The following prayer was written as a responsive prayer for Martin Luther King Day which commemorates Martin Luther King's birthday. It is a day used to promote equal rights for all Americans, though I like to expand that to consider it as a day to promote equal rights for all people.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we shout for justice,
And as one we fight against oppression.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we seek God's righteousness
And as one we sing God's praise.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we climb God's mountain,
And as one we enter the promised land.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we proclaim the good news of God's kingdom,
And as one we enjoy its peace, and abundance and love.
I just realized a couple of days ago that I stopped posting my weekly roundup of prayers from Light for the Journey at the beginning of Advent with the intention of restarting this practice whenever Christmas was over. I am a little late, but here are the prayers that I have posted each morning since the beginning of the year - enjoy!
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This prayer by Mother Teresa was sent to me by Paul Uwemedimo
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work too may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guide me then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen
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God who saves,
When we cannot see the path guide us
When we stumble lift us up
When we grow weary hold up our hands
Fight for us O God and do not let us be overcome
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May we listen deeply to God's Spirit
And ground our lives in prayer
May we make space for God's transforming work
So that we can be renewed and discern the will of God
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Looking out at the beautiful snow capped mountains inspired this prayer:
The whole world shines with God's glory and love
May we know it in our hearts, share it in our actions, show it in our lives
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May we learn to live in gratitude
Attentive to each moment
alive with the glory of God
________________________________________
May we let go the hurry
Learning to live with our bodies and spirits in sync with God
May we grow in awareness of God
In every moment and object and encounter
May we learn to live in trust
Knowing the all embracing love of God
_______________________________________________
God who revealed yourself to wise men following a star,
Guide all who search and journey towards your light today,
God whose light shines like a bright guiding star have mercy on us.
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God may I live within limits,
of my body, my mind and my spirit.
God may I live within limits,
of my calling , my community, my capacity.
God may I live within limits,
of who I am and who you want me to be.
May I learn to live in the place of trust,
and wrap my heart around your presence.
May I learn to still my mind and listen,
attentive to the quiet whispers of your voice.
May I attune my ears to your words,
And savour the sacredness of each moment.
May your ways echo in the depths of my being,
so that all I am and all I do,
flows from an experience of your love.
_______________________________________________
God may I welcome this new year without fear or regret,
Secure in the certainty of your promises,
May I live in anticipation of its beauty,
And be prepared to embrace its challenges,
May I look for your love in every moment,
And listen for your voice in every sound,
May I see your image in every stranger,
And exalt in your glory expressed in all your creation,
May I learn to live in the place of trust,
Remembering always that the future is in your hands.
_______________________________________________
Christ is here, God's son come down to earth,
May your life be built on him,
May your roots grow deep in him,
May your faith grow strong through him
(Adapted from Colossians 2:7)
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[caption id="attachment_5882" align="alignnone" width="300"]
Discerning alone[/caption]
The following post is part of a series on Leading Spiritually. Check out the other posts in this series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Why Are We Leading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Where Are We Heading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – How Do We Do It?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Discerning Together
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Discerning on Your Own
Discerning alone[/caption]
The following post is part of a series on Leading Spiritually. Check out the other posts in this series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Why Are We Leading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Where Are We Heading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – How Do We Do It?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Discerning Together
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Discerning on Your Own
Discerning on Our Own
