The last few months have felt, for me, like navigating thro' fog - so I've not felt much energy or inspiration to write, but the fog is lifting, so here's some rambles:
Last week, we welcomed our Bishop to meet with our PCC. This is the group of our church leaders who hold together a diverse set of people and congregations in our town. It'd been about 5 years since our Bishop last met with the group - which has, of course, changed since that time - people have come and gone.
I'm one of the people who has turned up on the scene since that time. In fact, it was in order to discern what qualities/gifts/role of vicar the church wanted and needed to guide the next stage of the church's life under God that the Bishop had visited in 2004.
A few rambling thoughts to guide our prayers as part of the outcome of our meeting and the subsequent time of prayer that the PCC held the following Saturday.
1) A need to actively pursue tangible signs of our unity. It's notable that Jesus prayed "make them one", but he didn't pray "make them diverse". Not that diversity is a bad thing, but our natural human entropy creates division and suspicion out of diversity, unless counterbalanced by our active and prayerful pursuit of demonstrating our unity-in-Christ.
2) The ongoing question of how we give space and time for the pursuit of healthy relationships with existing friendships as well as enjoying God's delicious game of picking and mixing who he calls us to work and live alongside in the famaily of his church.
3) The recognition of the personal needs and brokenness of individuals in the present and future church family. Much of my own ministry time recently has been spent nurturing the fragile lives and faith of those on the brink of discovering a new aspect of "a life worth living. Some of these have been people who have recognised their need to attend to their inner spiritual resources - reminded of the need for God to fill us up before we respond to the call to be sent out in service. Others are couragously dealing with elements of their past memories which have left barbed inner hurts. It's been a privilege to see God giving these folk strength to move on, however unsteadily.
To draw something from that ramble - perhaps our greatest need in our prayers for our shared life is for the one-to-one time - not only of our excellent pastoral team and those who offer prayer ministry in our congregations and small groups - but for our "one another" life within our church - the intentional connections we make with one another and the chance encounters that allow every church member to minister God's grace to those who we are called to love and serve.
My prayer is that, with that dimension of our shared life growing daily, God will be piecing together the jigsaw of his dreams for us - a people being healed and restored, offering healing and restoration to our community.
), a reminder of the Apostle Paul's teaching - Pray about everything, and don't forget to thank God for answered prayer.
), but left me, at the end of my prayers and ponderings to the inevitable reminder that "God will do what God will do", as I breathed a sigh of relief during a few days off work.
) is a tad naive - or just simplistically childlike. It's easy to pick holes in the choice of language (ie leaning towards a sense of "fate"). From my reading of scripture, and through my experiences, I'd put more emphasis on the battle in which (eg in Job's circumstances) God's enemy "plans" some of our setbacks, whilst God plans our restoration and recovery. That makes more sense, to me, of the nature of God' sovereignty, and the nature of prayer as a wrestling and striving for God's rule.