Intentional Faith Development - Make Up Your Mind!

Well, first of all I'll let you know we didn't quite make it to Risk Taking Mission and Service, but we did clarify a few points a bit more, and this clarity will help us as we move from introspection and putting ourselves right to reaching out and focusing on others. I think you can best sum it up by requiring that we make up our minds, or choose our behaviors and beliefs.

Make up your mind to see things in a different way! Look at worship, faith development, hospitality, mission and generosity from new perspectives, from no framework and ask what they can be.

Make up your mind to be open to new ways of doing the same things! Does the Sunday morning service really always have to look the same? Can we change the way we do our Easter Egg hunt and be more relevant and reach more people?

Make up your mind to retain and honor traditional services and forms! We don't need to throw out the baby with the bath water. If we lose sight of where we come from it will be impossible to see where we are heading.

Make up your mind to try to be all things to all people - within reason! The main risk we identified in doing this is exhausting your resources, so be reasonable but be open.

Make up your mind to admit to being imperfect and enjoy the journey toward perfection (Thank you John Wesley!) Recognize that we aren't going to get it right the first time, every time. But don't let that stop you from trying.

Make up your mind to just do it!

Next week will definitely be Risk Taking Mission and Service. See you then!

Intentional Faith Development - We Are Family

"They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers." Acts 2:42 The Message

We have been invited and welcomed (Radical Hospitality), we have experienced God (Passionate Worship), and now it is time to "...probe God's will for (our) lives and the world."(p63) Schnase defines Faith Development as when we "...mature in faith by learning together in community."(p62) During our discussion we clarified our view of faith development as a casual group experience that consists of give and take, back and forth, exploration and questioning. We felt it was important to qualify the group as supportive and nurturing of its members. Our weekly group gives us permission to be human and admit that sometimes our minds wander while in the worship service, we pray help-help-help when in the midst of a crisis and thank you-thank you-thank you when we recognize the good God has done for us, basically to admit that more often than not we are pretty shallow in our faith. But, it is in this small group setting that we find the safety, comfort and support that allow us to delve more deeply into our faith, to more clearly articulate our individual beliefs, to realize and understand that we are each at a different place in our faith journey (and we are exactly where we are supposed to be), to know that God works uniquely in each of our lives, to turn our focus outward by helping others and discovering that in the process we reap tremendous rewards. As Methodists we find this a natural echo of Wesley's small groups, but not as scary as we imagine his covenant groups to have been. We decided that like Passionate Worship, we cannot impose Intentional Faith Development on individuals. We can only provide a wide and varied assortment of opportunities for individuals to learn more about God and his will for their life. I knew an administrator who used to say, "All of us know better than one or some of us." That certainly appears to be the case with Intentional Faith Development.

Be ready to venture into Risk-Taking Mission and Service next week!

Passionate Worship – We Walk the Line…

Today we talked about how achieving and/or providing a passionate worship experience is walking a fine line. You need to be intentional but spontaneous, entertaining but not entertainment, caring but not intrusive, focused as a congregation but not rule-bound, informal but not exclusive, worshipful and joyful. It is a balancing act, but what if every activity in the church was a worship experience? And what if we each prepared ourselves for a worship experience, not a worship service? Schnase says, "What each person brings to worship shapes the experience for everyone as much as what he or she finds there. Passionate Worship begins with each worshiping individual." (p55) We agreed unanimously on that point and on the words of our pastor, "... one hour of Passionate Worship changes all the other hours of the week..."

"I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line" --Johnny Cash

Next week we will begin Intentional Faith Development, and we will be prepared to go on to Risk-Taking Mission and Service. Read along and join us in person or here.

Passionate Worship - Close Encoutners...

Just what is worship? We struggled a bit again this week with the differences in how we each define worship, and then trying to guess how visitors would describe it. Schnase defines it in this way: “Worship describes those times we gather deliberately seeking to encounter God in Christ. We cultivate our relationship with God and with one another as the people of God.” (P33) If it is really that simple then why is the form so important to each of us? And how do we move beyond our own personal need for a particular format? And, even more importantly, how does a congregation offer a worship experience that meets the needs of all of its members? We discussed amongst ourselves (thank you Linda Richman) until the consensus was that it requires each one of us assuming responsibility for our own relationship with God, approaching a worship service as an opportunity to encounter God. Each needs to see that worship is not simply confined to the weekend services in the sanctuary, but is a part of our own individual devotions and practices, the attitude with which we approach life. If we can do that, then we can move on to passionate worship. Schnase says, “Passionate describes an intense desire, an ardent spirit, strong feelings, and the sense of heightened importance. Passionate speaks of an emotional connection that goes beyond intellectual consent. It connotes eagerness, anticipation, expectancy, deep commitment and belief.” (P37) How do you create and maintain that eagerness and expectancy of and encounter with God?

Passionate Worship is...?

The chapter on Passionate Worship opens with Psalm 84:1-2: "What a beautiful home, God-of-the-Angel-Armies! I've always longed to live in a place like this, Always dreamed of a room in your house, where I could sing for joy to God-alive! (The Message) These verses certainly convey a passionate desire to praise and be in relationship with God. I think we understood the passionate part pretty well, but I felt that we got hung up on the worship part. One of us pointed out that worship is a verb, and we had a lot of discussion that focused on the forms of worship – the conventions like the prelude (or gathering music), need for or lack of focus on introspection, desire for a quiet and contemplative mood, song, prayer. We seemed to get really stuck on those forms and what we each thought they should be. Maybe we need to stretch ourselves a bit to think in terms of backward design – start with the purpose/end result and then build a worship service in our minds that provides a passionate experience that connects all of us with God and the body of Christ as a community. What would happen this week if each one of us, as ardently we can, prepared passionately for worship?