Over time, profound synergies develop between vital congregations and excellent pastors in which congregations, pastors, and wider communities flourish in vital ways. Excellent pastors are gifted at calling laity to vital discipleship and helping them live their vocations faithfully in the world, in educating their congregations through theological leadership in worship and teaching, and in shaping a vision for a way of life that reaches beyond the walls of the church. Strong congregations cultivate a life together that inspires and requires gifted pastoral leadership, taking risks and posing questions that raise the standards for what is possible and needed for the life of the community.
Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping faithful Christian ministry
L. Gregory Jones and Kevin R. Armstrong (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), 22
Oh, that I would be such an excellent youth pastor!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The art of holding people ...
Had pastoral ministry described to me recently as holding people. As a pastor you're job is to hold people both inside, and when called upon outside too, your congregation. You hold them in the presence of God as well as holding them as you lead them to God.
While this image requires some further reflection, as an image of what pastoral care is and does I really like it. After all, it never begins or ends with us, but with the One to whom we entrust those we hold, for they are really His, and actually at times it is He who entrusts them to us.
Hmmm, just an image and thought to ponder ...
While this image requires some further reflection, as an image of what pastoral care is and does I really like it. After all, it never begins or ends with us, but with the One to whom we entrust those we hold, for they are really His, and actually at times it is He who entrusts them to us.
Hmmm, just an image and thought to ponder ...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Prayer for my preaching needed ...
Ok, I know it's late ... I still have other stuff I wanna do before bed as well, so is really gonna be a late one. However, have access to internet just now and so am using it to my full advantage, lol.
Firstly - CONGRATULATIONS to those baptised in EMBC on Sunday night. I hear from many people that it was an amazing night and God's presence could be strongly, tangibly felt, woo hoo!!! I'm praying for you all as you continue in your journey with Jesus and I can't wait to see the video of it when I come back.
Have just come back from another form of leadership meeting tonight. Am observing so much here, but what I sense most of all is that this is a church that at its heart passionately loves God, loves people and is seeking to live the Jesus, Kingdom, way of life. As a student who is getting to see all this and is able to comment on things that they either don't see themselves or think is just how every church does things it's great to be able to encourage them. What goes on here is what L. Gregory Jones and Kevin R. Amstrong call excellence in ministry - not perfect, but beautiful none-the-less. They say in Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping faithful Christian ministry that 'beautiful ministry both calls forth and demands the very best we can provide; it calls for excellence in all that we are and do.' (p.g. 20) That is what I see here, and it inspires me.
However, on a different note am suffering from every preacher's worst nightmare ... preacher's block. Am preaching twice this weekend. Once at a new youth worship event that's been set up (Friday night) and once on Sunday morning at the church plant (well, its really a church in its own right - just without a constitution). I have absolutely blinding passages from the Sermon on the Mount, so really its a preacher's dream.
At the youth event have the beattitudes as my theme and through that will be calling the young people to radical discipleship with an oppertunity for them to respond to that as well as an oppertunity for young people to become Christians if that's where they're at. Have sensed what I feel God wants to say, and have a first draft, but am totally unhappy and unsettled with it. Not sure how it needs to change, but it does ... and fast! I think the difficulty is finding some of the points of connection, because it really is a wide-ranging congregation that it's for. But thinking as I write, its more than that. It's putting it together in such a way that it doesn't become a rant or an exegetical sermon that misses the excitment of following Jesus in the risky way that He calls us to. Ahhh, in my head I know what it should sound like, but on paper its not there yet. That's tomorrow's job and prayer is much appreciated for it!!!
Sunday morning is more than half way there, and is from the passages in Matt (4:18-22; 5:13-16) where Jesus calls the first disciples and then calls them to be salt and light. Am going to be looking at what it meant to be called as a disciple of Jesus (Rob Bell's Nooma dvd - Dust really helped solidify what commentators also point out but what we often miss), and then the fact that Jesus called the disciples salt and light before they had ever done anything. He spoke and called out of them the potential that God had placed in them, He believed in them. Those will be the kind of ideas we'll look at, seeking to encourage the congregation so they know who they are and both the command and promises included in these passages.
