18. Connect the message to the larger vision of the church.

19. Tell compelling stories around your main point, using strong visuals when appropriate.

20. Manage the tension of good sermon preparation and spontaneity (remaining open to the Holy Spirit during the preaching moment).

21. Look for opportunities for creative delivery means to deliver your sermon whenever possible (e.g. Alone Together, Daily Office, Testimonies, “silent sermon”, panels.)

22. Be aware certain sermons are “Culture Shifting Sermons.” They go beyond the norm, shifting the church culture in a significant way. They require implementation,  shifts in priorities, discussions as a leadership. They have a prophetic edge to them and release something spiritually into the community.

23. Embrace and communicate the theological tensions/paradoxes that exist. Preaching is not as black and white as we often think.  There is lots of gray and complexity in Scripture.

24. Remember the birthing/midwife process of preaching – death, burial, resurrection. Pain and suffering in the process is normal.

25. Be interdenominational, inter-generational, interracial, intercultural, being sensitivie to bridge social classes in your preaching.

]]> http://www.petescazzero.com/discipleshipformation/emotionally-healthy-preaching-part-3/feed/ 0 http://www.petescazzero.com/discipleshipformation/emotionally-healthy-preaching-part-3/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PeteScazzerosBlog/~3/Gcy3gs_Zm78/ http://www.petescazzero.com/contemplative-spirituality/emotionally-healthy-preaching-part-2/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 09:29:58 +0000 Pete Scazzero http://www.petescazzero.com/?p=1686

Read More]]> This is Part 2 of the integration of emotional health and preaching. Again, these points emerged out of multiple conversations between Rich Villodas and I around preaching in our context at New Life Fellowship Church. The following is the second of three parts on our learnings.

• Leave ample time in prayer and meditation around the text (e.g. lectio divina, memorizing the text).
• Utilize the power of community exegesis. Talk with others about your message beforehand.
• Connect your message to equipping/connecting opportunities, leading people to action (e.g. workshops on Skills, genogram workshop, retreats, Daily Offices, Day Alone with God, small group connections).
• Be vulnerable and broken around the intersection of this truth and your humanity/journey with Christ.
• Be sure to create an introduction that answers the question: “Why listen to this?”
• Clear transitions are important throughout the sermon.
• Be intentional to emphasize that all of life is holy (work, recreation, sexuality, vacation, buying a car, friendships).  Watch your language. For example: Everyone is called to  “full time ministry.”
• Be careful not to seek validation from the congregation when you are preaching. You aren’t ready to preach until the focus is on them and not on you.

1. Remember: You are doing spiritual formation. Life change is our goal.
2. Preach from grounded place of a contemplative (i.e. out of deep place of prayer).
3. Be grounded in one text, referring to it often through the message.
4. Do thorough exegetical work.
5. Keep in mind the importance of silence and space in your preparation, adjusting your rhythms accordingly. You can’t do as many other leadership tasks. Embrace your limits.
6. The text must change you first, both during and after the preparation. What is different in your life because of this sermon?
7. Know your burden, the one passionate truth God has given you to share.
8. Keep the sermon simple and memorable. Cut. Cut. Cut.
9. Connect to the larger biblical story (Creation, Fall, redemption, restoration)

More to come. What might you add already to this list?

How can we lead others to transformation in Christ if we are not experiencing transformation ourselves?

I share this document with you with the hope and prayer you will consider thinking through some of these issues for yourself and your leadership team.

I invite you to read the entire Pastoral Staff Rule of Life on our website.  I am including here a few paragraphs that are particularly significant.

NLF Pastoral Staff Rule of Life: Excerpts

Yet we recognize that leadership brings out the best and worst in us. In many ways, the crucible of pastoral ministry “introduces us to ourselves.” We affirm, as Parker Palmer has written that “a leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there…A good leader is intensely aware of the interplay of inner shadow and light, lest the act of leadership do more harm than good.” (Let Your Life Speak, pp. 78-9)…

We are essentially called to seek Him above all else (Ps. 27:4), that is, to be contemplatives, out of which we carry out our active ministry. At the same time, we recognize God has called us to a level of intensity to bring Jesus Christ to our city and world through serving in different roles as a pastoral staff at New Life Fellowship Church.

1. Scripture – Our lives are built on the Word of God. It is our food and primary means of revelation from Him. We spend time each day in Scripture, seeking God’s face, dwelling in His presence and praying out of His Word.

2. Silence and Solitude –We spend at least one full day a month in silence with God. (Note: We eventually moved to choosing the third Wednesday of each month for this. Each person goes to a place outside their home, whether it is a beach, a local retreat center, or a park, to be alone with God for the day. The one requirement is not to do the work of church on that day, but to be with God.)

3. Daily Office –  We pause to be with God two to three times a day to remember Him, spending time in communion with Him, preferably with Scripture, silence, meditation and prayer.

4. Study – We are consistently growing and taking steps to keep learning.

5. Sabbath – Each week, we set aside a 24 hour period to keep Sabbath to the Lord, structuring our time around the following four characteristics of biblical Sabbaths – Stop, Rest, Delight and Contemplate.

6. Simplicity – We model percentage giving (using the tithe as a minimal guideline) in giving to God’s work here at NLF.

7. Play and Recreation – We have a life outside of New Life Fellowship for balance and health.

8. Service and Mission – Another critical issue for healthy service is having clear and realistic expectations. Together with our supervisors and the elder board, we regularly update our job descriptions and goals in order to meet these challenges.

9. Care for the Physical Body –  We seek to regularly care for our physical temples through healthy eating habits, consistent exercise, and sufficient amounts of sleep, respecting our God-given limits.

10. Emotional Health –  We embrace emotionally healthy skills and behaviors that put feet on our theology to love well (1 Cor. 13).

11. Family – We believe in the equal value of God’s call to both singleness and marriage. We affirm with Scripture the gift of singleness for leadership (1 Cor.7:25-40). We desire high-quality marriages, out of which we are able to minister to others.

12. Community – We encourage all staff members to be in relationships with mature people outside NLF; these relationships might be with a spiritual director, a mentor, a counselor or a mature friend, depending on each person’s unique needs and season in God.

How else have you seen leadership teams model integrity and transformation for their churches?

Endings are painful and slow. I like to know exactly what is God’s new beginning before I end something. I have written about embracing grief and loss so that God’s resurrections might come in The Emotionally Healthy Church and in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.Yet, after 25 plus years of leadership, I found William Bridges and his book entitled, Transitions:Making Sense of Life’s Changes filled with golden nuggets around this process.

He breaks down our transitions to three key elements:

1.Endings. You can’t have new beginnings without endings. Neither nature, nor God, work that way. When I have tried to keep a program, a staff position, a ministry, or a role alive when it was ending, it has died regardless. The only difference was my fears kept me from making room for God to birth a new beginning.

Bridges unpacks the nature of endings into 5 areas: disengagement (a separation from the familiar), dismantling (we feel like we are being taken apart one piece at a time), dis-identification (death to our previous roles, not being sure who we are anymore), disenchantment (what gave us life at one time no longer does) and disorientation (things that seemed to be important no longer seem to matter much now).  More important than the exterior change is the interior letting go of what no longer fits.

2. Waiting. This is the  “no man’s land” between the old way of being and the new that has not emerged. It is the neutral zone of emptiness, chaos, meaninglessness, confusion. Yet this is the place of God birthing new seeds, dreams, insights, directions, revelations  to us. All the major shifts in my leadership and in NLF were all germinated in the waiting period.

3. New Beginnings. These are often untidy and messy as they begin. Only in retrospect do they look clean and orderly.

Is it any wonder why we have such an aversion to the pain and struggle that accompany endings? I am learning, finally, that endings truly must come first for God’s new beginnings to come forth.

What chapter might be ending in your life right now? What new chapter might God be writing for your life?

1. Do I really have the courage to follow Jesus wherever He leads? Between his natural talents and upper-class, family connections, Bonhoeffer could have done anything with his life. Yet he became a pastor and theologian.

When Hitler came to power in Germany, passing legislation that German Jews without Aryan blood be removed from the German Christian church, Bonhoeffer immediately saw the contradiction. He was one of the first to speak out: “Only he who cries out Jews can sing Gregorian chant.”  We must “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” (Proverbs 31).   As a result, he lost his position, his security, his reputation, his opportunity to marry the woman he loved, and his life out of his deep convictions. Knowing the atrocities being committed in concentration camps, he became a double spy and participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler (after much struggle I may add). In following what he believed was Jesus’ path for him, he was misunderstood by both non-Christian and Christians. When I think Scripture and the urban poor, racism, global poverty, sexism and the drive for comfort that surrounds me, I am challenged by Bonhoeffer’s courage and clarity. How is my “courage quotient today?”

2. What new kind of monasticism is really needed today to restore the church? Bonhoeffer became head of an underground seminary that engaged in lectio divina, praying the psalms, Offices, silence, etc. Why? He believed: “The restoration of the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ according to the Sermon on the Mount. I believe the time has come to gather people to do this.” I believe something deeper within EHS and other movements around the world is emerging – if we have the courage to follow His voice. In his book on Ethics, he wrote about the way people worship success. The topic fascinated him. What might obedience to God’s will look like today over and against a focus on success as numbers of people in our ministries and budgets?