Being part of a discerning community means a commitment to discerning the will of God in our own individual lives too. It means growing into habits that encourage listening to all the voices through which God speaks to us. The art of listening to God doesn’t come easily or naturally to any of us, but we will never hear God clearly in a group if we have not learned to listen and respond to the voice of God in our personal lives. Unfortunately I think that many of us don’t take this responsibility seriously enough. Even when we know there is something wrong with the state of our souls, rather than pausing and listening to the guidance of God, or taking time to get away for some good solitary listening to God, we push on into the very activity that crowds out God’s ability to speak to us. God speaks to us in many and diverse ways. Some hear God clearest through scripture and prayer. Others respond better to the voice of God through interacting with nature. Still others hear the voice of God through their interactions with friends, family, their faith community or their spiritual directors. God speaks through many other ways too - through our own brokenness and struggles, through the broken and marginalized in our world wide community, through our busyness and irritability, through the demands of our bodies and the weariness of our spirits. Writing this series on leading spiritually has been something of a process of self examination for me as I have taken the time to discern how well I am doing in my own personal spiritual discernment. One tool I have found useful is this spiritual audit process I wrote several years ago. Another is the regular retreats that Tom and I take every three to four months. This has become an essential part of my own spiritual journey and in fact this season of soul searching and reevaluating for me personally, has come out of the retreat that we held at the end of last year. I would heartily recommend this process to others. The third essential process to keep my life balanced and my spirit in that place of discernment is the keeping of Sabbath and a time of journalling and checking in with God (and with Tom). There are many signals that tell me I am not in a good spiritual state and therefore not likely to do a good job of discerning in a group. These usually surface during our retreat or journalling times. Busyness, irritability, not sleeping well at night, putting on weight, constantly feeling overwhelmed are all good indicators for me that all is not well with my soul. There are other indicators too that I don’t always take notice of - cutting back on my Sabbath observances, losing the balance between work and rest, community and solitude, secular and sacred are all indicators of a dysfunctional life that I know can destroy my ability to discern well within our leadership group. The best book that I read in 2011 was Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. Learning to live in a place of gratitude, where we are fully attentive to each moment, seeing in that moment the revelation of a God who loves and cares deeply for us is revolutionary but it is also incredibly freeing and spiritually rewarding. I think that it should be the goal of all of us who sincerely desire to discern the will of God for our lives and our organizations. How is it with your soul? When was the last time you took a spiritual audit or went on retreat to check in on your spiritual state? What are the distractions that cloud your ability to clearly discern the will God? What are are you doing to overcome those?
[caption id="attachment_5877" align="alignnone" width="224" caption="Candles help us centre ourselves"]
[/caption]
The following post is part of a series on Leading Spiritually. Check out the other posts in this series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Why Are We Leading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Where Are We Heading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – How Do We Do It?
Team Meetings as Discerning the Will God
I have shared the process that we use in the MSA team meetings and when we go on retreat, on previous occasions but have expanded it here to make it a more useable tool. You may also like to read Practicing Discernment Together by Lon Fendall, Jan Wood and Bruce Bishop which is a great book on the Quaker discernment process.
The amazing thing is that this process has not only drawn us closer to God and to each other but it has also made us more sensitive to the moving of God's spirit in our lives and those of our colleagues at other times. And it has made us more creative as we listen to the diverse ideas and possibilities that God is unveiling through others.
[/caption]
The following post is part of a series on Leading Spiritually. Check out the other posts in this series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Why Are We Leading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Where Are We Heading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually – How Do We Do It?
Team Meetings as Discerning the Will God
I have shared the process that we use in the MSA team meetings and when we go on retreat, on previous occasions but have expanded it here to make it a more useable tool. You may also like to read Practicing Discernment Together by Lon Fendall, Jan Wood and Bruce Bishop which is a great book on the Quaker discernment process.
The amazing thing is that this process has not only drawn us closer to God and to each other but it has also made us more sensitive to the moving of God's spirit in our lives and those of our colleagues at other times. And it has made us more creative as we listen to the diverse ideas and possibilities that God is unveiling through others.
- Centering - (Recognizing the presence of God). It is always helpful to start with a centering prayer or activity that stills our minds and brings us into a place of attentiveness to God. Centering is an intentional way to gather the group and help us begin to leave behind our busy schedules and the demands on our time. We each arrive at a meeting with an entire world dragging behind us. For each of us, that world is unique. So taking time to make a conscious choice to set aside those demands and distractions is helpful. That’s what this opening exercise is all about. Here is a prayer that I wrote last year to help me with this process:
May the centre of all things be Christ May the way of all things be Christ May the truth of all things be Christ Behind, before, within, without May the life of all things be Christ
- Other suggested centering exercises are: to light a candle as a representation of Christ’s presence; join hands in a moment of silence; sing a song; say the Lord’s prayer or another prayer and then sit in silence. I have also written several breathing prayers that we have found useful in this process.