Am really excited to be preaching again ... feels like its been ages. I love it! Literally love it! It's such a priviledge and joy - especially when it's words like I feel God has laid on my heart for this weekend. But what we realised today is that I'm going to have to be extra aware of my accent. Most of the time people can understand me ok, but sometimes they really can't. Plus the speed I talk at doesn't help ... made worse by the fact I speed up when using any other form of microphone other than tie one (which is what I'll be using on Friday). Am extra conscious of these things here and really pray that nothing of me, whether accent or speed or anything else, gets in the way of what God wants to speak into people's lives. Watch this space for an update of how it goes...
Firstly - CONGRATULATIONS to those baptised in EMBC on Sunday night. I hear from many people that it was an amazing night and God's presence could be strongly, tangibly felt, woo hoo!!! I'm praying for you all as you continue in your journey with Jesus and I can't wait to see the video of it when I come back.
Have just come back from another form of leadership meeting tonight. Am observing so much here, but what I sense most of all is that this is a church that at its heart passionately loves God, loves people and is seeking to live the Jesus, Kingdom, way of life. As a student who is getting to see all this and is able to comment on things that they either don't see themselves or think is just how every church does things it's great to be able to encourage them. What goes on here is what L. Gregory Jones and Kevin R. Amstrong call excellence in ministry - not perfect, but beautiful none-the-less. They say in Resurrecting Excellence: Shaping faithful Christian ministry that 'beautiful ministry both calls forth and demands the very best we can provide; it calls for excellence in all that we are and do.' (p.g. 20) That is what I see here, and it inspires me.
However, on a different note am suffering from every preacher's worst nightmare ... preacher's block. Am preaching twice this weekend. Once at a new youth worship event that's been set up (Friday night) and once on Sunday morning at the church plant (well, its really a church in its own right - just without a constitution). I have absolutely blinding passages from the Sermon on the Mount, so really its a preacher's dream.
At the youth event have the beattitudes as my theme and through that will be calling the young people to radical discipleship with an oppertunity for them to respond to that as well as an oppertunity for young people to become Christians if that's where they're at. Have sensed what I feel God wants to say, and have a first draft, but am totally unhappy and unsettled with it. Not sure how it needs to change, but it does ... and fast! I think the difficulty is finding some of the points of connection, because it really is a wide-ranging congregation that it's for. But thinking as I write, its more than that. It's putting it together in such a way that it doesn't become a rant or an exegetical sermon that misses the excitment of following Jesus in the risky way that He calls us to. Ahhh, in my head I know what it should sound like, but on paper its not there yet. That's tomorrow's job and prayer is much appreciated for it!!!
Sunday morning is more than half way there, and is from the passages in Matt (4:18-22; 5:13-16) where Jesus calls the first disciples and then calls them to be salt and light. Am going to be looking at what it meant to be called as a disciple of Jesus (Rob Bell's Nooma dvd - Dust really helped solidify what commentators also point out but what we often miss), and then the fact that Jesus called the disciples salt and light before they had ever done anything. He spoke and called out of them the potential that God had placed in them, He believed in them. Those will be the kind of ideas we'll look at, seeking to encourage the congregation so they know who they are and both the command and promises included in these passages.
Am really excited to be preaching again ... feels like its been ages. I love it! Literally love it! It's such a priviledge and joy - especially when it's words like I feel God has laid on my heart for this weekend. But what we realised today is that I'm going to have to be extra aware of my accent. Most of the time people can understand me ok, but sometimes they really can't. Plus the speed I talk at doesn't help ... made worse by the fact I speed up when using any other form of microphone other than tie one (which is what I'll be using on Friday). Am extra conscious of these things here and really pray that nothing of me, whether accent or speed or anything else, gets in the way of what God wants to speak into people's lives. Watch this space for an update of how it goes...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Two weeks in...
Am now two weeks into my placement in Stevenage and loving it!
Here's just some of the things I have attended in some way, shape or form:
Weekly girl's small group
Weekly youth club callled Lounge
Sunday mornings spent with GACC
Sunday evening's spent at Revive
Twinkler's tot's group
Church member's meetings
Elder's and Deacon's meeting
Meeting with Senior Pastor about leadership, church planting and creative homiletics
Meetings with the Youth Pastor about youth work and all kinds of other stuff
Meetings with the Associate Pastor about church planting, leadership, her journey into ministry and the whole 'woman thing' (so grateful to her for that!)