3. How foundational is theology to my leadership, or am I still too busy and focusing too much on ‘what works’ ? Bonhoeffer was a person of Scripture. He loved the Bible, spending a great deal of time on theological reflection. This drove his decisions. The churches he pastored the classes he taught were small. He lost his positions of “privilege.” His focus was on obedience to the Father in his context. Yet his impact was enormous both in Germany and around the world.  Am I taking the time needed to truly wrestle with the theological questions around leadership and the church in the midst of the demonic powers seeking to seduce and silence us in our day? Have I too been swept up by growth, hurry, cultural expectations? And do I have the courage to fully embrace where God’s truth leads, especially when He calls me to something costly where I too might be misunderstood?

There are many other lessons I could mention. What might you add?

.

The following are the key points of the message he delivered last week at that conference. His text was: ‘”I have fought the good fight, finished the course…”(2 Tim.4)  Here are some things MacDonald said you can anticipate as a leader over the long-haul:

1. You can anticipate periodic brokenness and rebuilding.   “I have been broken so badly (in leadership) it is a wonder the pieces ever got put back together again. You have a choice you must make every day. Most people will choose to deny the pain or blame others, or you can accept it and in the middle of that pain, you can listen to God. He will say things to you He could not say under any other circumstances.”

2. You can anticipate that your spiritual life will have many ups and downs. This will not change but is part of being a follower of Jesus, even after 50 years.

3. You can anticipate God will open your eyes to new realities in world and people you are to pay attention to. In every decade there will be a surprise. God will lead you so see new things, both in yourself and around you.

4. You can anticipate God will burden you with certain themes over time. The gospel is huge. Expect God to attune you to two or three truths. He will visit you with a theme. Ask yourself, ‘What is theme, or themes, for you?”

5. You can anticipate when younger people begin asking you questions they ask a mother or father. If you are over 50, the needle of your ministry life will move from programs to people.  Focus your life on being a spiritual mother/father to younger people.

What might you add to this list (especially if you over 70!)?

1.The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, by Daniel Siegel.  This was impactful in understanding the neuroscience and research for emotionally healthy skills and contemplative spirituality if we are doing to do transformational discipleship in our churches.

2. Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing, edited by Robert Inchausti. I love writing. It is art to me, not business. His integration of prayer along with writing as a calling was a wonderful gift to me in my own efforts to be faithful to God as a writer.

3. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.  Again, impactful for my leadership and writing. His emphasis on letting our ponderings “have their own quiet, undisturbed development..to come from deep within, (that) cannot be pressed or hurried.”

4. Soulful Spirituality: Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human, by David Benner.  One of the best writers today, integrating his decades as a clinical psychologist with contemplative spirituality. Excellent.

5. Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel, by Thomas Keating. I reread this during the summer and my 10 day silent retreat at St. Benedict’s monastery in Colorado. Understood the need for silence and the dismembering of the false self/transformation in Christ in a new way.  (I am sure the silence and slowness in which I read it was a factor also!)

6. Contemplative Vision: A Guide to Christian Art and Prayer, by Juliet Benner.  This is a wonderful devotional, formation book that I have used with our staff team and integrated into a sermon or two this past year. Great resource.

7. Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness, By Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier. Very important, well-balanced work on God’s heart for the weak and marginalized. Filled with gems, especially from Vanier and his work with the L’Arche communities of the disabled.

9. Emotional Intelligence 2.0, by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.  This is the most popular, well read work on the market about integrating emotional intelligence into the marketplace. I was pleasantly surprised by the wisdom and insight in it. If we ever develop a formal training program with our EH Skills, these are people from whom we can learn a great deal.

10. The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Contemplatives translated and introduced by John Anthony McGuckin.    This has been a devotional book I continued to periodically use throughout the year. Filled with gems (along with a rock here and there) from the early church fathers.

11. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand.  Amazing, true story about the ability and will of a human being to live. It also is a picture into the depth of our human depravity. Great book to enjoy.

What books might you add this to list?

I do not think so. I speak here not simply from the witness of church history but also from my own journey of mistakes and failures. God has recently cemented this lesson in me as I have reflected on a recent decision I made that I wish I had more fully explored in spiritual direction.

We don’t talk about the term “spiritual direction” very often in the context of leadership, yet helping people respond to what God is uniquely doing in them is one of the most important things we do.

At the same time, being under spiritual direction is also critical. Eugene Peterson, in Working the Angles, warns us: “Our position requires that we act with authority; our faith requires we live in submission. While we are busy passing out the Lord’s commands in our congregations and communities, who is there to represent the same authority to us?…It is not merely nice for pastors to have a spiritual director. It is indispensable.” He defines spiritual direction as taking place “when two people agree to give their full attention to what God is doing in one (or both) of their lives and seek to respond in faith.”

I was deeply impacted by my recent Christmas sermon called “Making Room for New Births,” based on the the story of Mary and Elizabeth. I used the painting, The Visitation, by He Qi to illustrate Luke 1:39-56. It captures Elizabeth giving undivided attention to Mary. Take some time to meditate on the details of the painting.

Mary makes a three-month visit to Elizabeth’s house after she becomes pregnant. Elizabeth, her older, more mature cousin, had spent 5 months in solitude around her own pregnancy. As a result, she is fully attentive to Mary, honoring the presence of Christ within her.  Mary receives support, encouragement and hospitality for the new thing God is doing in and through her. This was key for Mary, I believe, so she could receive from God the strength she would need to hear His voice alone.

What might God be birthing in you? Who might be a peer, a godly friend, a formal spiritual director, another pastoral leader who might be able to be an Elizabeth to you as you seek to humbly respond to the living Jesus inside of you?

As Mary and Joseph approach the village to register for the census (See her on a donkey on the center right), we see a crowd of people seeking to get into the inn. We also observe many others carrying heavy loads burdened by the harshness of their lives. Each is so engrossed and absorbed in their own affairs and activities that Mary, Joseph and Jesus are invisible to them.

Would I have turned to Mary or Joseph and asked about their story if I were there? Probably not. I suspect I would have been too busy.

God is so close to me, to you, to us. The world is filled with His presence and glory. What could be more important for us this Christmas and New Year season than maturing in our awareness of His hidden, invisible presence all around us — whether that be in difficult people, circumstances, nature, music, giving gifts, beauty, or the very symbols of Christmas themselves (e.g. wreaths, candles, trees).

As Juliet Benner says so well at the end of her commentary on this painting: “If we are blind to God’s presence, how can we know His love?”

May I invite you to join me this Christmas to stop and lay down your heavy loads and distractions for a few minutes?  There is perhaps no greater gift we can give to the people around us than to see the hidden presence of Jesus around us. There is perhaps nothing more difficult!

What kind of distractions are in your life today that hinder you from seeing God’s presence?

]]> http://www.petescazzero.com/contemplative-spirituality/the-hidden-invisible-presence-of-jesus/feed/ 0 http://www.petescazzero.com/contemplative-spirituality/the-hidden-invisible-presence-of-jesus/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PeteScazzerosBlog/~3/xWtNUgUIrgY/ http://www.petescazzero.com/contemplative-spirituality/reflections-on-the-interior-life-a-view-from-the-monastery/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:10:21 +0000 Pete Scazzero http://www.petescazzero.com/?p=1538

Read More]]> We recently hosted a Trappist monk at New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, NYC named Father Williams .  What made him such a gift to us was not his eloquence, his well-crafted sermons, his cleverness, or capacity as a leader. His prayer life, his walk with Jesus, his interior life with God built over many years pulled us toward Jesus in a very different way. It was transformative to be around him. He spoke as one “with authority,” (even though he uses an I-Pad!)

The following are a few of my personal summary insights out of our time together that I have been reflecting on:

• There is no greater gift in the universe than to have a desire for the Triune God.

• Loving God for His own sake is God’s heart for us.

• God takes us where we are, not where we are not.

• Contemplation is awe and wonder in the face of God.

• A life with God requires “holy leisure,” something we know little about in the United States.

• God leads us into a “litesome” darkness (Walter Hilton – 13th century). It is never a total darkness. It is a kind of darkness where there is too much brilliant light, so much so that we cannot see.

• There are four our levels of loving God (from William of Thierry): 1) Attraction/Desire; 2) Clinging; 3) Enjoyment even in sorrow; and 4) Union of Wills where my will is one with His.

• “He who  the mind cannot grasp, the heart can embrace. Though we cannot understand God fully, we can hug Him.”

• God leads every believer to the experience of Jesus in Ps.22 and the cross.  For this reason every wound is a grace. This process leads us to the fundamental level of self-knowledge which leads to humility which becomes love – the very center of genuine spirituality.

• To love God is to love who and what He loves, including our abusers, betrayers, enemies. Love of God and love of our enemies can never be separated.

I remain convinced that we need to learn from the contemplative orders to balance our  fast-paced, active leadership styles.  Those who have been given a call from God to follow the path of Elijah, Moses, and John the Baptist are among the most important people from whom we need to learn. From this place, they offer a gift to us as pastors/leaders.

Do you think this is true? Why or why not?

While many demands scream for our attention, I remain convinced the most important thing we do, especially as pastors and leaders, is to surrender our will to His. Towards this end I have been experimenting with a well-known practice known as Welcoming Prayer. It provides a framework for how to respond to something emotionally upsetting with a spirit of surrender. Cynthia Bourgeault describes the three simple movements or steps as follows:

1. Focus on the difficult emotion (e.g. anger, fear, depression, shame).  Face it directly and feel it in your body. Don’t try to change or repress it. Simply be present to those feelings.

2. Welcome these unpleasant emotions. Instead of treating these feelings as enemies, welcome them as friends with hospitality. This grounds us in the reality of the present and in our bodies. This doesn’t mean we welcome the circumstances that surround us (e.g. being robbed). We welcome our inner response at the moment.

