Hello everyone. I am glad that tonight I have the chance to share with you about and transition, grief and loss. In an international community like this we experience all sorts of transitions. Even more than in other types of community. And tonight I will share with you about the biblical grieving model that we talked about in our CA staff conference this past week in Portugal. It is different from the world’s way of doing grief. These four pieces to the grieving process are not just necessary for the loss of a loved one in death. They are relevant every time we experience a transition because every time we have a change of seasons in our lives we must leave behind the past season and our life as we once new it to embrace the current season we are in; loss and all.
Sometimes we are unaware of how these changes affect us. Often the intellectual side knows it is ok to move on. It makes sense. But the emotional side of our brain operates on a different system and often doesn’t understand. We may feel betrayed or abandoned might need to forgive; even if we can see where someone is coming from.
I think it is important to talk about in the open and to share our common experiences.
It has been a challenge for me over the past three years to keep a soft heart in the middle of all the transition taking place around me an in my own world. It takes work to keep a soft heart soft. And look to make deep friendships with people without fear of the loss that will happen.
Some transitions happen to us but others are necessary changes that we make if we are to grow and challenge ourselves to live full lives. But no matter if we choose to make the transition or if it happens to us, along with transition always comes loss; a loss of what once was.
Unless we do this work together we will be unable to reach out to others and have soft hearts to make deep friendships.
The world has a certain way of handling loss and it was studied by Kubler- Ross. And they came up with five stages of the way we handle loss. I will say right away that three of these are not included in the biblical model for handling loss.
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Depression
4. Bargaining
5. Acceptance
Denial, Anger and Bargaining all come from a false perspective on life.
They are all valid emotions that need to be brought out into the light with God and not stuffed but they are not all useful in dealing with reality of the situation.
These false perspectives come form our ideas of “the way things should be”. But do not stop to look at the reality of the situation to see that loss happens all the time in our broken world. We live in a broken world ever since the fall in the garden. We have no guarantee that things will happen the way we want them to. In fact Jesus tells us the opposite is true. He say,
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” –John 16:33
He says that troubles will happen. We are not exempt from them. But he will be with us in the troubles and promises us the peace of knowing that there is a life in a better world after this one to come.
When we come with this perspective we won’t be surprised when things don’t happen the way that we want them to. So the Bible’s response to loss starts with
Acceptance
We believe that God is just and good and that He does not allow worthless things to happen.
When we start with acceptance Psalm 90 tells us it brings us a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90 vs 12 talks about our awareness of death.
“So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.”
Not all of our awareness of loss is about death but each thing we lose is a type of death. When we have awareness we know to “teach us to number our days in _____ ex this job, or with this friend, or in this home. We know that they are not meant to last as they are forever. The problem comes when we watch movies that tell us we should die at the exact same time as our spouse or when we get thoughts that we will always have this car just as nice as it is now etc..
We start to construct Idols when we believe that life is other than it really is. An idol is some distortion designed to exempt us from facing truths.
When we hold on too tightly to anything other than God (like the things we filled into the blank above) we make an idol of it. Even good things like family or jobs can become an idol when we place undue weight on them and are not willing to give them up when God calls us to.
I think that when God called Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he was preventing Abraham from making Isaac into an idol. He had anticipated this promised son for so long and with such great longing that when he received him as God promised there was the danger that Abraham would put more value on who God gave him that on God himself and whenever we put someone or something above God we are creating an idol. God wanted the willingness on Abraham’s part for him to sacrifice Isaac for God. When God saw that Abraham was willing to sacrifice even his only son he knew that Abraham worshiped Him alone. God won’t always call us to sacrifice what is most important to us, in fact He usually doesn’t, but when we are unwilling to sacrifice something we have made an idol of it.
When this experience was done Abraham experienced freedom and blessing that would not be possible otherwise (if he had held on to his idol). When we are not dismantling an idol we can start at acceptance and skip the steps of anger and depression and bargaining.
Sorrow
Jesus was a man of sorrows. Let’s look at John 12:35 It’s about as short of a verse as you can get. Two words.
“Jesus wept.”
Jesus was deeply moved over the loss of his friend Lazarus. And Ecc. Shows that wisdom starts in sorrow. It is beneficial to give us a proper perspective on our fallen world. We know that things aren’t the way that God says they should be.