- Gathering silence before the meeting. Sitting in silence for a few minutes extends this time of stillness before God. This is a time for each of us to let go of our grip on ourselves and our desire for control over both the process and the decisions that come out of it. We each need to acknowledge that we know nothing and must trust in God for all that comes out of the meeting. In this place of stillness we remind ourselves that God is in a different dimension beyond cognitive knowing.
- Relating - (Checking in with each other) Since business is now a practice of discerning God’s desires, our ability to be sensitive to the movement of the Spirit must be encouraged. This step a spiritual practice that enables us to reconnect with one another in a way that grounds us in the Holy Spirit, connecting us more deeply to the presence of God. This is an extremely important part of the process in which as we actively listen to each other share we become aware of who the Spirit of God is at work in our lives.
- Prayer of Examen on your experience of God this last week: Consolations (those things that have given you a deep sense of life-giving connection to God, others & yourself) and Desolations (those things that have made you lose your connection to God)
- Sharing the transforming edge of God’s activity in your lives. Where are you most aware of God’s transforming work in your life? What would give God the greatest opportunity to continue that work? What is the greatest hinderance to what God is teaching you?
- How is it with your soul? This is a question we can only ask when we are in a long term trusting relationship with our discernment group. Sharing our sense of our own spiritual state places each of us in a very vulnerable position. The willingness to keep this confidential is an essential element in this depth of group sharing.
- Lectio Divina. This is a very ancient contemplative prayer technique practiced at one time by all Christians and kept alive by the monastic tradition. It draws us into the presence of God opening our hearts and our minds to the activity of the Holy Spirit in and around us.
- Receiving, listening and reflecting. (Attending to God, listening) Once we have shared we take time to consider what God is saying in our midst through our personal situations. This step works from the assumption that God is busy in our midst. We spend time in silence listening to God looking for directions, threads and common themes considering how God is moving in our personal lives. We then ask the questions: Given what we’ve heard and shared, what is God doing among us or calling us to? How is that related to our vision as a staff or board? What are the implications of what we have heard for our lives and ministry?
- Prayer of thanks for God’s activity in our midst. It is good before moving into the business for the day to spend time savouring the preciousness of all that has been shared, resting in the contentment of knowing that our lives are in God’s hands and giving thanks for both the good and the bad. Then we pray for request that have surfaced during our sharing.
- Responding (With this focus on God and God’s activity, we do the business at hand in a spirit of attentiveness) This is the point where we finally get to business. Oh wait, we’ve been doing business all along! This is simply the point where we introduce specific items that need discussion or decision. Once the foundation of feeling connected to one another and to God has been laid, then we can move forward with confidence into the tasks at hand…always keeping an eye on our attentiveness to the Spirit. If at any point we feel distracted from being rooted in Christ, we need to push ourselves back from the agenda, take a deep breath, recenter and reconnect.
- Returning and closing(offering ourselves and our efforts to God) are the final steps. Before rushing back out into the world, take a moment to prayerfully reflect over the course of the meeting. Ask yourselves where you felt close to God; where there seemed to be shifts in the discussion that opened you up to new ways of thinking; where there were blocks; where God seemed most present. Celebrate your experience of doing the work of the Church in the presence of God by naming some of these times and being grateful together. Allow your closing prayer to express your thanks and joy.
[caption id="attachment_5872" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Garden catalogues everywhere"]
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It is that time of the year again - at least here in Seattle. The mail is flooded with seed catalogues and my email is alive with news on spring planting. There are so many options to choose from that it is hard to know where to begin. So how do we make the decisions?