3. Let go and surrender. In this final step we release more than simply the negative feelings. We release the assumptions behind the feelings that we need control, approval or security to be happy.  This is not true.  We don’t need any of these three things to be happy. We need Him.  What we are releasing is our attachment to the assumption that we need these things in our lives.

The more I meditate on Jesus “being handed over” and of letting go to the cross, the more I am convinced how central this is to genuine Christian spirituality.  I am finding, however, this takes much practice and grace.

Geri and I were talking recently about a couple we know who is in deep pain over one of their children. They are broken and mourning (Matthew 5:3-4).  God stopped me when she casually mentioned to me, “Do you realize, Pete, they may be closer to life in the kingdom of God than most of us?”   According to Jesus’ teaching in the first two lines of the Sermon on the Mount, this is very true.

How much do you need to release your desire to change the circumstances in your life over which you have no real control?

1.  Silence has a positive power and presence. It is more than simply “the absence of all noise and words.”  It has at least eight effects: 1) intensification of our physical sensations; 2) stripping of our public self as “silence un-skins us”; 3) the hearing of voices; 4) connectedness; 5) a boundary confusion with time; 6) an exhilarating sense of peril; 7) bliss or ineffability and; playful joy.

2. God has created many types of silence. The silence of the snow or the sun or the desert, for example, are each different. Some are deep; others are thin. The desert’s, for example, is dense.

3. There is a low volume in silence — God.

4.  Wealth is measured by how much time we have, not money (Thoreau).

5. In desert silence, we are invited to die, to pluck out our eyes and lose our lives.

6. We are to sink into silence, allowing it to work in and on us.

Sara Maitland made continual changes in her life by moving further out into the English countryside in order to experience a greater and greater silence. St. Anthony, in the fourth century, moved from an “outer mountain” to an “inner mountain” with greater solitude as he grew older.  I too sense a call to a greater silence as I grow older and engage in an ever larger, more expansive ministry in the church. The question is what might that look like in the 21st century as a pastor/church leader living in New York City?

Why do you think we have such difficulty allowing silence to work “in” and “on” us?

(click to see a larger version)

I emphasize three critically important, major truths:

1. There was only one church for the first 1054 years. The first major split happened between the Eastern and Western church then. This was followed by the split of the Roman Catholic church in 1517 when Protestantism was born. Since then we have had over 200,000 other splits with countless Protestant and independent churches. So my particular tribe (evangelical) is finds itself far up into the upper right of the above chart. This is not a bad thing but I/we come from a family genogram. We are not the whole church by any means. And the church did not start with Luther, Calvin and the Reformers.

2. We need to learn from other traditions of the church different than ourselves. Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox churches have many things to teach us while we remain faithful to the unique contributions of our stream. Remember, we too have baggage in our history:  Luther was anti-Semite (Hitler loved his writings!); Calvin drowned an Anabaptist for believing in baptism by immersion; Jonathan Edwards had slaves; Azusa Street, in 1906, split on racism; the American church has mixed corporate leadership models and successful business models into church life on levels not seen, I believe, in 2000 years of church history.  While my church historian friend, Dr. Scott Sunquist, reminds me that the roots of evangelicalism in the 18th and 19th century was marked by a generous spirit towards other traditions, that is not the case today.  We are often deeply judgmental and narrow towards those outside the Protestant tradition. Our church family genogram since Pentecost has many riches and warts. We have no other church family. What unites us is a biblical orthodoxy as laid out in the Nicene Creed (325 AD).

2. The Desert Fathers (3rd to 5th century) and monasticism, in particular, have much to teach us today. Their commitment to fashion a desert in order to hear God and cleanse themselves from the idols that filled both the world and the church speak to us about about our need to fashion a desert to meet with Christ today. We need this kind of radical commitment to Christ today. We need to listen to these Desert Fathers today. I am fully convinced that stillness, silence and solitude are enormous weaknesses in the evangelical/charismatic global church today. Unless we learn these missing spiritual disciplines from our past and other traditions, we will continue to pay the price of being one mile wide and one inch deep in our spirituality.

What might you add to this?

Be still and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10)

At our staff meeting yesterday, I introduced “Centering Prayer.” I shared from the notes below and answered a few questions. Then we took ten minutes of silence together before the Lord.  Their overwhelming positive response truly surprised me! While my life has been significantly impacted over the last four and half months by this, I was unsure of what to expect. The following notes are quotes and insights from my Sabbatical journal. They come from the following three books:  Thomas Keating’s, Open Mind, Open Heart, Cindy Bourgeault’s Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, and Basil Pennington’s Centered Living.

Introduction:

There are 2 primary ways of praying in the church: kataphatic – prayer that uses words, images,  e.g. Scripture, icons, song, worship and; apophatic – prayer that is beyond words, thoughts and images.

There are many ways of prayer. Centering prayer is only one form, a form of very intimate communion with God.  It goes back to the first century as a central way to enter into the contemplative dimension of life.  It has served many. This may not be for your journey now, but, minimally, see it as an invitation to enter into a deeper relationship with Jesus.

Centering Prayer – Definition:

Centering Payer is wordless union, a state of being in direct contact with God who dwells within us. It is about intention, that is, being totally open to God. It is the boot camp of the Garden of Gethsemane (“not my will, but you will”) as we consent to the presence and the action of God within us.  It is an exercise in letting go. We lay aside every thought, even that of looking for spiritual consolations as we go through the experience of the Song of Songs, experiencing the presence and absence of God

3 Guidelines as you begin your time:

1.     Be in faith and love to God who dwells in the center of your being

2.     Take up a love word towards Him (e.g. Abba, Father, Lord,) and let it be gently   present, supporting your being with God in faith-filled love.

3.     Whenever you become aware of anything, simply gently return to the Lord with the use of your prayer word.

Recommendation is do to this twice a day for twenty minutes while at the same time spending time in Scripture around it.

Characteristics

• By your willingness to stay at the apophatic at all costs, you are developing a spirit of spiritual non-possessiveness (Matt. 5:3). One great temptation is a sort of spiritual materialism where we want only good feelings. This is a dying to self ,over and over again.

• During the course of centering prayer, we are slipping in and out of interior silence. By interior silence, we are referring to a state in which we do not become attached to the thoughts as they go by.

• The prayer is not a conversation in words, but an exchange of hearts.

• Centering prayer is training in letting go. We listen to God. We listen to His silence. Our only activity is the attention we offer to God as we let go of all thoughts. We rest in God’s arms. It is an exercise in being rather than doing.

• Purpose of Centering prayer is not to experience peace but to evacuate the unconscious obstacles to the permanent abiding state of union with God.

• The restructuring of consciousness is the fruit of this regular practice as you slowly become more free from the swings of the false self system.

• Contemplative Prayer is the school in which we must pass to come to the contemplative state, the means God normally uses to bring people to an abiding state of union.

• To be on this journey is the greatest contribution we can make to the human family.  As in this prayer, we are developing the capacity to wait upon God with loving attentiveness.

What has been, if any, of the apophatic prayer tradition or centering prayer? How might it fit in with us in the Western church?

The following is my adaptation and applications for my own leadership. I am following their classic schematic of progressively climbing a ladder with rungs. (Please note that any of these can be easily abused without a framework of emotional health).

Step 1 – Put to death all desires but God –  Application: Ensure I have ample time with God, balancing time alone with Him with doing for Him.

Step 2 –  Conceal none of the thoughts/deeds that prevent you from prayer. Share them with a wise person.  Application: Be more regular in meeting with my spiritual director.

Step 3 – Be willing to subject ourselves to authority – Application: Be very prayerful and thoughtful as I report to the NLF Board each month, increasingly aware of their unique role in my life.

Step 4 – Don’t injure those who inflict harm on you. Application: “To desire the good of another” was Aquinas’ definition of loving our enemies. This led me to take very practical steps recently in a difficult relationship.

Step 5 – Be satisfied with utter simplicity and consider yourself unworthy of everything offered. Application: keep my life free from the love of money, security, control, and earthly power.

Step 6: Be deeply aware of being chief of all sinners. All life is a gift. Application: After 24 years of NLF, it is tempting to feel entitled as if God and others owe me.  That is very different than seeing all as gift and that I am among the most blessed people on earth!

Step 6–Speak Less (with more restraint) – Application: Hold my tongue in meetings! RB “The wise are known for their few words.”

Step 7  Be not ready and quick to laugh (no ridicule, sarcasm, derision).  Application: Watch my words and heart towards those with whom I disagree or who frustrate me.

What difference might it make if humility were more of a pursuit in the 21^st century church, especially among us as leaders?

I came out of my 13 week Sabbatical with three very clear invitations from God: to deepen/broaden my prayer life, to write, and to feed His sheep both at NLF and beyond.  Yet, after only three weeks back in my “active” routine, I found myself challenged and besieged.  The demands were both external and internal. Breaking old habits and developing new rhythms with God is no small task.

After one and half days in which I attended too many meetings, talked about too many things, engaged in too many conversations, and ignored my body that was telling me to stop, I returned home to “reboot” my life. In order to center I did the following:

1.     Meditated on Ps. 130-131.  “I wait for the Lord, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

2.     Spent time in centering prayer (silence before Him).

3.     Listened for the Holy Spirit by paying attention to the Spirit (consolations, the fire in my belly, passions) and to desolations.

4.     Meditated on the biblical truth on “Receiving the Gift of Limits” (see The Emotionally Healthy Church, chapter 8). “A person can receive only what is given to Him from heaven” (Jn.3:27). Wondered what was I doing, or thinking about doing, that was not “given” from God.