But Matthew 5:4 Jesus say that those who mourn will be comforted. Grief and morning give us access to comfort and freedom. We can find healing in Christ.
Unhealthy families pretend like nothing happened but healthy families process grief together. They bring it out into the light and are not afraid to talk about it.
Let’s take a look at acts 20:36-38 where Paul is leaving the Ephesians church.
“When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.”
Paul and his church do not shake hands stoically or stuff down all of their emotions. They don’t vent every thought either but they do weep together and pray together and kiss goodbye. They grieve the fact that they will never see Paul again openly and they are aware that this is for real. They don’t live under the illusion that things will be the same, denying the reality of the situation. They don’t bargain with God or get angry with God or each other. They pray to God. They embrace each other and accept the transition and change with grief.
Thankfulness
Thankfulness is the source of relief for grief.
A man who had gone through a very deep loss explains gratefulness in this way. “If all is of grace and nothing is earned and all we have has been given to us by God” than the only appropriate response is thanks.
“All that we have we have received from God” 1 Cor. 4:7
Can we be thankful for the people and things that God put into our lives to color our lives forever? thankful for what they brought you and what they left with you. Thankful that God has used this to shape my soul (loss included- God doesn't allow worthless things to happen). God redeems them.
Ex chris- very impacted by this. Never gave thanks that these people were in his life.
We need to be able to lead our hearts with truth.
Hope
In 1Thessalonians 4 Paul tells believers that “We are not to grieve as the world grieves, as those who have no hope. “Be joyful in hope” Romans 12:12a
Hope leads to joy. Joy is different from happiness. Joy is not contingent on outside circumstances but on hope. Our hope is not in things seen but in eternal things, which are things unseen.
Jesus says in John 11:24-26
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
I like that.
We have hope that Jesus will resurrect thing not only in the next life at the last day but also in this life.
Should not rush these stages. Should not ignore them either.
Nothing we do for God will be wasted. God wastes no investment of yours. So be fully present no matter what circumstance you are in or how long you have because it all counts for something. Each bit of love that we give out matters to God.
My heart behind all this is to ask you to continue to make deep relationships constantly. Don’t be afraid of the pain and loss that may accompany them. Grief is the price of love but surely it is “better to have loved and lost _____________than never to have loved at all.”
We are two weeks away from Rentree and I guess that makes this the last service of this past year and we are about to embark on a new journey and write a new story of ICCP for the coming 50 weeks. By the next time we walk through these doors on Sept 20th a lot will have changed in most of our worlds. School will be in full swing, vacations will be over, new lives will have started. My hope is that we move, fully present and hope filled into this next season as a church. That we will have been able to grieve properly our past season of life. In order for us to welcome in the new people in our lives, the new friends in our lives, the new teachers in our lives- and the new season in our life.
Reflection questions to go with the themed songs
1) Awareness:
Lord teach me to number our days in___________, That I may present to You a heart of wisdom
2) Sorrow:
What change have you experienced that you need to grieve?
3) Thankfulness:
What or who have you lost that you are thankful that God put into your life?
3) Hope:
Q What is your hope for ICCP. Please share it with us by placing it on the back of the blue card.
On the Leaf:
“ Our natural tendency is to live in the past or in the future and avoid the responsibility necessary to live in the moment. I would argue that all three seasons are needed for us to confront reality. There are some who live in the moment without responsibility for the consequences that the past and future demand, while others avoid the moment by worrying and regretting what has happened or might happen.” Hud McW
Leaf:
Q What has God taught you in the present or past season of life? How did you grow?
Q How can God use you in this next season?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Adam's talk at ICCP- July 19, 2009, Solitude to Community to Ministry from Nouwen
Hello, Thanks for giving me the chance to speak with you tonight.
I have to confess that I’m always a little bit nervous to be up front like this,
But what I’m hoping for, is that this will be a little something like karaoke.
Because I’m always nervous before I go up to do some Karaoke but as soon as the first song is over I’m usually left thinking ‘Is that it?” “What’s next?”
For example… We had an amazing kid’s camp last week that fortunately for me, did include some karaoke.
And I knew that I was going to get called up to stage to do some ipod idol for counselor games. For those of you who don’t know what ipod idol is, it is when you are given a song to sing on the ipod and the catch is that the ipod is turned up loud enough that you can’t hear yourself and the audience is left with bad vocals with no accompaniment.
