When the powerful invite the powerless

November 1, 2009 at 8:31 pm · Filed under Christianity, community, emergence ·Tagged , ,

We had a life-giving and hopefilled weekend with Wayne Jacobson in Cape Town, generously hosted by Pete and Margie Lynley.

I loved The Shack (he was a co-author), but had not really read or listened to much of his stuff before the weekend, so on Thursday night, I visited his website www.lifestreams.org and listened to some of his podcasts.  His grace and understanding of Jesus Christ as love and our invitation to know the Father perked my interest for our time with him.

One of the things I loved was the conversation, not one expert up front telling us mere mortals how it should be done.  I don’t think I have ever attended a session/workshop/talk by a ‘visiting guru’ in my thirty years as a follower of Jesus where he asked us what we wanted to talk about and we could also participate in the conversation.

I have had so many conversations about ‘emerging church’, but this was different – real life application, not the theological analysis of the gospels and Acts as to what the early church looked like.  A man, and his wife Sarah, sharing their journey with us about loving Jesus and how that played out when the rubber hit the road of parenting, partners, economics, roles and community.

One of his statements certainly got my attention – ‘transition happens most successfully when the powerful invite the powerless to participate’ – I hope I haven’t misquoted you Wayne.  This stung, as in our little informal gathering of Christians trying to find our way, the guys have invited the girls to step up to the plate and lead our group gatherings for the next while.  I thought this rather amusing, as I figured we would if we wanted to, but the guys were coaxing us to participate more fully and lead.  I now see this invitation might not be egotistical and patronising, but the powerful inviting the powerless to participate.  I have an idea with such an invitation, the women in the group might accept, but in our own way.

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Another language

June 28, 2009 at 9:06 pm · Filed under Christianity, Motherhood, emergence ·Tagged , , , , ,

Today, I learned a new language of prayer – movement.

Being fairly new in the ‘emergent space’, I’m familiar with the standard languages of faith – worship (usually lead by a man with a guitar) and prayer (where we bring our requests before God verbally).  Today in our little spiritual community, we used a new language.

I’ve found this amazing website – blueletter bible.com which has the bible in a number of translations, the greek, commentaries, cross references – on which I had a cursary look at the word prayer:

I’ve summarised the references and not given the details of each translation of the word prayer, but I found six references to prayer -

Palal – plead

Athar – entreat – intercede to make an earnest request

Tephillah – prayer, house of prayer

Proseuche – a prayer addressed to God/ a place set aside for the offering of prayer

Deesis – need, seeking because of being deprived

Euche – vow

And yet I seem to have only one way of praying – speaking, but here I see six different ways of coming before the Lord, interacting with Him.

To give you some more detail of the prayer time lead by Thereasa, we personally drafted three prayer requests, each on a different piece of paper, then we took a few sheets, not our own, and interpreted those prayer requests into a movement.  We spent about 15 minutes ‘praying’ with our repeated movements.

What was additionally meaningful was my five-year old daughter shared this space with me. I read her each prayer request and asked her for a movement that encapsulated the prayer, then we repeated the movements together.  I don’t think she comprehended what we were actually doing, but our movements were seen by the Lord, and our heart attitude.

We move all the time, and I’m hoping that as I ‘change the place or position of’ this week, I will remember the three specific movements that captured the palal, athar, tephillah, proseuche, deesis and euche and hope they’re a sweet fragrance to the nostrils of our God.

Obviously I’m trusting for answered prayer, but the journey has been important – being exposed to a new language, a new way to come to God, vulnerability, the faith of a five-year old, the faith of a 40 something year old, the first hesitant steps in a new dance.

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Another Try at Blogging

June 17, 2009 at 6:55 pm · Filed under Christianity, Motherhood, emergence

I used to procrastinate and after wanting to blog for over a year, I realise that this little character trait that I thought I had conquored, still lurks.

I guess part of me is terrified of putting my thoughts out there for all to see, comment on, accept or sometimes reject – one of my greatest fears, so I guess this is one way to work on that fear – face it!

We have developed a behaviourial change tool – MyCube, have a look at www.mycube4change.co.za if you’d like to see more about it.  But the premise is what you value is evident in what you put your time to and how you respond, so if I value blogging, I’d better create some evidence for that.

I’m not an academic and always think that those with brains and opinions are the ‘real’ bloggers of the world.  I remember once chatting to the technology editor at CapeTalk Radio, and he said – you’re a business owner, a working mother, a PR consultant, a step-mother, a follower of God in the way of Jesus – you have a lot to say!

I’ve just begun reading my first Brian McLaren book – everything must change – and spent two hours online last night (I’m sure I’ve exhausted by Telkom gig allocation!) listening to him on YouTube.  What a paradigm shift.  I have been a woman of faith for over thirty years and I’m not sure whether my faith gave my morality and middle class existance justification, or my morality and middle class existance justified my faith.  Either way, I have to do a lot of rethinking.  How freeing, how exciting to nurse the possibility that there is more to my faith journey.  I guess this is what blogging is about, allowing to surface the thoughts that come to mind and the questions that I’m asking myself.  As Brian McLaren says, to ask questions, puts us on a quest.

So I look forward to seeing the possibilities of my own growth, nurtured by blogging.

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Hello world!

November 27, 2008 at 6:46 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

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