If you can’t get outside yet here are a couple of websites that you might like to check out to at least give you the feel of being outside. They are great planning tools.
BBC’s Virtual Garden – it has a fun 3D function on the site and is free
Kitchen Garden Planner – part of the Gardener’s Supply website which is one of my favourite places to look for seed starter supplies and self watering pots. This is also free. I use it each year to help plan the vegetable garden, though it is a little limited on vegetable varieties to chose from. They also have some excellent garden how to information.
And if your looking for more information on how to go organic my Texas based friends love The Dirt Doctor - Howard Garrett
Plangarden.com This website has some great hints for gardening on it. The garden design function costs $20/year
Of course this is also a great time to drool over all those wonderful photos in the seed catalogues that in your saner moments you know won’t grow in your climate zone but which you just can’t resist when it is too cold to grow anything anyway.
I always like to buy from those companies that specialize in heritage and organic seed like:
Seeds of Change
Seed Savers Exchange
Bountiful Gardens
Peaceful Valley Organic Seeds & Supplies
and a couple of new ones I heard about this year:
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
High Mowing Organic Seeds
For my Canadian friends
Richter's seeds
West Coast Seeds
or those that are based in the local Pacific NW area
Territorial Seeds
Raintree Nursery
Nichol's Garden Nursery - going virtual this year with only an online catalogue
Irish Eyes Garden Seeds in Ellensburg WA
Uprising Organic Seeds in Bellingham WA
Unfortunately I also cannot resist a couple of big company catalogues like the English classic Thompson and Morgan and Park Seeds which have products I can’t seem to find anywhere else. And my favourite for lettuce and other salad greens The Cook's Garden. I particularly love their Zen oriental green - it is mild in flavour and delicious in salads or cooked.
[/caption]
It is that time of the year again - at least here in Seattle. The mail is flooded with seed catalogues and my email is alive with news on spring planting. There are so many options to choose from that it is hard to know where to begin. So how do we make the decisions?
If you can’t get outside yet here are a couple of websites that you might like to check out to at least give you the feel of being outside. They are great planning tools.
BBC’s Virtual Garden – it has a fun 3D function on the site and is free
Kitchen Garden Planner – part of the Gardener’s Supply website which is one of my favourite places to look for seed starter supplies and self watering pots. This is also free. I use it each year to help plan the vegetable garden, though it is a little limited on vegetable varieties to chose from. They also have some excellent garden how to information.
And if your looking for more information on how to go organic my Texas based friends love The Dirt Doctor - Howard Garrett
Plangarden.com This website has some great hints for gardening on it. The garden design function costs $20/year
Of course this is also a great time to drool over all those wonderful photos in the seed catalogues that in your saner moments you know won’t grow in your climate zone but which you just can’t resist when it is too cold to grow anything anyway.
I always like to buy from those companies that specialize in heritage and organic seed like:
Seeds of Change
Seed Savers Exchange
Bountiful Gardens
Peaceful Valley Organic Seeds & Supplies
and a couple of new ones I heard about this year:
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
High Mowing Organic Seeds
For my Canadian friends
Richter's seeds
West Coast Seeds
or those that are based in the local Pacific NW area
Territorial Seeds
Raintree Nursery
Nichol's Garden Nursery - going virtual this year with only an online catalogue
Irish Eyes Garden Seeds in Ellensburg WA
Uprising Organic Seeds in Bellingham WA
Unfortunately I also cannot resist a couple of big company catalogues like the English classic Thompson and Morgan and Park Seeds which have products I can’t seem to find anywhere else. And my favourite for lettuce and other salad greens The Cook's Garden. I particularly love their Zen oriental green - it is mild in flavour and delicious in salads or cooked.
[caption id="attachment_5866" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Leading together"]
[/caption]
The following post is part of a series on Leading Spiritually. Check out the other posts in this series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Why Are We Leading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually - Where Are We Heading?
How Are We Leading?
