By John Birch —
There are days in all of our lives, I guess, where any hope of peace, reflection or simply space to be alone is lost to the demands of work, family or friends (etc). There can be days full of joy, but also ones which pull us down and leave us stressed and vulnerable. Getting a balance within our lives of those things which must be done now, and those which could be deferred until tomorrow is not always easy, but is important, both for our health and our faith.
We are followers of Jesus, and as such act as his hands and voice within the world. Yet even the Son of God had to find time to be alone with his Father and with his thoughts, be at peace even if just for a short while, put the day ahead into focus before getting on with the day.
We need to prioritise within our daily lives, to be good stewards of our time and love as we also seek to be good servants of our gracious God.
Within the clutter
and confusion
of our daily lives,
help us prioritize ,
be good stewards
of our time and love,
grateful servants
of our gracious God.
Greetings from Seattle where Tom and I are enjoying a warm and beautiful summer. Like many of you we have relaxed our work schedule and are drinking in the beauty of our surroundings.
It is, I feel a well-deserved rest as I have just handed in the edited version of my upcoming book The Gift of Wonder. Last year I was riveted by Jesus phrase “To enter the kingdom of God you must become like children” and asked my Facebook friends “What are the childlike characteristics that make us fit for the kingdom?” I received dozens of responses and made a list of twelve characteristics that I explore in this book – play, curiosity, awe, love of nature and many more. It has been a wonderful experience for me and I am excited about its release next year, hopefully in March. Be sure we will keep you posted.
Tom is starting work on a book too, though his is still in the early planning stages. He would appreciate your prayers as he develops a proposal to engage publishers.
Emails have changed
Imperfection # 1 – we forgot to let everyone know that in the transitions of this last year our emails have changed. The msaimagine emails no longer work so please delete them from your contacts.
My email is now seasickdoctor@gmail.com
Tom’s is twsine@gmail.com
Godspace Admin is godspacelight@gmail.com
Godspace has moved again
Evidently the server we were using was inadequate for the task. Godspace has grown so much over the last few years with daily posts, many resources and an active store. All of this means more space needed. I pray this will be the last move. We now have a new web team working with us and they seem to be far more professional than the last who I think had only worked with small blogs in the past and so was overwhelmed by Godspace. We in our ignorance did not realize what a problem this could create for us. Not only are we imperfect but our website is too.
In the process we have lost many of the photos on posts and need your help to get them back. Please look through the posts you like to revisit and let us know which ones have no photos. If there are prayers missing and you know which ones they are we would love your help in reposting these. Embarrassingly I have not always kept a record of prayers I post so am having trouble recalling what belongs where.
On the up side people love the new website. It is so much easier to find posts and resources. I think we are getting there. Please help us get the website back into the best shape possible. As you can imagine this has been a frustrating (and expensive) process that has been a challenge for Hilary and I as it drained time from other priorities.
Our focus on Godspace for the next couple of months will be Spirituality of Imperfection. We are all imperfect – flawed, incomplete, longing to be made whole. We all make embarrassing mistakes and I am hoping that we will get a taste of these as our authors contribute posts for the series. I kicked off a little early last week with my post Meditation Monday – The Spirituality of Imperfection.
In October we will start a theme: “Getting Ready for Christmas” We will look at how we can simplify, do justice, consider alternative gifting like fair trade, buy locally or DIY gifts, live sustainably during the holidays as well as how to give a different spiritual focus rather than consumerism. After American Thanksgiving we will have a week of gratitude leading up to Advent and Christmas.
There are lots of great posts from the last couple of weeks that I would encourage you to read especially:
Lilly Lewin’s God Speaks Through Crayons
John Birch’s prayer May the Love of God
Tom Sine’s Waking Up To being a Privileged White Guy.
Enjoy the season whether it be summer or winter for you. Many blessings on you all we appreciate your prayers and encouragement.
Christine Sine
Godspace founder and facilitator
By Lynne Baab —
For more than 20 years, a church in Seattle has offered dinner on Wednesday nights to anyone who wants to come. Numerous homeless people and others on the margins attend.
Members of the congregation are encouraged to attend, in order to build relationships with the people who come to the dinner. Over the years a great deal of caring has gone back and forth between the congregation members and the homeless and low income people who attend the dinner. For many years, the church hired a part time social worker to help people in the Wednesday Night Dinner community with housing and job issues.
Should this ministry be called local outreach or pastoral care? The answer must be “both.”
Five women meet twice a month to share prayer requests and pray for each other. They listen to each other deeply and support each other in many ways. Between their meetings, prayer requests often fly around in emails and text messages, and words of support and encouragement are sent in response. The members of the group know that the others are praying for them.
Is this a small group or is it pastoral care? Again, the answer must be “both.”
Pastoral care in our time is changing. More accurately, our understanding of what constitutes pastoral care is changing. Fifty years ago, most Christians perceived pastoral care as something done by a pastor or church staff person, involving one-on-one conversations in a church office or a visit by the pastor to a parishioner’s home.
