to the core and are compact.

So if the ideas that I'm wanting to communicate matter then I need to do the work to get to the core and communicate that core in a way that is compact.

Present or Future Self?

How many of us use commitment devices of some kind in order to help us choose the things we want to choose?  One such commitment device is stickK.

Here is a great TED talk that recognises the benefit of commitment devices but explores some alternative ways of helping behaviour change that involves imagining our future selves dependent on what choices we make today as our present selves.  Motivating and helps us understand at a deep level the connection between the choices we make today and the people we will be or what we will have in the future.

The Prodigal God - by Tim Keller

I recently read the book "The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith" by Timothy Keller.  It was a great and easy read; though challenging to the core.

As you can probably guess, the book is based on the story of the two sons, often spoken of as The Prodigal Son story.  This story always helps me continue to grasp the Father's heart and who I am and the Father's embrace of me.  Over the last couple of years I've been in numerous situations where this story has been at the fore: considering Henri Nouwen's book last year in my faith community gathering and also having a print of the picture based on this story in my workplace last year.  The story has shaped me deeply over recent years.

This book refreshed much of that shaping - and shaped me afresh too.  A few points of Keller's book that stood out to me were: an emphasis on who the hearers of this story were (a mixed group of listeners); the emphasis on the eldest sons lostness as well as the lostness of the younger son; the fact that the story ends with us not knowing how the story really ends; the Father's initiative in coming out to both sons.  However, the thing that really struck me was Keller's exploration of Jesus as the "true elder brother" and the cost to the elder brother of the Father's welcoming home of the younger son.  This exploration has left me pondering - and thankful.

Formational Children's Ministry by Ivy Beckwith

Ivy Beckwith is one of the people writing about children's ministry currently whose ideas I most resonate with.  Having read this book over the last few days, I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a role with children.

The title "Formational Children's Ministry: shaping children using story, ritual and relationships"is a very good descriptor of the book.  The key idea of the book is the formation of children (as opposed to giving children knowledge).  In discussing this formation, the book discusses the importance of story (God's story, their story, our family story, the story of the church through the ages and the individual faith community story), the importance of ritual and the importance of different types of relationships.

There are some good practical examples about how to engage story, ritual and relationships in the formation of children and it's a book with a balanced understanding of the role of family and the role of the faith community in the formation of children.  Another thing that I thought that Ivy does really well is speak across a broad range of expressions of "church" - broad evangelical, liturgical and emerging.

Without spelling it out constantly, the book also has a solid understanding of the current context of today's children, families and churches.  One of my favourite quotes from the book embodies this understanding:
"The millennials and futuristic adaptives, the two generations we currently teach in our churches, are not primarily linear thinkers.  They do think logically and linearly, but it is not the only way they think, and it is not necessarily their preferred way of processing information.  Therefore, lessons that are heavily dependent on linear thinking are not going to capture them the same as lessons that include kinesthetic, intuitive, affective, and 'loopy' ways of processing information." (p28)

Parents, people involved in children's ministry, ministers, teachers, friends of kids - I highly recommend it!