How do we become good leaders? Ruth Hayley Barton in her book Strengthening the Soul of a Leader affirms that a leadership team is at core a spiritual community gathered around the presence of Christ to discern and carry out God’s will for the community be that a church, a small group, or a ministry organization. She says:
Learning to come together and stay together in unity is our first and most enduring task as we pattern our relationships after Christ’s relationships with his disciples. “He loved his own to the end” (John 13:1; John 15 & 17). To compromise our community would be to compromise our essence and the we would not have much that is of value to offer to others. (p176)
What an incredibly powerful and challenging statement. The way to become a good leader is not to focus on our own spiritual growth or life skills but to enter into a journey with a community in which we all grow together into the people that God intends us to be. Obviously this does require strong commitment to growing our individual faith and seeing our individual lives transformed but it requires much more than that.
Ruth Barton goes on to share that a leadership community at its best is:
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The following post is part of a series on Leading Spiritually. Check out the other posts in this series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually – Why Are We Leading?
The Art of Leading Spiritually - Where Are We Heading?
How Are We Leading?
How do we become good leaders? Ruth Hayley Barton in her book Strengthening the Soul of a Leader affirms that a leadership team is at core a spiritual community gathered around the presence of Christ to discern and carry out God’s will for the community be that a church, a small group, or a ministry organization. She says:
Learning to come together and stay together in unity is our first and most enduring task as we pattern our relationships after Christ’s relationships with his disciples. “He loved his own to the end” (John 13:1; John 15 & 17). To compromise our community would be to compromise our essence and the we would not have much that is of value to offer to others. (p176)
What an incredibly powerful and challenging statement. The way to become a good leader is not to focus on our own spiritual growth or life skills but to enter into a journey with a community in which we all grow together into the people that God intends us to be. Obviously this does require strong commitment to growing our individual faith and seeing our individual lives transformed but it requires much more than that.
Ruth Barton goes on to share that a leadership community at its best is:
- Finding ways to be open to the presence of Christ in our midst.
- Attending to our relationships by listening to each other, caring for each other and praying for each other
- Resting and retreating together not to move our business meetings to another location but so that we can pray together, listen to our journeys, eat together and enjoy each other.
- Living within its limits. Knowing our strengths and weaknesses, knowing what God has called us to do and learning to say no to what is outside these limits is extremely important
- Moving forward in in its work on the basis of discernment rather than human planning or strategic maneuvering. (p179 - 183).
[caption id="attachment_5862" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Edward Hicks - Peaceable Kingdom"]
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This post is part of series on Leading Spiritually. Before reading it you may want to check out the first two posts in the series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually - Why Are We Leading?
Where are We Leading?
Dysfunctional images of God and of God’s purposes for us have created dysfunctional view of spiritual leadership. In my last post I said: The central purpose of spiritual leadership is to become co-creators with God in bringing into being a community that is at one with God and with each other. Together we can shine with the presence of Jesus and model the love of God in such a way that others are drawn to believe in God. If we truly believe that at the heart of the universe there is a loving, caring Creator whose deepest longing is to draw us into into intimacy with himself our leadership will reflect that. If we really believe that God’s central passion is the restoration of all creation into a restored community of love and mutual care, that will become our central passion too.
About five years ago the MSA team started a journey into this type of leadership model. We began in a time of retreat asking a question we continue to ask and discern that I think is at the core of all spiritual leadership is: What is God’s vision for the future and what part of this vision does God want our community to grab hold of and live out together?
We started by reflecting on God’s vision for the future. The rich imagery of the creation story introduces us to a world where God, human beings and the creation live in harmony and mutual concern. Theologian Howard Snyder equates this beautiful, mutually dependent world with shalom. He explains: “On the seventh day God created shalom – the crown and goal of all his work.”