Even though I’ve made a fool of myself in this exact same way several times before I was nervous before I went up on stage. Then I walked up there and got up on stage and as I looked over the faces in the audience , God reminded me that it wasn’t about me. It’s about him. It’s about Jesus.
So… I won my karaoke contest. (sorry Tasha)
But that’s not what’s important.
What was more important were the lessons we took away from kids camp. The kids’ camp talks were based around four important ideas that are applicable to kids and adults alike. And they are (say it with me)
God loves us
God is with us
God can use us
And God is sending us.
The order is important here. We can not move on to the second two without knowing the first two. God using us and sending us are rooted in knowing we are loved by God and that he is with us.
And these four thoughts that we took out of kids camp reminded me of an article that I read a few years back by Henri Nouwen called “Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry” And over the years the ideas behind this article have greatly impacted me.
So that is what I would like to share with you tonight.
And this article is rooted in a scripture verse in Luke, so let’s take a look at Luke 6:12-19.
“12One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
17He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil[a] spirits were cured, 19and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.”
This is a beautiful story that moves from night where Jesus spent the night in solitude with the Father
To morning where he gathered his apostles around him and formed community
To afternoon when Jesus went out with his apostles and preached the word and healed the sick.
Notice the order here:
From solitude to community to ministry
So often in life we want to do things by ourselves. To be independent.
If that doesn’t work we go to other people looking for the community to help us.
And if that doesn’t work, maybe then we’ll start praying.
But the order that Jesus teaches us is the reverse.
-It begins by being with God
-Then moves into fellowship
-And finally this ‘community of people with whom the mission is being lived’ go out together to heal and proclaim the good news.
A note here is that when Henri Nouwen talks about healing he is not just talking about physical healing. But about emotional healing, spiritual healing, relational healing, healing of our thoughts, and our way of life.
So why is it so important that you spend time alone with God?
It’s important because it’s the place where you can listen to the voice of the one who calls you ‘beloved’. In prayer we let that voice speak to the center of our being, to our guts, and let that voice resound in our selves.
There are many other voices speaking loudly:
‘Prove that you are beloved’
‘Prove that you are worth something’
‘Prove that you have a contribution to make’
‘Do something relevant’
‘Be sure you make a name for yourself’
‘Get power’
Then people will love you. Then people will say that you’re wonderful, that you’re great.
These voices are strong in this world.
These were the voices that Jesus heard right after he hear ‘You are my beloved’ at his baptism when he was tempted in the desert. And Jesus said to the tempter ‘No I don’t have to prove anything because I know that I am already the beloved.’
Jesus lived as the beloved. And whether people were applauding him or laughing at him; calling "Hosanna!" or yelling to "Crucify him. Jesus knew that he was the beloved.
And in our lives, long before you were rejected by someone or praised by someone else God’s voice has been there saying ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’. And if you keep that in mind you can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without loosing your identity.
Jesus spent time alone with the Father. And we need to spend time alone with God. Listening to his voice too.
This is where we encounter the Lord of life.
We spend time with God first of all to be with him alone.
Our primary task is to keep the eyes of our mind and heart firmly fixed on Him. Time spent alone with God is where we develop our relationship with God. All relationships take time where we focus on the other person. God is with us always but he reveals himself to us in a special way when we focus our mind and our heart on him.
In the spiritual life, the word discipline means
"the effort to create some space in which God can act." Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.
In our quiet times with God we get rid of our scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, nothing to distract, just me- and God. We may find that in this empty quiet space worries of the day, strange images, and weird associations come to mind. We’ll start thinking about the phone call we need to make or the work assignment that you just figured out. And all these thoughts jump about, as Henri Nouwen puts it, “like monkeys in a banana tree.”
It's not easy to sit and trust that in solitude God will speak to you— not as a magical voice but that he will let you know something gradually over the years.
It is right in the middle of our struggle with our worldly self that God comes to us.
He is beside us in all of it. God is with us.
As we come to realize that we are connected with the same Christ who died so that we could be restored to himself and that he loves us so much that he lives in us, then we can take off our masks, and begin to experience freedom as God’s beloved children. We have freedom to be molded into Christ's image, freedom to mature in him, freedom to love and freedom from sin. . And It is only in Christ's grace and unconditional love that we can face our sin, show our wounds, and face our true self.
