Pecot's Putterings

Hustle and Bustle. Getting ready for Easter, getting ready to begin a new worship service, getting ready to clean the church up, getting ready to organize, getting ready to train new staff, getting ready to say goodbye to people who have led this church, getting ready to start new classes, set directions, implement plans. Getting ready to serve Christ, getting ready to go to heaven, getting ready to become a better Christian.

The church is in hustle and bustle mode. We are very busy and it seems like everyone is stretched to the limit.

The word "seems" is an important one. I have noticed that when I am hustling and bustling around, I am not getting nearly as much work done as I could, but I am rather successfully keeping people at arms length. For myself, this is often more a spirit problem than a management or time problem. I have noticed that there are two times when I look really busy. The first is when there is a lot of things to do right now and I need to rush to get them all done. When I am like this I am getting lots of stuff finished very quickly. The second is when I am not sure what to do and I am rushing around getting very little, or at least a lot less than I could, done. These times I am at the limits of my imagination and organization. Usually, I am tired or a bit afraid of the something new that is happening. Usually, these problems are solved with a reshuffling of boundaries and calmness and centeredness is the answer instead of rush.

The two are very different, but feel, and perhaps look, much the same. Transitions often carry with them a lot of business, some of it is just work and some of it is the fear that we have of what is coming or of the unknowns that are upon us. And that is very true of what staff and leadership is doing right now in our church. None of us knows what the next couple of months is going to be like.

We working on new designs in how we are to work, fearful of what might happen if it doesn’t work, scrambling to get the basic work done as well as the changes. We are trying to figure out basic things with easy answers but that need to be worked out like: how to count money with two services, how to share Sunday School rooms, how to organize fellowship hour when people are scattered in two services, how to prepare bulletins and get them all ready for Sunday. In addition we are thinking through much more complex issues of form and design in the new service, how we call forth the gifts and talents of the members to get certain programs moving, how to plan for leadership changes in the next couple of months and how the two services will share planning time.

And under all this is the work of the Spirit and your needs. Those are a higher priority than any of the organizational detail. Please don’t let our business hinder you from calling when you need help from the staff.

Ted

Maturing

Graduation is our next feast of the year. We were going to focus on Gifts of the Spirit in this time, but we are still training to lead the classes, so we will put that off till next fall. This season we will be exploring means to celebrate accomplishment and process in life, in the Church and in spirit.

We don’t really talk about graduation much in the church. Of course confirmation classes, or preparations for membership are a type of graduation. Sometimes people think of death as graduation in Christianity, but that doesn’t propel us into a next stage of this life.

Graduation is a celebration of the accomplishment of years of training. Graduation from high school is our passage into adult-hood, or almost. Theoretically, when someone graduates from high school, we have passed on to 18 year old the basics of what it means to get by in the world and be a contributing member of society. All of which assumes that that is what the graduate will or can do. They get to vote, they don’t have to go to school any more, and there is the basics, again hopefully, for getting, keeping and thriving in meaningful work -- or at least work that provided the basics of living alone and raising a family and helping society.

But, there are other graduations in life, other schooling, and other passages that mark the end of training and the beginning of "real life".

In August of 1997, I wrote some pieces for our GoodNewsletter on maturing in the faith. It was an odd attempt to map out some of the most important highlights in the spiritual journey. How do we know if we are growing in our Christianity? What is the scope of maturity? Are you growing and maturing in your faith? Do you even know where to go?

A Life Curriculum

The life curriculum is divided into six areas of spiritual maturity.<9:53 PM 6/9/03/P>

Three notes. One, we consciously avoid the temptation here to define growth within the process from learner to teacher, from follower to leader. Two, one's life-stage influences spiritual development, and one's maturity in the faith may be very different than one's life maturity. Three, to say that something is more mature is not to say that it is necessarily better (that is: contemplative prayer is more mature than "talking to God" but both are wonders in themselves. Child-like is not child-ish.).

