Wednesday, February 28, 2007
A time for healing
Our church has embarked on a journey of spiritual renewal called Refocusing. Its an established, intentional process that we are praying will renew our church and realign our focus with God's ministry through us.
This weekend, we held the first of 3 summits. It was incredible! First miracle - people showed up. The Refocus Leadership Team (of which I'm a part) wasn't sure how many people would willingly give up their Friday evening and Saturday morning to come and be part of the process. We thought they might be apathetic - or think that others will do the work.
Second miracle -people were honest - even about tough issues. One of the excercises involved creating a memory wall. We listed all the milestones, painful memories and history of the church since its beginning in the 1970s. It was insightful and at times very emotional. Our coach told us that the painful events represented broken relationships and that we needed to "own" our past before we could move forward.
Third miracle - there was unity and community. One of our challenges as a church has been a dividedness that has kept us apart - cliques have formed, there's a tendancy to gossip - all the nasty stuff that can happend in a group of people, but should have no place in the church. I think this summit moved us closer to true unity. By honestly interacting with each other, we started to tear down the obstacles to building community. Its an amazing start.
Yet, at the end of the day, it comes down to this...what will renewal of our church mean for my life? How am I personally going to change my priorities in order to bring them in line with God's?
Those are tough questions that I have been wrestling with. Its one thing to say "we need more youth ministries", but quite another to say "I'm going to give 2 hours a week so that I can help create and lead a youth ministry."
We did an excercise where we compare our actual values (that's ACTUAL values - not preferred values) to God's values. To be perfectly honest, I have a grand canyon sized gap between what I actually value, lived out by what I spend time doing and thinking about, and what God values. It ain't pretty - but its reality. Am I willing to change? How much? Yikes!
This weekend, we held the first of 3 summits. It was incredible! First miracle - people showed up. The Refocus Leadership Team (of which I'm a part) wasn't sure how many people would willingly give up their Friday evening and Saturday morning to come and be part of the process. We thought they might be apathetic - or think that others will do the work.
Second miracle -people were honest - even about tough issues. One of the excercises involved creating a memory wall. We listed all the milestones, painful memories and history of the church since its beginning in the 1970s. It was insightful and at times very emotional. Our coach told us that the painful events represented broken relationships and that we needed to "own" our past before we could move forward.
Third miracle - there was unity and community. One of our challenges as a church has been a dividedness that has kept us apart - cliques have formed, there's a tendancy to gossip - all the nasty stuff that can happend in a group of people, but should have no place in the church. I think this summit moved us closer to true unity. By honestly interacting with each other, we started to tear down the obstacles to building community. Its an amazing start.
Yet, at the end of the day, it comes down to this...what will renewal of our church mean for my life? How am I personally going to change my priorities in order to bring them in line with God's?
Those are tough questions that I have been wrestling with. Its one thing to say "we need more youth ministries", but quite another to say "I'm going to give 2 hours a week so that I can help create and lead a youth ministry."
We did an excercise where we compare our actual values (that's ACTUAL values - not preferred values) to God's values. To be perfectly honest, I have a grand canyon sized gap between what I actually value, lived out by what I spend time doing and thinking about, and what God values. It ain't pretty - but its reality. Am I willing to change? How much? Yikes!
Maybe this is normal....
I'm going to start by not apologizing for the infrequency of my posts. Maybe its normal to only post once a month. With that out of the way...
My small group has been studying Genesis. Nothing like getting back to the basics. We had quite a discussion last week about Genesis 3 - the fall of mankind. One thing that has always bothered me (being a woman) is the whole blaming of Eve (or womankind) for the fall. To recap....
The sneaky serpent (for reasons not clearly spelled out, but largely attributable to Satan) engages Eve in a dialogue about the trees in the garden....did God REALLY say you cannot eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge...he just said that because he doesn't want you to be like him...(you get the picture). Eve (being naive and willful) decides that the fruits looks good, eats some and then gives some to Adam. And that spells the beginning of the end.
So here's the part that stood out for me - Adam was present during the whole exchange! The bible says she gave some to her husband "who was with her". He was there.
For some reason, I've always seen Adam as a bit of an innocent in the whole affair. The wife comes home with some fruit and he gets duped into eating it without examining its whereabouts. But no, the guy is actually ON THE SCENE during the whole serpent exchange. No wonder God questions him first.
I've read Genesis countless times, but this is the first time I saw those four little words - "who was with her". Its amazing how a small detail changes your whole perspective. The consequences of the fall remain the same, but Adam and Eve are equally culpable.
My small group has been studying Genesis. Nothing like getting back to the basics. We had quite a discussion last week about Genesis 3 - the fall of mankind. One thing that has always bothered me (being a woman) is the whole blaming of Eve (or womankind) for the fall. To recap....
The sneaky serpent (for reasons not clearly spelled out, but largely attributable to Satan) engages Eve in a dialogue about the trees in the garden....did God REALLY say you cannot eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge...he just said that because he doesn't want you to be like him...(you get the picture). Eve (being naive and willful) decides that the fruits looks good, eats some and then gives some to Adam. And that spells the beginning of the end.
So here's the part that stood out for me - Adam was present during the whole exchange! The bible says she gave some to her husband "who was with her". He was there.
For some reason, I've always seen Adam as a bit of an innocent in the whole affair. The wife comes home with some fruit and he gets duped into eating it without examining its whereabouts. But no, the guy is actually ON THE SCENE during the whole serpent exchange. No wonder God questions him first.
I've read Genesis countless times, but this is the first time I saw those four little words - "who was with her". Its amazing how a small detail changes your whole perspective. The consequences of the fall remain the same, but Adam and Eve are equally culpable.