5.     Re-read my journals from the last 3 months to remember what God had taught me on Sabbatical.

6.     Concluded by spending time in lectio divina and centering prayer.

I am convinced that any time we seek to deepen our rhythms of being and doing, of contemplation and activity, we will hit strong resistance.

What has been most helpful to help you to “reboot” when you find yourself off center?

The high point for Geri and I during our Sabbatical was a 10 day Post Intensive Prayer Retreat at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado.  We had dinner with a group of 23 people, introduced ourselves, and then entered the Grand Silence, one that would last the next 9 days. No talking. No eye contact. Geri and I had just spent a week in the desert of Colorado but this total immersion began to break something up in me that I am still not sure I can describe. It remains a bit inexplicable.

Jesus told Peter: “When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (Jn.21:18). To be happy most of us seek: 1) money and security; 2) validation and approval; and 3) control and power. These are the classic temptations in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11). I have preached them. Yet this silence opened up new levels in my interior, new levels of what it means for me “let go” and surrender to the will of Jesus. The silence exposed my attachments to security and control in particular. And the silence actually cut some of their chains.

One of the retreat directors suggested to me that “divine dismemberment” might describe my inner turmoil the first few days. He was right. God gave me a gift in the silence. There was also a gift from Him in the four hours a day we spent together in Centering Prayer.

I can’t quite describe it. What I do know that silence caused the Word of God to come alive in incalculable, profound ways.

I am in my second week at New Life in noisy Queens, NYC. Something has shifted for me internally. Will the seeds remain and blossom? Will the pressure of the leadership, life, and my “to do” list smother this new, strange work of God in me?

I pray not.

What do you do to keep the seeds God has planted inside of you alive?

Surrender, Silence, And Sabbatical from New Life Fellowship on Vimeo.

What are your thoughts?

Click any book and it will take you to Amazon to read an excerpt.

“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” John 21:18

Very rich Sabbatical thus far.  Our 10 day silent intensive retreat on Centering Prayer at St. Benedict’s monastery in Colorado has been a highlight.

More to come.

However, something was clearly missing. They were “better” and “freer” for a while. Yet only for a while. Something was clearly wrong. Emotional health and contemplative spirituality  filled in missing components in people’s spiritual formation.Yet it is rare to meet pastors/leaders who are contemplatives, who integrate the emotional components of discipleship, and who also embrace the need for driving out demons when needed.

I gave the following message on May 23, 2011 on Jesus’ parable of tying up the strong man (Satan) as the metaphor of His ministry.

Making Room For Jesus To Drive Out Evil

Check it out. I believe God is returning power ministry (healing, deliverance, prophetic) to the church on a foundation of emotionally healthy spirituality. It has taken us 15+ years to get here.

The message offers two invitations for us if we are to make room for Him to drive out evil:

1. Discernment. There are times we are under enormous pressure when “all hell breaks loose” (cf. Jesus in the desert). We are to persevere and stand firm in those moments. These moments are a direct frontal assault from demonic powers, At other times, God allows testing for our growth as He did with Paul (2 Cor. 12:7-9; James 1:2-4). We need the perspective of mature people to help us discern what is going on in those seasons.

2. Fill Our House (Life) with Jesus. Jesus says that if we cast out an evil spirit without filling the house up with Him, seven other “spirits more wicked than itself” will return with it. And the final condition of that person will be worse than the first (Matt.12:43-45).  This was clearly Jesus’ ultimate concern.

I want the focus of our lives and ministries to be Jesus and Jesus alone. Yet we cannot follow Jesus today without acknowledging the driving out of the demonic was central to His ministry. We do not want to be “unaware of the devil’s schemes”(2 Cor. 2:11).

Take a look at the sermon.

What are your thoughts?

Edelmira Sanchez, the woman on my left, a married mom with 6 children lives in a town near Cali, Colombia. She was a leader in their Christian and Missionary Alliance church in 2006 when a paramilitary group assassinated their senior pastor. (The church is located in an area with significant guerrilla activity).  She became the senior pastor in his place. Then the same people that killed her pastor threatened her. She was afraid but remained. She told me the story of when they arrived in the church with their guns to reinforce their point.  She refused to be intimidated. The church has grown to more than 600 people under her leadership and has built a foundation to serve over 350 orphans in their area. They have also two other works in other cities. Her testimony was incredible.

The woman on my right, Nancy Villegas, also pastors a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in the city of Cali. She became the pastor when her pastor husband, along with her oldest son, were killed in an automobile accident. She also was seriously injured.  God healed her body and her heart, and she too became the lead pastor (also to her surprise). This church has since grown to over 750 people. As a result of her walk with God and leadership, the 30 CMA churches in her area nominated her as their supervisor. I asked her, “Do you mean to tell me you are a bishop too?” She bowed her head, laughed and quietly uttered, “Yes.”

I came here to give leadership to a rapidly growing movement of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality in Spanish in Latin America. Yet God has given me many gifts here, one of which was to meet these two humble, unassuming women who have emerged as significant spiritual leaders in this part of the world. They did so in a denomination that, outside of Colombia, does not recognize or ordain women pastors.

Humberto Guzman, the President of the CMA in Colombia, encouraged me to meet these two women and listen to their story. After doing so, all I can say is “Wow!”

I am convinced that discerning God’s will, especially for leaders with diverse interests like myself, requires  an ever-deepening knowledge of oneself. Without it we find ourselves beyond our limits and overloaded. (Commitment to Scripture and the willingness to do God’s will, of course, is assumed).

Why? Because God reveals Himself through what we cannot not do. He made us that way.

The following story comes from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke as he advises a young man wondering if he should be a poet. The counsel applies to each of us as we sort out God’s priorities:

“You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have asked others before. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are disturbed when certain editors reject your efforts. Now…I beg you to give up all that. You are looking outward and that above all should not do now. Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. There is only one single way. Go into yourself. Search for the reasons that bid you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all–ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, “I must,” then build your life according to this necessity…”

This kind of knowing, of course, takes time – lots of it.

What is your response to Rilke’s counsel, “Now you must go into your own heart as onto a vast plain?”

Nonetheless, I believe there is a “Tiger Pastor” in the Western church, and in me. I was trained as one actually. What might a “Tiger Pastor” look like? To begin, I think they are:

1. Workaholics. Life is growing the numbers in the church, the buildings, the budget, the next hill to climb.There is little time for life outside of work for play. Life is, sadly, very narrow.

2. Delight-deficient. Again, there just isn’t time. Much like Amy Chua boasted in having her children practice hours on the violin during vacation, “Tiger Pastors” simply treat “time off” as an opportunity to recharge and think about work.

3. Obsessive and Driven. It was painful to read Tiger Mom because I understand her intensity.I have seen it in Italian American, Jewish, Korean and Indian parents.  I have seen it in many a “Tiger Pastor.” I know when it erupts in me. It is one of the temptations of the wilderness for most of us in church leadership.

4. Narcissistic. Unknowingly, some pastors use their flock as extensions of their own needs and ambitions. It is easy to do. Did Amy Chua? That, of course, was the great controversy around her book. A friend of mine, a clinical psychologist with 30 years of experience, argues that all humans suffer from a slight form of narcissistic personality disorder. O, how we need a contemplative life with God!

5. Busy. I was reading John of the Cross‘ work on Song of Songs today and was struck how he was anything like a “Tiger Pastor” in the 21st century church. Immersed and swimming in the delight of His Bridegroom Jesus, he paints a very different type of leader for me in God’s church.

6. Confusing. Amy Chua, much like many a ‘great’ pastor, is a mix of good and bad (evil?) that is difficult to sort out. We are all both. The question is how large the gap is between what we say and what we do. When good things are being done by leaders in the name of Christ, it can often be challenging to sort this out.

7. Unaware of Long Term Consequences – Amy Chua’s parenting approach has clear, short term rewards built in for her children – great schools, awards, etc.  A “Tiger Pastor” may grow a large church for a season, even for their lifetime. The question, however, is the fruit long term. Does it actually remain? (Jn. 15:1-5)

What might you add to this list to describe a “Tiger Pastor?”

At the same time, we continue to look for ways to communicate our DNA and clarify the pathways to help people in our community move towards greater Christlikeness. The following reflect, of course, our local church and context. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

We call them the 5 M’s.(the values and foundations of NLF)

Monastic – slowing down to be with God.   Growth in this area includes learning about silence/solitude, Daily Offices/prayer, Sabbath-keeping, Scripture, the examen.

Multiracial- bridging racial,cultural,  economic and gender barriers. Growth here includes learning about the history of race/women, the NT understanding of the new family of Jesus, self-awareness, intentional friendships, and becoming a life-long learner/listener.

eMotionally Healthy- loving ourselves and others well. Growth in this area includes quitting unhealthy spirituality, going back to go forward, receiving the gift of limits, embracing grief and loss, loving incarnationally, and learning emotionally healthy skills.

Marriage to Christ – shaping our lives out of marriage to Him. Growth here involves learning how the invisible God is made visible through our marriage/singleness, understanding communion of person vs. using others, life out of our vocation, and biblical sexuality.

Missional - offering ourselves to the world. Growth in this area involves serving the poor in our local community, understanding your call to “full-time ministry,” that all of life is sacred (no sacred/secular split), and stewardship/generous giving of our money.