Study: Learn the basic Bible stories and characters. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Ruth, David, Jesus, Mary, Peter, and Paul.

Worship: Experience worship as a friendly and sacred time and place. Learn of ways to get to participate.

Study: Begin to study how to believe and search, not just act one's faith. Study Paul and Exodus.

Church work: Help out, get involved in different parts of community, cause trouble, explore, paint, and begin to get to know that church work is a part of church life and spiritual growth.

Image of God: Explore different images for God, a kind friend, a dispassionate Shiva, the Emptiness of Creation, the Counselor known by Paul, the Spirit of Passion known at Pentecost, the Mystical Whirlwind of the Sufis, the God of Law and Commandment, the Rock of Ages and the Calm and Quiet Mother's breast of Psalm 131.

Study: Study and learn about the diversity of the earth, and of faith. Study the differences of people, tolerance and justice. It is a good time to study the prophets. Test one's illusions of the faith.

Worship: Rest in worship to bring all of oneself into the singing and praying and community of worship.

Church work: Sadly this is a time when most folks stop going to church. Instead it is a good time to broaden one's understanding of the scope of church work.

Prayer: Learn caring prayers. Learn to pray in silence, and awareness. Learn the prayers of action and loving.

Image of God: Get to know the light and dark sides of God and of the self, and the profound and disturbing "otherness" of God.

Study: Learn the deep human mystery of the Biblical text. Study the Psalms, learn of the life story of Paul. Experience the passion story of Jesus. Learn personal spiritual disciplines.

Worship: Learn the symbolic work of worship not just words and singing and praying, but that each action and movement in worship is a active symbol for the journey to God. Embrace ritual.

Church work: Learn the spiritual discipline of faithful and active service to the mystery, pain and chaos of one's faith community.

Mission: Come face to face with the most frustrating parts of loving the world. If you don't know how to love your enemies, now is the time to learn.

Prayer: Learn centering prayers and how to accept confession and forgiveness in prayer.

Image of God: Get to know, at once, the judging God and the forgiving God -- both together, not separated, the god envisioned by Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Study: Oddly enough, I would suggest to most folks in this stage of their spiritual growth (whether they are eighty or thirty at this point) to do almost exactly the same thing as children. Go back to the basic stories, draw them, and make things as you study them in a simple way. Learn to play again.

Worship: The temptation in this faith is to want worship to be consistent, a dependable friend. But the maturing Christians I have seen discover the fulfillment of worship in the unexpected and in letting go, in diversity and surprise.

Church work: Serve the community of faith from ones deepest convictions. If you don't know what they are, it is time to learn. If you aren't at work where you are most deeply concerned, it is time to quit other stuff and get there.

Mission: Learn the art of selfless loving (not boundary-less co-dependence). The difference is grounded in the spiritual issues of passion and humility and obedience.

Prayer: Learn contemplative prayer, where one quiets the self in deep humility and let's God pray.

Image of God: Know and learn to love the terrifying God that calls Abraham to sacrifice his son, that is, give up everything God has given over the course of a life-time. The God who calls Jesus to the cross. The God who dwells inside Mary's pondering. The God who calls each of us into creation and back into dust and ashes. The God who is Mother Earth.

Church work: Don't use limitations as an excuse for sloth. Action and cooperation with those things that one loves can mean the difference between living to the end of one's life or just dying off.

Mission: Much of the very real work of mission in the last days of life, is the work of increasingly letting go of what one has and giving simply of whatever one can give.

Prayer: Prepare for the mystery of the next step by entering the heart of prayer.

Originally published in the May 2003 Good News Letter of the Morgan Hill United Methodist Church.

United Methodist Church
Morgan Hill, California

Maturing, And A Life Curriculum

Pecot's Putterings

Maturing

A Life Curriculum

United Methodist Church Morgan Hill, California

Maturing, And A Life Curriculum

Pecot's Putterings

Maturing

A Life Curriculum

United Methodist Church
Morgan Hill, California