The crown and goal of all God’s work was a community of people living and working together in harmony and mutual trust, caring for creation and relating personally to their God who walked in the garden with them. And God looked at all that had been created with complete satisfaction. (Gen 1:27,28,31)
Shalom is a corporate vision embracing the entire world community. The segregation into small ethnocentric cultural groups that occurred at Babel is reversed and all people are reconciled and again walk in harmony and understanding together. As we walk together toward God’s mountain, the instruments of war become the instruments of peace (Is 2:2-5, Mic 4:1-4) the lame are healed (Is 35: 4-7), the oppressed set free and justice comes for the poor. Shalom even encompasses and our rediscovery of God’s call to be stewards of creation. God did not create us to live as isolated individuals but as men and women together, in a harmonious interdependent community, caring for each other and for the entire created order.
From the time humanity was excluded from the Garden, the object of all of God’s work has been the recovery of shalom in creation and the restoration and renewal of all that was ruptured at the Fall. Amazingly, God asks us to be a part of that restoration. All Christ followers have a new job to do, to join with God in restoring, renewing and healing all that was distorted and broken by sin. We are heading towards a world of shalom. Our shared journey can show people how to live in shalom, how to share God’s shalom, and how to bring God’s shalom to the world.
What would the shalom of God look like if it was fully realized in our midst and how does God want us to live and operate to bring that into reality?
[/caption]
This post is part of series on Leading Spiritually. Before reading it you may want to check out the first two posts in the series:
The Art of Leading Spiritually – An Invitation to a Journey
The Art of Leading Spiritually - Why Are We Leading?
Where are We Leading?
Dysfunctional images of God and of God’s purposes for us have created dysfunctional view of spiritual leadership. In my last post I said: The central purpose of spiritual leadership is to become co-creators with God in bringing into being a community that is at one with God and with each other. Together we can shine with the presence of Jesus and model the love of God in such a way that others are drawn to believe in God. If we truly believe that at the heart of the universe there is a loving, caring Creator whose deepest longing is to draw us into into intimacy with himself our leadership will reflect that. If we really believe that God’s central passion is the restoration of all creation into a restored community of love and mutual care, that will become our central passion too.
About five years ago the MSA team started a journey into this type of leadership model. We began in a time of retreat asking a question we continue to ask and discern that I think is at the core of all spiritual leadership is: What is God’s vision for the future and what part of this vision does God want our community to grab hold of and live out together?
We started by reflecting on God’s vision for the future. The rich imagery of the creation story introduces us to a world where God, human beings and the creation live in harmony and mutual concern. Theologian Howard Snyder equates this beautiful, mutually dependent world with shalom. He explains: “On the seventh day God created shalom – the crown and goal of all his work.”
The crown and goal of all God’s work was a community of people living and working together in harmony and mutual trust, caring for creation and relating personally to their God who walked in the garden with them. And God looked at all that had been created with complete satisfaction. (Gen 1:27,28,31)
Shalom is a corporate vision embracing the entire world community. The segregation into small ethnocentric cultural groups that occurred at Babel is reversed and all people are reconciled and again walk in harmony and understanding together. As we walk together toward God’s mountain, the instruments of war become the instruments of peace (Is 2:2-5, Mic 4:1-4) the lame are healed (Is 35: 4-7), the oppressed set free and justice comes for the poor. Shalom even encompasses and our rediscovery of God’s call to be stewards of creation. God did not create us to live as isolated individuals but as men and women together, in a harmonious interdependent community, caring for each other and for the entire created order.
From the time humanity was excluded from the Garden, the object of all of God’s work has been the recovery of shalom in creation and the restoration and renewal of all that was ruptured at the Fall. Amazingly, God asks us to be a part of that restoration. All Christ followers have a new job to do, to join with God in restoring, renewing and healing all that was distorted and broken by sin. We are heading towards a world of shalom. Our shared journey can show people how to live in shalom, how to share God’s shalom, and how to bring God’s shalom to the world.
What would the shalom of God look like if it was fully realized in our midst and how does God want us to live and operate to bring that into reality?
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