Today, on August 1, Fortress Press released my new book, Nurturing Hope: Christian Pastoral Care in the Twenty-First Century. I had a great time writing that book because I want Christians to understand the fascinating trends in Christian pastoral care that we can see today. In the book, I outline seven trends. I also describe four key skills for pastoral care in our time.
The trends and skills need to be situated in an understanding of what exactly pastoral care is. “Pastoral” comes from the Latin word pastoralis which means “relating to a shepherd.” Christians get their understanding of shepherding from passages in the Bible like Psalm 23 or Jesus’ words about being the Good Shepherd in John 10:11-18.
The clearest passage about the tasks of a shepherd is Ezekiel 34. God speaks through Ezekiel, saying that the leaders of Israel have not shepherded the people. God will become the people’s shepherd. God will seek out the lost sheep, feed them, and give them rest. God will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak (Ezekiel 34:11-16).
The women who support each other in the prayer group I described are doing these tasks for each other as they pray for each other’s injuries and weaknesses. The leaders at the Wednesday Night Dinner, and the congregation members who attend in order to build relationships there, are doing this as they talk with people who have felt lost. These leaders and congregation members provide a place of peace and rest, and they share a meal. Pastoral care is no longer an arena where only paid professionals can shine.
All Christians provide pastoral care at some times, and all Christians receive it at other times. All Christian pastoral care is modeled after Jesus, the Good Shepherd who looks after his sheep, and who calls us to engage in his ministry.
In the next post, I’ll lay out the seven trends I discuss in my book, and in two posts after that, I’ll describe the four skills that I think are essential for pastoral care in our time. To be continued . .
As we enter into our new theme this summer, Spirit of Imperfection, let us reflect on this beautiful poem by Jeannie Kendall–
Wholeness and brokenness
can be strangely misleading.
We wear our “wholeness”
like a badge of honor
seldom recognizing
that it is a shield;
our prized invulnerability a mask
deflecting gazes
which we fear
may linger too long
and see what is within.
Yet, if we could but own
our brokenness,
find it held by fellow-pilgrims
as a sacrament;
we may yet discover
that in our fragile, broken selves
we are more whole
than ever we were
hiding behind our strength;
and where we see only fracture
God sees instead
a window
through which
His light and life
may flow.
by Christine Sine
This week I have done an orgy of cooking from our garden produce – chocolate zucchini bread; pear and raspberry bread; Thai basil, cashew and coconut pesto, and much more. It has been fun to cook and eat from the abundant bounty of the garden. What is not abundant yet is the harvest of tomatoes. In fact I have just picked the first few, and much as I am tempted to eat them all myself, I know that I need to share these “first fruits” and plan to use them in a salad for our community meal tonight.
I could not help but think of this Sunday’s reading from The Revised Common Lectionary was read. First we heard 2 Kings 4:42-44
a man from Baal-shalishah brought some food from the firstfruits of the harvest to the man of God: in his sack were 20 barley loaves and fresh produce still in the husk.
Elisha: Distribute this food to the people so that they may fill their hungry bellies.
Servant: Do you really think this will be enough for 100 hungry men?
Elisha:Yes, do as I said, and distribute this food to the people. The Eternal One says, “They will fill their bellies and still have some food left over.”
He handed out the food to them; and exactly as the Eternal One said, they ate and had food to spare.
Then from the gospel of John 6:1-21 – the story of the little boy with five loaves and two fish.
Sharing the first fruits of any harvest is always challenging. In agrarian cultures first fruits came at a time when everyone was lean and hungry, wondering whether their stored goods would last until abundance once more filled the earth. Today first fruits may not mean the difference between hunger and a full stomach but there is still something wonderful about them. The first tomato of the season excites taste buds that have not been stimulated since last season and we want more! Surely there is only enough for me (and maybe for Tom.)
Yet now we are being asked to share – a paltry amount – nowhere near enough to feed 100 hungry men, an even smaller amount to feed a crowd of more than 5,000 hungry men, women and children. It is impossible to believe we can hand it out, feed everyone and still have some left over.
The servant and the disciples do the maths, and know it is impossible. They act like hired hands or slaves, not believing in the impossible but obeying begrudgingly, without much joy or hope. They were probably filled with anxiety and the rumbling of their stomachs probably made them resent the crowds around them.
Contrast the little boy, a child – probably surrounded by a flock of friends, all laughing, excited egging him on, like flocks of kids that used to follow us in African villages. They alone believe in the possibility that Jesus can and will perform a miracle. In many ways this little boy’s offering is a first fruits offering too. He doesn’t have much but what he has he is willing to give. This is the first time as far as we know that he has given anything to Jesus, something small that Jesus could make big.
I wonder today as I reflect on these stories “how often do we get caught in an attitude of scarcity because we react as servants rather than as children of God? We look at what we have to offer be it food, or talent, or money and don’t think there is enough for our own needs let alone an abundance to share. We don’t get excited about the possibilities of what God can do and resent God’s invitation to be generous with the first fruits of our labours. We have done the maths and know that there is just not enough for everyone.