Social action in the Great Ashby community
Weekly staff meeting
Reading / reflecting / writing
Discussions on what makes a Baptist baptist, principles and what we can pick up or drop
Loads of social stuff (ok, so thats not strictly placement time!)
Which has all meant lots of talking, praying, coffee drinking and eating ... I am one happy girl!!!
Am enjoying being here and have received such a warm welcome. Having time to read and reflect has been slightly unusual as normally that is done as and when there is time - am so grateful though to have that time here. Being able to share with people not only passionate about women being in ministry, but who are also women(!) is a great source of encouragement for me. Often it can feel as if there are no role models and you're walking the journey alone in some respects. Here I am beginning to see that is not so much the case, though perhaps as suggested some constructive anger about the state of things is needed.
Have read through an old Whitley Lecture this week S lent me, all about the history of women in Baptist ministry in the England (though there are some references to Scotland) and what it means to talk of 'women and ministry' today. All of this is really helpful in feeding into my continuing journey, as well as shaping my theology. So off I go now to do some more reading, reflecting ... oh and of course no coffee drinking!!!
Here's just some of the things I have attended in some way, shape or form:
Weekly girl's small group
Weekly youth club callled Lounge
Sunday mornings spent with GACC
Sunday evening's spent at Revive
Twinkler's tot's group
Church member's meetings
Elder's and Deacon's meeting
Meeting with Senior Pastor about leadership, church planting and creative homiletics
Meetings with the Youth Pastor about youth work and all kinds of other stuff
Meetings with the Associate Pastor about church planting, leadership, her journey into ministry and the whole 'woman thing' (so grateful to her for that!)
Social action in the Great Ashby community
Weekly staff meeting
Reading / reflecting / writing
Discussions on what makes a Baptist baptist, principles and what we can pick up or drop
Loads of social stuff (ok, so thats not strictly placement time!)
Which has all meant lots of talking, praying, coffee drinking and eating ... I am one happy girl!!!
Am enjoying being here and have received such a warm welcome. Having time to read and reflect has been slightly unusual as normally that is done as and when there is time - am so grateful though to have that time here. Being able to share with people not only passionate about women being in ministry, but who are also women(!) is a great source of encouragement for me. Often it can feel as if there are no role models and you're walking the journey alone in some respects. Here I am beginning to see that is not so much the case, though perhaps as suggested some constructive anger about the state of things is needed.
Have read through an old Whitley Lecture this week S lent me, all about the history of women in Baptist ministry in the England (though there are some references to Scotland) and what it means to talk of 'women and ministry' today. All of this is really helpful in feeding into my continuing journey, as well as shaping my theology. So off I go now to do some more reading, reflecting ... oh and of course no coffee drinking!!!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Packing frenzy ...
Leave for my placement tomorrow morning. Have finally finished packing ... I think ...Have had everything in the case ... then out the case ... then in the case ... then out the case ... then back in the case ...
I can be a nightmare when I'm getting ready to go away. Part of the trouble is that I like to be hyper-organised and prepared. That means that I start gathering stuff together days before I need to. Though it also means that I think I might need everything ... and the kitchen sink!
How do you decide though? What has value? How many books will I need? Can I survive without a complete make-up kit? Do I really need that top ... or that many?
You'd think I was packing to go away for months ... it's only five weeks!!!
Am excited but nervous! Think it will be great placement. I get to work with a female Baptist pastor (yahey!) who oversees a church plant. I get to work with some new young people. I get to stay with someone I don't know yet but that will hopefully be a friend soon. I get to hang out with an old friend some and re-get to know each other. I get to do a bit of small group stuff, a bit of preaching and leading worship, be at a lot of leadership meetings, and maybe even a bit of school CU-ing. I really sense this will be a placement I get a lot out of.
But as much as I get out of it, I also pray that I am a blessing in some way to the church while I'm there. They've been so great in allowing me to come join them for five weeks and get an insight into their lives. I hope that I can give back to them as much as I know they'll give to me.
Oh, have just remembered I forgot to pack the staple Gathering to Worship ... better try find some space while I remember ... oh, and there's my phone charger ... maybe I'm not as packed as I thought ...
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Lord, wake us up ...
Finished my essay today exploring the strengths and weaknesses of ethical preaching as an approach to contemporary homiletics. Instead of being encouraged I actually felt discouraged. Why?