The following are a few points from my notes:

I. The Challenge Before Us

“Despite devoting considerable time and energy to solving the problem of racial division, white evangelicalism likely does more to perpetuate the racialized society than to reduce it” Divided by Race: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith. This problem is global — from Turkey to Israel to South America to Africa to Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Russia. David Brooks of the NY Times describes trends in the USA: “Not long ago, people said that globalization and the revolution in communications technology would bring us all together. But the opposite is true. People are taking advantage of freedom and technology to create new groups and cultural zones. …people are moving into self-segregated communities with people like themselves, and building invisible and sometimes visible barriers to keep strangers out…40 million Americans move every year. And they generally move in with people like themselves. Crunchy places like Boulder attract crunchy types and become crunchier. Conservative places like suburban Georgia attract conservatives and become more so.”

II. The New Testament gives us a vision of the Church as a multi-racial, multi-cultural people that transcends national, social, racial, gender, ethnic, gender barriers. Our sense of  “loveability” comes now out of deep sense of our new selves in Christ. Unlike the world, we no longer bolster our sense of identity, our feeling of acceptability, by excluding others. Rather we find it in Christ.

III. EHS is a spiritual formation paradigm that drives us all to look deeply in our interiors that Christ might transform us. The seven principles are explained in The Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan, 2010, Updated and Revised).

• Look Beneath the Surface
• Break the Power of the Past
• Live in Brokenness and Vulnerability
• Receive the Gift of Limits
• Embrace Grief and Loss
• Make Incarnation the Model to Loving Well
• Slow Down to Lead with Integrity

How, for example, do you expect an White American enter into your pain of discrimination or racism when he or she doesn’t yet feel or grieve their own? How can they let you in to know them when they don’t know themselves?

IV. Personalization. By doing our own internal work around our triggers and wounds, we can enter into painful, difficult conversations around race, history, culture, forgiveness, etc. without taking things personal. Our history at NLF teaches us that, to be engaged in this level of spiritual warfare with powers and principalities (Eph. 6:12ff), requires a high level of differentiation and self-awareness.

V. Deep Monastic Spirituality of the Desert. The radical call to a contemplative life where we seek God above all else, leaving both the world and the worldliness of the Western church, has served to keep us centered on Jesus Christ as our goal and life-source.

The following 5 markers are my first draft for what it means for our people at NLF to be on a discipleship path around our MULTIRACIAL value:

–  Learning about the history of race/women in America.

–  Biblical understanding of the new family of Jesus.

–  Self Awareness of Your Journey and Culture.

–  Intentional Friendships Across Race, Culture, and Social Class.

–  Remaining a Life-Long Learner and Listener.

What might you add to a list like this one?

What are the lessons I learned?

1. We need to learn from Roman Catholics, Orthodox churches and church history. Remember, Luther was anti-Semite. Calvin drowned an Anabaptist for believing in baptism by immersion. Jonathan Edwards had slaves. Azusa Street, in 1906, split on racism.  While my church historian friend, Dr. Scott Sunquist, reminds me that the roots of evangelicalism in the 18th and 19th century was marked by a generous spirit towards other traditions, that is not the case today.  We are often deeply judgmental and narrow. Our church family genogram since Pentecost has many riches and warts. By studying this history, we can see better what to resist and what to embrace.

2. The Desert Fathers (3rd to 5th century) and monasticism, in particular, have much to teach us today. Their commitment to fashion a desert in order to hear God and cleanse themselves from the idols that filled both the world and the church model for us the kind of leadership we need for the 21st century.  The Celtic missionary movement of the 5th -9th centuries was inspired by the desert hermits of Egypt. St Patrick’s memoirs reveal that his mission to Ireland was preceded by monastic training in what is now France. We too need to listen to these desert fathers today.

3. Business People with resources through history have played strategic roles in expanding Christ’s kingdom.When wealthy people have seen themselves as missionaries, it has been very significant. Our first evidence of a sustained Christian church in India (after Thomas) was a wealthy Persian business person who purchased land for a church, and sponsored a bishop and priests to come from the national Persian church.

4. Christian unity is not an option. It is at the heart of the Gospel we share and live. One of the major reasons Islam became so powerful was the church was divided and divisive in spirit at that time.

5. Ideas matter. We sometimes think we should not get caught up in theological disputes, but some ideas matter a lot. History shows us what ideas are important and which are not. This was especially true of Arius. He thought Jesus was very special, only not God (5th century). That turned out to matter a lot.

6. Conversion of individuals must lead to conversion of cultures. Christians in Ethiopia developed their own music and architecture. The same was true for Christians in Nubia. Every level of society, every expression of culture (media, education, etc) must be permeated by the gospel.

What might you add to this list?

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This is the a segment of the opening talk Geri and I gave at our Pastor’s/Leader’s Marriage Pre-conference yesterday around a biblical theology of Marriage and Leadership. Beginning with our inadequate theology of marriage and leadership, we expound on the truth that as goes the leader’s marriage, so goes the church. It was our most recent attempt to present clearly this radical biblical paradigm that Scripture calls us to lead others out of our marriage. Enjoy.

How might such a truth transform our churches and culture?

Introducing the Daily Office

The Daily Office differs from what we label today as “quiet time or devotions.” These normally take place once a day, in the mornings, with the emphasis on “getting filled up for a day,” or “interceding for the needs around me.” The Daily Office normally takes place at least twice a day, and is not so much a turning to God to get something; it is about being with God, about communion with Him. My aim is to pause for time with God in the morning, midday, evening and for Compline (right before bed). My morning Office normally is longer (45 min-1+hours), integrating Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer for 20 min. or so. I often pray the Psalms. The other “minor” Offices, as  they are often called, are between 5-20 min. Compline is very brief (an examen or reading).

You may want to pick up a copy of one I wrote around Emotionally Healthy Spirituality that is distributed by the Willow Creek Association. See Begin the Journey: The Daily Office

Offering this to our churches is, I believe, one of the more effective ways we can help people cultivate their own personal relationship with Jesus Christ rather than live off our spirituality.

What is, if any, has been your experience with the Daily Office?

In light of our human limits, it is not possible to be excellent at everything -e.g. counseling, managing budgets, strategic planning, preaching,  casting vision. Yet if our work is provide leadership in the church of Jesus, I think prayer may be the most important area where we need to grow in excellence.

What might that look like? Benner’s book gives us some very helpful clues. The following are a few of my notes from this timely book:

1. As Teresa of Avila says, the important thing in prayer is not to think much but to love much.

2. Prayer is God’s action is us. Our part is simply to allow divine love to so so transform our hearts that the love of God will spring forth as a response to love, not as the fruit of our determination.

3. Prayer is the soul’s native language…for our first parents, life was prayer. Prayer was life (i.e. communion with God). We were created to receive God’s presence and enjoy communion with Him.

4. We meet God on His terms not ours. Christ’s presence is always a hidden one even though He is in our midst (John 1:26). Moreover, the river of love we are asked to float on is often dark.

5. There is a knowing of God that is only possible in stillness and silence, i.e. by integrating the contemplative side of prayer. His breakdown and guidelines of the four movements of lectio divina are worth the price of the book – Lectio (Prayer as attending), Meditatio (Prayer as pondering), Oratio (Prayer as responding) and Contemplatio (Prayer as being).

6. We do not pray so that we can get God’s attention. We pray so that God will get our attention…so that our attentiveness increases.

7. Contemplative prayer is wordless, trusting openness to the God who dwells at the center of our being and at the center of the world.  It is “resting in God” (Gregory the Great) and “seeing through exterior things, and seeing God in them” (Thomas Merton).

8. When someone is in love, words become less and less necessary. Lovers learn to just be with each other. This is exactly the way we can be with God.  Intimacy demands that talk be balanced by attentive openness in silence.  This is contemplation in its simplest and purest form.

9. Prayer is friendship with Jesus (Jn. 15:15). This conscious knowing of God’s presence in love is the ground of ceaseless prayer. Slowly this seeps into the unconscious so we no longer need to be conscious of God’s presence to know in some deep place that we are in communion with our Beloved all the time. Contemplative prayer is the major way in which this seeping into the unconscious occurs.

Do you think it is realistic to expect leaders/pastors to be “excellent in prayer” with all the other expectations on us? What might have to change?

Last week I preached on this at the twentieth anniversary service of Iglesia Nueva Vida. I was senior pastor of the church for five years before Pastor Julio Rodriquez took over leadership and greatly expanded the work. They now number about a 1000 people and have over 90 works in Latin America. You can listen to this bilingual message if you like by clicking here. (I actually begin speaking 1 hour and 12 minutes into the video).  The following are the hard lessons that I wished someone had taught me 24 years ago when I began pastoring:

1. Be Yourself. I spent too much time in my early years trying to be someone I was not. As Rumi said, “To live unfaithfully to yourself is to cause others great damage.” David models this for us in 1 Sam. 17 as he takes off Saul’s armor. This takes great courage and faith.

2. Seek God First. Above all else, let your life be about dwelling in His presence and seeking His face (Ps. 27:4). We are not CEO’s or social workers. Our greatest gift is to bring people to an encounter with the living God in Christ.

3. Practice Sabbath-keeping.  The rhythm of a 24 hour period to stop, rest, delight and contemplate God is foundational to ensure we trust God to be in control and not us. This is as key to prayer and Bible study if we are to remain centered in Him amidst the demands of leadership.

4. Lead out of the Vow of Your Marriage (if applicable). Our earthly marriages are a pointer and sign of what it means to be in an eternal marriage with Jesus. There is no greater message we preach. If you are married, it is not an option to live as if you are single. Let this vow inform your decisions, pace, and priorities.

5. Embrace the Gift of Your Limits . Surrendering to God’s love, and not grasping or pushing beyond what He has given us to do, is one of my primary challenges as a leader. As John the Baptist says, “A person can receive only what is given from heaven” (Jn.3:27).