Kids are not great mathematicians but they are great sharers and they are great believers in the awe and wonder of miracles. When they see someone with a need they are right there wanting to help and they believe what they have in their hands can make a difference.
What will it take for us to become like children again – excited, expectant and eager to share because we know that in the hands of Jesus the little we have can always be transformed into enough for everyone? The really exciting and awe inspiring thing is that when we begin to share we do see our first fruits multiplied, our excitement grows and we become generous with everything that God places in our hands.
Can you imagine how that kid and his friends must have felt after they watched the huge crowd eat from their little offering? I am sure they talked about it for days if not years afterwards.
So I find myself wondering again: Were some of these kids amongst the early believers in Acts 2:42-47 once more filled with awe and wonder as they now shared meals and possessions together? Did they remember that first time of sharing when they saw Jesus perform a miracle of provision for a great crowd and so believed that he could still multiply their possessions to provide for everyone?
What Is Your Response?
Romans 8:15 tells us that we are not slaves or servants but children of God yet we rarely act as children. We don’t play, get excited or gasp in awe and wonder at the world and its abundance.
Sit prayerfully for a few minutes and think back to your childhood. What is one occasion you remember when you got excited about sharing with others/ How did you feel? What further responses did it stir in you?
What would it take for you to act as a child today? What “first fruit” do you think God might be prompting you to share? How can you respond.
For more reflections one “first fruits” you might like to check outOffer Your First Fruits to God
This vista feeds my soul
By Tom Sine —
Back in 1991as a young white guy, I wrote a book entitled: Wild Hope. In it I predicted“that by 2020…those who are non-white, in the US, will have doubled…” {Wild Hope, p.139} I welcomed this trend as an opportunity. “We are headed into a future in which we have the opportunity to be enriched by the many expanding ethnic cultures that comprise our country.” {Wild Hope p.142]. In fact I urged followers of Jesus to join me in welcoming this hopeful future.
Waking-Up to my White Privilege
As an old white guy in 2016 I read a book by a good friend, Jim Wallis at Sojourners, entitled America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America. Jim’s book celebrated the new future I had written about as a younger man. However, until I read Jim’s book I had been largely oblivious to my “White Privilege.” I was deeply convicted.
Since then I have become more aware of the educational and societal opportunities I have had that many don’t and the doors they opened for my life. I have also started seeking to use some of the privilege I enjoy to help empower others that have-not had those opportunities.
For example, I am working with a pastor, in an inner cultural community here in Seattle, to help high school students, that are not headed to a 4 year college, to find other training. In Seattle the new reality is that young people can no longer find a job with a high school diploma that will pay a living wage.
However, there are opportunities to train as a medical assistant, coder or in the technical trade. These positions pay $30 to $90 an hour. I urge church planters to consider making this a primary part of community outreach…to give all students an opportunity that those of us in the privileged middle class tend to take for granted.
Waking-Up to my Speaker Privilege
As an Old White Guy, and an author, God has also awakened me to other aspects of my privileged lifestyle I have also taken for granted. For example, several weeks ago I was speaking to a group of Christian leaders in Grand Rapids. I was seeking to persuade them to do something radical….to invite the ideas of the young to create new forms of neighborhood change making that I describe in Live Like You Give A Damn!.
Later when a I viewed the video of our session I was disappointed to discover that during the question and answer session I responded too quickly to questions. Another form of privilege is assuming as “the invited experts” we have all the answers. I would have been wise to ask more questions before responding. I could have been more responsive.
Waking-Up to my Male Privilege
Finally, I have also been discovering there is also such a thing as “male privilege” in culture, church and even marriage, I thank God for my wife Christine and many wonderful marriage years together. Thankfully we have never had issues of fidelity but we have had issues of challenging communications.
One of the main issues in our difficult communications was my sense of male privilege manifesting by taking off on a professional pursuit without taking time to explore both of our professional plans for the week ahead. We are not only working on this but our counselor has encouraged us to set up regular “business meetings” every few weeks to work on un-resolved communication issues.
This past year I have had the opportunity to be supportive of Christine as she completed her first book with IVPress…The Gift of Wonder. It is a wonderful book on creative approaches to spiritual practices that will be released next year. We also find going on quiet prayer retreats help us work together as a team in all areas of life.
AN INVITATION- This old white guy wants to change and be a faithful follower of Jesus… so give me a hand. I have worked as an an author and speaker not only in the US but in other countries.
If you have ever been at a church or a situation where I have spoken and I have not been sensitive or responsive to your questions or sensitive your concerns shoot me an email. I would like to apologize and have a second chance to be responsive…while I am still on the planet. twsine@gmail.com
Do join me in praying that all Old White Guys, all over this country, will embrace the welcoming Spirit of Jesus to all the strangers, as we become a more multi-cultural society…including keeping families together.
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