Well, have been having some interesting conversations recently with preachers and those training in preaching and theology. Mention the idea of principalities and powers to them, preaching as an ethic in itself, nonviolent resistance, or anything similar and they just stare at you blankly, think you're strange (though they may be right!), or just keep coming back to preaching on ethical issues. Even when you begin to explain people in general just seem so uninterested. Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!
Have begun reading Walter Wink's trilogy on the powers (thanks to the kindness of someone open-handed with their books and borrowing time-limit!) and as he argues both rightly and persuasively in the first book the language of the powers pervades the New Testament. Put Wink's book aside and just take a flick through a Bible and even in english that much becomes obvious. Wink's extensive study of the original language is concretising that even further and opening up passages I had never seen before.
Why, if we claim to 'preach the Word', and be 'Bible-believing Christians' do we fail to take this seriously or make any attenpt to engage? It seems absurd!
My recent reading of this term has opened up my mind and my theological reflections to begin to realise the need to engage more in the ethics of nonviolent resistance. This has lead to a re-shaping of how I view the practice of preaching, the nature of prophesy, the role of the church ... a whole load of things. My pastor warned me that going to college would mess with my mind, my theology and my life ... he was right ... but in a good way ... maybe.
While I have been re-shaping, re-thinking and re-imagining I have also realised how isolating it can be. As I discuss and reflect there appears to only be a few people who 'get it' are willing to engage ... or have even heard of certain authors etc. It's not that I think my thoughts are above or better than anyone else's, I guess I just expected not to be one of the only ones I know thinking these thoughts in this way.
Perhaps I am just strange. Or perhaps I am experiencing what I have one in several courses - that intense frustration that you just have to work through until you get to the otherside and can live in patience and hope again. Or perhaps borrowing the words of William Stringfellow more needs to be done in terms of 'raising the dead in mind and conscience.'
Why do we not take more seriously the principalities and powers? Why do we not see that Jesus preaching, and indeed his very life, was about nonviolent resistance in the face of these powers that inaugrated a different vision and way of life? Why do we spend so much time focusing on Jesus death that we forget His life was filled with meaning too? Perhaps it is because we are still held captive, or at least live in complicity, to the powers rather than in the resurrected Word that spoke redemption and life? Lord, wake us up!!!
Well, have been having some interesting conversations recently with preachers and those training in preaching and theology. Mention the idea of principalities and powers to them, preaching as an ethic in itself, nonviolent resistance, or anything similar and they just stare at you blankly, think you're strange (though they may be right!), or just keep coming back to preaching on ethical issues. Even when you begin to explain people in general just seem so uninterested. Ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!
Have begun reading Walter Wink's trilogy on the powers (thanks to the kindness of someone open-handed with their books and borrowing time-limit!) and as he argues both rightly and persuasively in the first book the language of the powers pervades the New Testament. Put Wink's book aside and just take a flick through a Bible and even in english that much becomes obvious. Wink's extensive study of the original language is concretising that even further and opening up passages I had never seen before.
Why, if we claim to 'preach the Word', and be 'Bible-believing Christians' do we fail to take this seriously or make any attenpt to engage? It seems absurd!
My recent reading of this term has opened up my mind and my theological reflections to begin to realise the need to engage more in the ethics of nonviolent resistance. This has lead to a re-shaping of how I view the practice of preaching, the nature of prophesy, the role of the church ... a whole load of things. My pastor warned me that going to college would mess with my mind, my theology and my life ... he was right ... but in a good way ... maybe.
While I have been re-shaping, re-thinking and re-imagining I have also realised how isolating it can be. As I discuss and reflect there appears to only be a few people who 'get it' are willing to engage ... or have even heard of certain authors etc. It's not that I think my thoughts are above or better than anyone else's, I guess I just expected not to be one of the only ones I know thinking these thoughts in this way.
Perhaps I am just strange. Or perhaps I am experiencing what I have one in several courses - that intense frustration that you just have to work through until you get to the otherside and can live in patience and hope again. Or perhaps borrowing the words of William Stringfellow more needs to be done in terms of 'raising the dead in mind and conscience.'
Why do we not take more seriously the principalities and powers? Why do we not see that Jesus preaching, and indeed his very life, was about nonviolent resistance in the face of these powers that inaugrated a different vision and way of life? Why do we spend so much time focusing on Jesus death that we forget His life was filled with meaning too? Perhaps it is because we are still held captive, or at least live in complicity, to the powers rather than in the resurrected Word that spoke redemption and life? Lord, wake us up!!!