6. Wait on the Lord. This is our life — waiting on Him as a Person (not simply to help us get something done!).  Relax. See Ps. 37:7.

7. Engage Social Media/Technology and the Ancient Church. We take seriously the model of the early church fathers (e.g. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory the Great) who led local churches and prayed their theology. They also engaged their culture with the gospel. Part of our calling now is to bring the gospel to our culture – that involves using Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.

8. Integrity is More Important than Anything. Like Jesus we want to complete the Father’s work in and through us (Jn. 17:4). Regardless of the cost, there is nothing more important than being the same person on the inside that we are on the outside – with God, others and in our leadership.

9. All of Life is Holy and Sacred. Our calling includes our whole life, not just Christian leadership. Recreation, family, business, education, vacations, preparing meetings and budgets are as holy and important as prayer and Bible study. Our calling to Christ is our whole life (Col. 3:23) and will not end until we see Him face to face.

10. Things are not as They Appear. So often what looks like a great blessing is not; what looks terrible in the short run is really a rich gift. Failures are often our best times. I regularly have to remind myself that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed – small, and often almost invisible and imperceptible.

What might you add to this list?

The first was about Micky Mantle. was one of the greatest, most gifted American baseball players that ever lived.

When I was growing up, everyone wanted to be like Micky. He enjoyed unprecedented success, wealth and fame in his twenties. He seemed to be immune to the suffering and pain of life.  All his dreams and more were his. By the time he was in his early 60′s, however, as he lay dying of liver failure, he grieved and wept over his life. “I’d like to say ot he kids out there, if you’re looking for a role model, this is a role model. Don’t be like me… Everything I’ve got is worn out. Although I’ve heard people say they’d like to have my heart… it’s never been used.”

Nelson Mandela’s reflections on the end of his life, as recounted in Conversations with Myself, contrasts sharply to Micky Mantle’s.

Mandela was incarcerated in Robben Island prison from 1964 to 1982 for resisting apartheid before his release and leadership of a bloodless revolution in South Africa. He writes at the end of his life: “The ideals we cherish, our fondest dreams and fervent hopes may not be realized in our lifetime. But that is besides the point. The knowledge that in your day you did your duty… is in itself a rewarding experience and magnificent achievement.”

I remain  convinced, more than ever, that it takes time, suffering and a great deal of work on our own hearts to lead grow into a mature, great leader. I hightly recommend Bob Clinton’s book The Making of a Leader if you have never read it . It is a classic on how God makes His leaders. He looks at the lives of hundreds of historical and biblical leaders to outline the key tests every leader must pass through if they are to grow into long-term, fruitful maturity.  

Mandela inspires me to take the long view and do the right thing one day at a time – even if it is not strategic or expedient in the short term.

What might we need for a generation of Mandela’s to emerge in the church today?

I remain firmly committed to doing our study/exegesis of texts that we preach, basing our sermons firmly on having dug deep into Scripture. Eugene Peterson says it well: “Exegesis doesn’t take charge of the text and impose superior knowledge to it; it enters the heart of the text and lets the text “read” us. Exegesis is an act of sustained humility. There is so much about this text I will never know.” (Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book). However, the following are ten questions to which I return over and over again – both for myself and our Teaching Team at New Life:

1. Is my “heart at rest?” This is a phrase out of the famous Lao Tsu poem “The Woodcarver“. It parallels Jesus’ time with the Father before His own preaching. This is about slowing down enough to ensure my life and teaching is flowing from the love of God.

2. Have I spent adequate time with the Father so that I am not preaching from a reflected sense of self? I want to get to the point each week where I am free from what the congregation will think or say about my sermon, that I am not looking for validation from others.

3. Have I allowed the text to go deep beneath my own iceberg? It is one thing, for example, to preach generally about not fearing, and another to take 1-2 hours wrestling with my present fears around security, the future, my children, etc. This involves giving room for the complexities and nuances of absorbing a text into our being.

4. Am I eager for a “live encounter” with people? It is a temptation to be so absorbed in the process of preparing the sermon that I run out of time to eagerly anticipate the “liveness” of the moment of bringing a Word from God to His people. This requires space to ponder implementation for the specific people before me, i.e. what skills, tools, and practical helps I can offer to put flesh on the message.

5. Am I living with integrity? It is easy to skimp on my own inner work under the pressure to deliver a message.  I am referring to integrity with myself (Do I really want people to imitate me as I imitate Christ), others (especially your spouse and children, if applicable), and in your leadership (no skimming, lying, exaggerating).

6. Have I finished editing and simplifying the message? One of the most important, if not the most important decision in every sermon, is what are you not going to say. Less is almost always better.

7. Am I fighting or surrendering to God’s process in the birth of a sermon (“I got the kernel of revelation/truth!”), the death of the sermon (“This is going nowhere”), burial (“God I am waiting!”), and the resurrection of God’s Word for this particular weekend (“I never anticipated this is where I would end up”)?

8. Am I being prudent, thoughtful and honest in my preaching? Have I done a final review of every aspect of the message, especially my examples and illustrations? It is easy to be sloppy and communicate wrong things by what we fail to say.

9. Have I honored the principle of walking “two by two,” i.e., the power of community exegesis? I almost always try to have at least one other person in my life (often Geri) who can add perspective, insight and raise issues I have not seen. This almost always adds depth and clarity to my messages.

10. Is my life different as a result of this Word before I stand up? The message must pass through my own life first. Sadly, I am sometimes rocky, thorny soil distracted by the urgent demands of leadership in the church. Without exterior silence (in silence and solitude) and interior silence (time for my inner voices to be quieted), the sermon rarely passes through my heart.

What might you add to this list?

We’re trying to get the word out about our upcoming Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference that we host right here in Queens, NY.

Our registration team notified me that we will be giving 2 free registration passes away in a random drawing for people who retweet the following message on twitter through Jan. 31st:

“I’m hoping to go to the Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference in March-u coming? http://tiny.cc/xfpds -RT 4 chance 2 win 2 free tix!“

Hope to see you there!

Pete

I had a great time with him.  They’re a fantastic ministry whose partnership I am thoroughly enjoying with the Willow Creek Association.

Click on this link for the interview:

Emotionally Healthy Leadership (MP3)
Bill Hybels and Peter Scazzero
This recording is from Defining Moments, Willow Creek Association’s monthly audio journal for church leaders.

Description: Your leadership is affected more than you may imagine by the your emotional health. Listen to Bill Hybels and Pete Scazzero, Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, NY and author of The Emotionally Healthy Church and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality discuss ways to assess your own emotional health, the affects of your emotional health on the teams you lead, and steps you can take to improve.

Geri spent fourteen years pondering the eight I Quits. Then we spent almost two years writing the book, excavating the biblical foundations and complexity of the material. We spent quite a bit of time reflecting on our journeys with these truths, looking at how they have become so intricately interwoven with our walks with Christ. This past week (Jan. 9, 2011) we began an 8 week sermon series at New Life to expand on these truths.We see I Quit as only an introduction to something much larger and far-reaching  — on all levels (for leaders, pastors, communities,parents, singles, marriages, etc). They are essential if we are going to truly lead our churches to become life-transforming communities for Christ.

The problem is so vast that there is no other way.

Enjoy this recently published article from the Washington Post.

“I quit!” I told my husband. “I’m leaving our church. This no longer brings me life. It brings me death.” And my husband was the pastor!
Those words launched me into a journey of profound spirituality that I refused to continue living, pretending everything was “fine.”

It happened on January 2nd on year, and was actually much more than a New Year’s resolution (e.g. “I will go to the gym three times a week” or “I will take a class at a community college”). Something broke inside me when I finally said, “No more.”
It was a determination to quit those things that were damaging to my soul, freeing me up to choose ways of being that were authentic and rooted in love. Not only would I be changed, but my marriage, family and community also transformed in unimaginable ways.
That one decision has evolved over the years into eight “I Quit” resolutions, which I’m urging others to consider as a far more expansive and life-changing resolution for the 2011 New Year:

1. I will quit being afraid of what others think.
I will not say “yes” when I really want to say “no” because I’m afraid someone will be angry, sad or disappointed. I will speak up when I disagree or prefer something different, no longer ignoring my own values. Who I am “on stage” before others will be the same person I am “off stage” when I am by myself.

2. I will quit lying.
I will become brutally honest with myself, especially with my own thoughts and feelings. I will declare my truth to others, not fearing what they think. That truth can be as simple as “I don’t want to eat at that restaurant,” or as difficult as, “I was hurt by your comment.” Speaking the truth respectfully and clearly is one of the most significant ways I can respect myself and others.

3. I will quit dying to the wrong things.
I will not put things most important, like self-care, at the mercy of things least important, like always putting others before myself. I will actively pursue a day of rest and I will no longer set aside activities or relationships that cause my soul to feel fully alive (e.g. music, dance, art, the outdoors, travel).

4. I will quit denying sadness, anger and fear.
Many of us live inhuman lives because we believe inhuman rules like “Don’t be sad”, “It’s bad to be angry”, or “You’re weak if you’re afraid.” I will allow myself to feel all these feelings, treating them as “guests” sent to teach me something. I will neither put them in the driver’s seat and let them control me, nor will I ignore them by stuffing them in the trunk.

5. I will quit blaming.
As a human being made in God’s image, I recognize that no one is responsible for my life and happiness but me. I will take responsibility to choose my own life and help others do the same. I can’t change others, but I can change myself.

6. I will quit overfunctioning.
I will quit doing for others what they can and should do for themselves. I will stop perpetuating their immaturity or my false sense of indispensability, seeking courage and wisdom in doing so.