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Another Campbell quote ...
Ethical preaching, which seeks to renew the church's vision of the world, flows out of the proclamation of Jesus and is inseparable from it. Like the ripples that emerge from a stone thrown in a pond, ethical preaching moves from the new reality inaugurated in Jesus Christ to the new vision of the people of God. From this central proclamation of Jesus, preachers move out into the work of attending to the world and helping people see the world in new ways.(Page 104)
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Campbell's thoughts on worship as an act of resistance ...
Have spent today reading (slowly) more for my Creative Homiletics assignment. Re-read this in Campbell's The Word Before The Powers: An Ethic of Preaching to do with worship and the church as a community of resistance. Perhaps, just perhaps, my concience has been awakened enough from its slumber in the tomb where the stone has been rolled away, for this to affect how I view our church gathered tomorrow.
"In the context of the principalities and powers, Christian worship is fundamentally an act of resistance. As I have noted, what the powers desire most from human beings is our worship; they claim to be the divine regents of the world and to offer us life if we will only serve them... There is no more subversive an act where the powers are concerned than praising the God of Jesus Christ, who has exposed and overcome them...
... By it's very nature, however, Christian worship, even when distorted, involves some level of resistance to the claims of the principalities and powers. In gathering for worship, even contemporary mainline, privileged Christians join this tradition of resistance. Believers not only resist the countless diversions the powers offer up to keep us away from worship on Sunday mornings ... but they also embody their loyalty to the living God, rather than the lesser powers that seek to become idols. While the motives for participating in this practice are varied, and while participating in worship is often routine for many people, preachers can redescribe this practice and remind the church of the life of resistance in which worship implicates them... such redescribed worship becomes the context for nurturing the virtue of hope, which enables the church to resist the powers beyond the liturgy through its life in and for the world."
(Page 142-143)
Bring on the worship of the gathered community tomorrow! What are the words of that song we often sing at EM ... oh yeah ... satan is vanqueshed and Jesus is King. So come let us sing a song, a song declaring we belong to Jesus; He's all we need. Lift up a heart of praise, sing now with voices raised to Jesus; sing to the King.
"In the context of the principalities and powers, Christian worship is fundamentally an act of resistance. As I have noted, what the powers desire most from human beings is our worship; they claim to be the divine regents of the world and to offer us life if we will only serve them... There is no more subversive an act where the powers are concerned than praising the God of Jesus Christ, who has exposed and overcome them...
... By it's very nature, however, Christian worship, even when distorted, involves some level of resistance to the claims of the principalities and powers. In gathering for worship, even contemporary mainline, privileged Christians join this tradition of resistance. Believers not only resist the countless diversions the powers offer up to keep us away from worship on Sunday mornings ... but they also embody their loyalty to the living God, rather than the lesser powers that seek to become idols. While the motives for participating in this practice are varied, and while participating in worship is often routine for many people, preachers can redescribe this practice and remind the church of the life of resistance in which worship implicates them... such redescribed worship becomes the context for nurturing the virtue of hope, which enables the church to resist the powers beyond the liturgy through its life in and for the world."
(Page 142-143)
Bring on the worship of the gathered community tomorrow! What are the words of that song we often sing at EM ... oh yeah ... satan is vanqueshed and Jesus is King. So come let us sing a song, a song declaring we belong to Jesus; He's all we need. Lift up a heart of praise, sing now with voices raised to Jesus; sing to the King.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Today's collect ...
Have been using Reflections for Daily Prayers, a wee devotional book, over the advent period. Wanted something different to the usual devotional readings I use, and so this seemed an ideal choice as it takes it's readings for each day from the Common Worship Weekday Lectionary (see http://www.dailyprayer.org.uk/ for more info). The rhythm it takes and forms has been really enhancing for me.
Today's collect is a particularly beautiful prayer:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
In the words used yesterday:
give us grace faithfully to bear his Name,
to worship him in the freedom of the Spirit,
and to proclaim him as the Saviour of the world.
Amen.
Today's collect is a particularly beautiful prayer:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
In the words used yesterday:
give us grace faithfully to bear his Name,
to worship him in the freedom of the Spirit,
and to proclaim him as the Saviour of the world.
Amen.
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