7. I will quit faulty thinking.
I will not assume I know what others are thinking without checking it out with them. I won’t jump to negative interpretations without having all the data. And I will not believe the falsehood that things will never change.

8. I will quit living someone else’s life.
I will embrace the unique life God has given me, paying attention to my very personal rhythms for waking, sleeping, playing and working. I will set appropriate boundaries around everything that breathes, letting go of other people’s agenda for my life. And I will follow what is important to me.

May you be courageous this new year to live divided no more, discovering the Spirit’s power that yearns to break into your life and birth that which is good, true and beautiful. Remember, if you don’t embrace your one, unrepeatable life, it won’t get lived.

Geri Scazzero is the author of the recently released I Quit: Stop Pretending Everything is Fine and Change Your Life (Zondervan, 2010). She lives in Queens, New York City.

Now and then it is helpful to type in our salary into globalrichlist website so we can see how our income stacks up to the rest of the world. Take 30 seconds and click below to see where you stand:

HOW RICH ARE YOU?

Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world.

Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. But where

would you sit on one of those lists? Here’s your chance to find out.

I find it easy to lose perspective as I live surrounded so much wealth in the Western world and church. This simple tool helps remind me that God’s agenda and heart includes the poor, the oppressed, the orphans, the widows and those in need. 

A few facts to consider:
- Almost half the world lives on less than $2.50 a day.
- According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty.
- 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
- In the last 24 hours, 30,000 children died of preventable diseases. Often they die for lack of a twenty cent pill that purifies water. And 8 million children die before the age of five.

These kind of facts remind me to stay the course and follow Jesus. May God give us grace in 2011 to see our budgets as moral, spiritual formation documents.

How else did God come to you as you saw yourself on the global rich list?

1. Let Your Life Speak. Parker Palmer. Filled with powerful insights integrating faithfulness to God to faithfulness to your true self.

2. New Seeds of Contemplation. Thomas Merton. Written out of years of solitude and silence. Many of his short chapters need to be prayed in a lectio divina fashion, not simply read.

3. Under the Unpredictable Plant. Eugene Peterson.  Brilliant exegesis and application of Jonah to pastoral leadership and the reality of serving Christ with sinners in Nineveh rather than live in the “ecclesiastical pornography” of illusions.

4. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Written in the 1850’s, it remains one of the most powerful accounts to understand racism and slavery in America. Transformed my understanding of the race issue in the USA.

5. The Dark Night of the Soul. John of the Cross. No writer brings a healthy integration of loss, suffering and spiritual formation like this 16th century Carmelite.

6. Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Benedicta Ward.  I have been meditating on these sayings for almost ten years now as part of my time with God.  Require meditation

7. Generation to Generation. Ed Friedman. A seminal book on systems thinking, written by a rabbi, essential to leading any church or organization.

8. A Grace Disguised. Jerry Sittser. The best book on the theological nuances/complexities of grief and loss. Written out of indescribable loss and tragedy.

9. The Making of a Leader. Bob Clinton. Well-researched and written. I have returned to his insights again and again for perspective on how God makes leaders over the long haul.

10. Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean. Peter Winn. This book enabled me to understand the global, historical and cultural dynamics of skin color and how they inform our churches, politics, cultures and families.

I have just completed a month reflecting on Mark 1 and the rhythms of Jesus. The following is a nice visual of His being with God (contemplation) and His doing (activity).

So the question is what might it look like for us to withdraw to a desert in our daily lives, to engage in the rhythms of Jesus of “Being with the Father” and “Doing/Activity.” The following are a few suggestions, many of which come from David Benner’s excellent new book Opening to God.

•    Pause for Sabbath for 24 hr. each week (Stop, rest, delight, contemplate).
•    Pause for Daily Office two to three times a day.
•    Sunday worship/Small group– to worship/sit under the Word.
•    Read a passage of Scripture and listening for God’s personal word to you.
•    Light a candle in your home.
•    Allow music to draw your spirit to God’s Spirit.
•    Review your day and noticing where and how God was present to you in it.
•    Recall your blessings and responding with gratitude.
•    Read a devotional book prayerfully/thoughtfully.
•    Stop at lunch. Go outside. Really see people. Smell air. Give God praise.
•    Repeat the Jesus prayer at work. “Lord Jesus X, have mercy on me, a sinner”.
•    Take a contemplative walk in the park/woods.
•    Sit in silence allowing yourself to be hugged by God.
•    Meditatively speak the Lord’s prayer.
•    Attend to your breathing- drawing in God as you inhale and releasing sin as you exhale.
•    Meditate on a work of biblical art.
•    Allow your heart to soar in awe in response to a sunset, a storm, a tree, a flower.
•    Cook a slow meal, pondering all that went in to the ingredients and a sensory feast.
•    Transition before going from one thing to the next in your day.

Our call is, I believe, to contemplative action, i.e. action that flows out of a real enounter with God. The possibilities are almost infinite for the kind of creative ways we can BE in the midst of our DOINGS in life. I am convinced that we don’t need to go anywhere to find God or be with God. He is already inside us!

What other ways has God enabled you to stop running in order to cultivate a sense of His indwelling presence?

Mark 1:35 “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed.”

Jesus modeled a regular rhythm of “Being with God” followed by  “Doing for God” (i.e. activity). As a result, He remained anchored and centered amidst the chaos and stress around Him. Take the following inventory to evaluate your rhythms:

Is Your Doing Out of Balance with Your Being?

1. You avoid silence, and when you are quiet, your mind constantly races.
2. You skip or skim on Sabbath.
3. You hurry a lot.
4. You position yourself so that others think well of you
5. You say “yes’ when you would rather say “no”
6. You are resentful and tired because you regularly “try to do it all.”
7. You rarely taste your food as a gift of God.
8. You have little mindfulness of delighting in Christ’s love during the day.
9. You are often unaware when your body is full of tension.
10. You have little or no awareness when you are having an overreaction.
11. You check e-mail and Facebook more than 15x a day and before you go to bed.

If you checked 3, you may be slightly out of balance. If you checked 4-7, you probably need more “Being with God” to sustain your “Doing.” If you scored 8 or more, you may need an extreme makeover!

If Jesus needed to tend to His interior life by engaging in desert rhythms, how much more do you and I?

What might you add to the above inventory that indicate that you or I need more time BE with God to sustain our DOING?

See the full sermon here:  http://www.vimeo.com/17504646

• Speak for Yourself – Use “I” statements as much as possible.

• No Fixing, Saving, or Advising - Jesus alone is the Savior

• Turn to Wonder – If you feel judgemental or defensive when someone is sharing, ask yourself, “I wonder what brought him/her to this belief?” “I wonder what my reaction teaches me about me?”

• Silence - It is okay to have silence between responses as the group shares, giving members opportunity to reflect.

• Share for Yourself, Not to Teach — We share to confirm and solidify what God is doing in ourselves first, not to teach others. When we share in that kind of humility, it very often helps others.

• Respect Others – Be brief in your sharing, mindful that there are time limitations and others who may want to share.

Our commitment is to created a loving place where the soul of each person feels safe. As Palmer writes, “It excludes the violence we sometimes do to each other in love’s name. I do not mean the overt, physical violence of an abusive relationship. I mean the subtle violence we do when we violate the other’s solitude with the intention of being helpful.” (A Hidden Wholeness, p. 62)

What else do we sometimes do that unknowingly violates people’s journey and dignity as seek to lead them more deeply into formation in Christ?

When I take the necessary time to do my own inner work, I am much more patient. I am able to wait for people to grow in their own way according to God’s timetable. I am able to wait for insights to germinate and blossom before teaching them to others.  I am able to wait before making decisions or setting goals prematurely (even if it does frustrate those around me).  I am able to resist the temptation to save or fix people, to want to coerce them into meeting my own needs.

Leadership is a dangerous place if we are not reflective.

In our busyness and overscheduled lives, we can inflict a subtle violence on others by not seeing them as persons, by pushing them in ways that violate God’s work in them.

We are God’s beloved sons and daughters. That is the core of our identity, our existence. The demonic voices that tell us we are what we do, what we have, or what others think scream loudly to us. These voices pull us to themselves in powerful ways within the Western church today.  They remain disguised as God’s work in our faulty thinking.

I agree with the ancient writers of the past that our success’ have little to teach us. They do not connect us to ourselves, others and God. God uses our failures and imperfections to root us, to ensure we are gentle with the souls of other people.

So take a few minutes with me to ponder Leonard Cohen‘s wonderful chorus from Anthem, that you and I might love in a way that makes the souls of those around us feel safe and protected:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That is how the light gets in.

In what additional ways might we unconsciously do violence to others in our effort to serve them as leaders?

God invites you and me to ignore the distracting voices around us — regardless of their source — and to pursue wholeheartedly our God-given life. Four practices provide trustworthy guidance for this journey:

Discover Your Integrity
When helping someone who is struggling with an inner conflict, I often ask, “What is your integrity calling you to do?” Most ¬people hesitate before responding because they have rarely thought deeply about what they believe and value. The question behind that question is this: “What is important to you?” If you do not take the time to answer that question, other ¬people’s fears, expectations, and agendas (or even your own fears) will drive you.

Listen to Your Inner Rhythm
All creation has a natural rhythm. The same principle applies to the emotional and spiritual rhythms of our lives. If I neglect my relationship with God, if I go beyond my ¬people limits, if I don’t nurture delight and joy, my soul begins to die. I get depressed. When we do finally stop and rest, our natural rhythms reassert themselves and return us back to God’s intended balance. But in the rush and pressure of our lives, it is easy to not listen or respect our rhythms.

Set Your Boundaries
With whom do you need to set boundaries? The answer is simple: with everyone! This includes your mother, father, siblings, spouse, children, friends, coworkers, even your pet! Boundaries are crucial if you are to avoid detours and follow God’s path for you.It’s not bad that ¬people want what they want. ¬People will always want things from you. However, the fact that someone wants something from you does not necessarily mean God wants you to provide it, or even that he wants them to have it.

Let Go of Others
In letting go, I do not run interference in the lives of others. Controlling the lives of others takes time and energy; it also takes the focus off your own life.

The miracle is that when you do these things, you climb up and over a powerful waterfall that threatens to sweep you away. And you enter into the joy of your own beautifully God-given life, where you now carry out your own God-given purpose.

What might you add to that list?

Adapted from I Quit (Zondervan, 20100, chapter 8, by Geri Scazzero with Pete Scazzero.)

[Spirituality and Simplicity - 10.31.10 from New Life Fellowship on Vimeo.]

A Panel Discussion with Franciscan Friars from the South Bronx- As part of our Financially Healthy Spirituality series; Matthew 6:24

While we have been learning from Christians from other traditions (i.e.Roman Catholic and Orthodox) for many years, I was very aware that having monks in the pulpit might push the limits of “acceptable practice” for our interdenominational, evangelical church.  It did push those limits outward and we had a few uncomfortable moments. Yet it was well worth the rich learnings for our community. These learnings included:

1. We are to be generous, not judgmental. We really are not the whole body of Christ. God is active and moving among people very different than us, even people who pray to Mary and have somewhat fuzzy understanding on Romans and Galatians. The young monks who were with us were not theologians.  Yet their deep conversions (one was converted through Young Life in high school) and personal relationships with Jesus were beautiful to behold.

2. We are called to detachment from the world and attachment to Him. Their extreme poverty and dependence on Christ for security and material provision challenged us. It was a level few of us had seriously considered. I spent a half day with them last week in the South Bronx and was challenged when I saw nothing in one monk’s room but a mattress on the floor (no furniture) Moreover, their commitment to skip the institution of marriage and family in order to be married to Christ (Matt.19:26) was a powerful witness. I asked myself: “What does it look like for me, for us, to embrace simplicity for the gospel in the 21st  century?”

3. We need to respect the slow spiritual discernment process in major decision making. They go through a four to six year process before making final vows to enter their community. They move from being observers to postulants to novices to first, second, third, and then, final vows. That is quite a contrast to our hiring people in our churches,our understanding of membership, and our way of doing strategic planning.

4. We are called to prayer and the poor. This was one of the great gifts of Francis of Assisi in the early 12th century to a church that had become rich and comfortable. It is easy and tempting to move away from the poor – even for us at New Life in our location - and become a typical American “megachurch”. The Franciscan’s commitment to the poor flows from a contemplative life of four hours a day of prayer and communion with God. I believe ours must also.

What other gifts might God be seeking to give us through monastic communities who see themselves set apart (like Elijah and John the Baptist in the desert) for the sake of the larger church?

Take a few minutes to see how many of the following ten statements apply to you.  It may be time for you to quit.

1. You need the approval of others to feel good about yourself.
2. You are angry, sad, or disappointed and feel guilty about it.
3. You believe you don’t have choices.
4. You do for others what they can and should do for themselves.
5. Your rarely consider your own hopes and dreams because of your focus on others.
6. You say “yes’ when you would rather say “no”.
7. You have difficulty speaking up when you disagree or prefer something different.
8. You’re becoming a less instead of a more loving person.
9. You are resentful and tired because you regularly “try to do it all.”
10. You are afraid to admit your weaknesses and flaws.

If two or three apply to you, you may need to start quitting. If four to six apply, you have a lot to quit; if you scored seven or above, your true self in Christ may be “buried alive.”

Geri says it well: Quitting goes hand in hand with choosing. When we quit those things that are damaging to our souls, we are freed up to choose ways of being that are rooted in love and lead to life – both for us and others.

I am amazed at how easy it is to be “buried alive” as a leader amidst the rubble of demands and expectations.

What might you add to that list above?

1.     Dual Relationships- Supervision and Being Friends
We are a church family and we often hire our friends who then become our employees. The result is I become both your pastor/spiritual leader/supervisor and friend. Which is it? We hire people we mentor and then they become our employees with a contractual agreement and money is exchanged. We are naïve to admit that all things are equal. They are not when we have the power to fire or increase/decrease someone’s pay. The people we lead do not have the same power over us. Friends enjoy an equal power relationship.
Dual relationships create countless opportunities for misunderstandings. Am I saying, “Don’t ever do it?”  No, just do it with your eyes open.  The risk is enormous.  Failures and broken friendships abound in church leaderships around the world.

2.     Hiring/Firing and Being a Church Family
This is perhaps our most difficult challenge as church leaders.  To terminate a person in the corporate world is painful. In a church setting, it is excruciating.  We became pastors and leaders to serve and help people, not hurt them.   Yet if we don’t steward God’s resources well by hiring and firing well, we betray our people who trust we are leading well and doing the right thing.

3.     Strategic Planning and Waiting on God
Balancing the process of goal setting and the strategic planning process with prayerful discernment is no small task. What is God saying? What season are we in as a church/organization? What is God’s will for us? The fact that a door is open and we can do something does not mean it is His will for us now.  Jesus struggled with the will of the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had to submit his will to the Father. How much more do we?

4.     Preaching/Teaching and Our Integrity
It is easy to preach what we are not living. I know. People trust we have spent the time with God in prayer and stillness to speak for Him publicly. People trust we are living what we are preaching. If we can’t say “Imitate me as I imitate Christ,” then we need to press the pause button. Investing time in our development and growth is perhaps the greatest contribution we make to our teaching and to our people.

5.     Leading the Church and the Marriage Vow
Ephesians 5:32 argues that our earthly marriage is a pointer of something beyond itself – of the profound mystery of Christ’s marriage to His bride, the church.  Our marriage, if we are married, is our most powerful message to our churches.  It is a sacrament, imaging something invisible! The marriage vow is both a limit and a gift. Like a monastic vow it informs all we do and every decision we make every day. To expand our churches as if we were single is a violation of Scripture and our vows.

6.     Social Media/Technology and the Ancient Church
God has called us, like the apostle Paul, to contextualize the gospel and bring Christ to our culture. That culture today is Twitter, blogging, Facebook and the worldwide web. At the same time we learn from the great cloud of witnesses who have preceded us. We learn from church history and the early church fathers (e.g. Ignatius of Antioch, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil, Gregory the Great, Augustine) who were leaders of local churches, theologians, and monks who prayed their theology. We are called to be an “Ancient/Future Church.”

7.     The Gift of Limits and Casting Vision
The issue of limits touches the core of our tendency to do our will not God’s, to rebel rather than submit, to grasp rather than surrender. Adam and Eve violated God’s limits. Jesus submitted to the Father’s in the wilderness. We are called to lead our people into the God’s future. We carry the tension, however, that we easily can take over Gods’ work for Him, violate His protective gift of limits, and unleash chaos into our churches. Remember: “a man can receive only what is given him from heaven” John 3:27.

8.     Listening to God in Our Losses and Leading by Faith
In every church relationships end, ministries die, dreams dissipate and leaders move on. Jeremiah, Jesus, Job, and David had a full-orbed theology for the disorientation that comes with loss and grieving. Integrating this into our Western church culture of leadership that is always growing and expanding to take the next hill is problematic. We are called to lead our people forward. The discernment question is whether that means leading them to listen to God internally first before moving into the next new initiative.

What might be other tensions that you would add to this list?

We (Geri and Pete) recently watched a movie that we have talked about for days – Temple Grandin. The movie describes her life as an autistic young girl who courageously overcomes the limitations and severe challenges of life with autism in the 1960’s when so little was understood about it. She goes on to high school and college, and today is a professor at Colorado State University.

Through the telling of her life with autism, Temple gives to the world numerous gifts. Two of those gifts, in particular, resonated deeply with two of our foundational spiritual practices.

1.We Each Need a “Squeeze Machine.”
Temple created this “hug box” or “squeeze machine” to help calm her down as a hypersensitive, autistic person when overwhelmed. We too know what it is like to have our nervous system overloaded by the crisis of life. Every one of us needs a means to calm us down and to renew our soul so we can function out of a healthy, not a reactive place. Our “squeeze machine” is blanketing ourselves in silence and getting away to a quiet place, preferably in nature. Silence, for us, is like slipping into a hot, luxurious bathtub. It becomes a place to breathe, a place to think.

2. We Each Need a Pathway that Keeps us Centered, Calm and Joyful.
Temple also designed a sweeping curved corral intended to reduce stress in animals being led to slaughter. She revolutionized slaughterhouses and the treatment of animals by creating a pathway that avoided needless stress and agitation for them. In the same way, we too work daily to structure a way of life that enables us to remain connected to Jesus Christ and avoid unnecessary stress and pressure.

This is similar to our creation of a Rule (Way) of Life http://newlifefellowship.org/about-us/who-we-are/rule-of-life/. This “sweeping, curved corral,” our pathway, includes Sabbath-keeping, the rhythm of Daily Offices, not hurrying, and trying to listen more than we speak. Leaving time for transitions and not trying to do too much in too little time are also indispensable (i.e. respecting our limits). And, of course, getting enough silence and nature remains central.

What might be other “squeeze machines” and “pathways” that might help us remain centered?