This type of encounter challenges us to hide nothing from God and to surrender ourselves unconditionally to his mercy.
“In doing this we will unmask many illusions about ourselves and about God and we will be led into the true relationship we are purposed to have with God.”
Time spend alone with God is a time of
Purification and
transformation,
It’s a place of struggle,
and of and encounter with the Lord.
This time is not only a means to an end. It's ends are met within it.
It is the place where Christ transforms us into his image and frees us from false desires. It’s a place of salvation.
We can come in with a heart of stone and that can be turned into a heart of flesh. A rebellious heart can be turned into a contrite heart. A closed heart can open itself up.
A whole new self can grow when we have a loving encounter with Jesus.
Time spent with God will renew our minds as well as descend slowly from the mind to the heart.
“The crisis our time (in scripture and prayer) is that our minds are filled with the ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.”
The heart is the central unifying piece of our personal life where we are totally one with no divisions. It is the seat of our personality and it is where Christ dwells in us
So what does this mean in our daily lives?
The very first thing we need to do is set apart a time and place to be with God and him alone. The concrete shape of this discipline of solitude will be different for each person but will not remain vague or general. It must be as concrete and specific as daily life is.
Before I moved to France I was much more dependant on my friends to fulfill me, to affirm me, to give me worth and feed me spiritually. I have to confess that I did not spend a lot of time alone with God. So I found myself running around from person to person asking them to fulfill me.
But when we moved to France we left all those friends behind as well as our families and church and jobs and anything else that gave us roots or security. I had to depend on God more because He was all I had to look to. Everyone else was new. But sometime the times that are the most difficult can be the most rewarding. God worked in me to satisfy my soul and find my true identity in him like never before.
I see it like a prism. When the people we know are connecting with God they shine in God’s light, but it is filtered light, like through a prism. Some giving off red light others blue others yellow, so we run around trying to gather all that we need from the people around us. But this is impossible. We will never have enough time or energy to gather all the encouragement and kindness and love and patience that we need to be full.
But when we come to God, the source of all light, we receive pure white light. And within white light there are all the colors of the rainbow. All that we need to be satisfied. There’s every color of the spectrum. And in just a short time each day of that pure God light we can be satisfied.
Solitude is where spiritual ministry begins. That's where Jesus listened to God. That's where we listen to God. Because without time spent with God we will look to others begging for affirmation, praise or success. And then we are not free.
Community
It's in that communion with God, that we discover the call to community. It's remarkable that solitude Will always call us out to other people to live life together.
And by community we are talking about families, friends, churches, prayer groups.
By community we are not talking about an organization; community is a way of living:
Community is not easy. Somebody once said, "Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives." In Jesus' community one of twelve apostles betrays him.
Why is it so important that solitude come before community? This is a quote that I’d like you to reflect on:
‘If we do not know we are the beloved sons and daughters of God, we're going to expect someone in the community to make us feel that way. They cannot. We'll expect someone to give us that perfect, unconditional love. But community is not loneliness grabbing onto loneliness: "I'm so lonely, and you're so lonely.’ It's beloved grabbing onto beloved.
Sometimes you are close, and that's wonderful. Sometimes you don't feel much love, and that's hard. But we can be faithful. We can create a space for God to move and for his children.
I once had a conversation with someone who was about to leave France. I asked this person what their initial impressions of some people were, expecting to hear good thing, but what came out was a lot of judgment and negativity. This person had been going through a big life change and this caused increased judgment of others.
Fortunately when we moved to the next question of ‘What will you take back with you?’ This person answered ‘Community’. They had made a commitment to community and despite their initial reactions they stuck with it. And in the end it was the main thing that they will take home with them.
Why this is so important to us here at ICCP is that so many of us are in this same place of being uprooted from our worlds and placed in a totally new culture, school, language, church, group of friends, world. And along with this can come increased insecurities and fears or increased judgment like in the case of this friend that I had mentioned. So the importance of commitment to community is really heightened.
I have found that the same people that may not connect with you at first can become the closest to you. In times of change like this God opens up our minds to not just seek out people who are just like me but to look to people who are different from us to draw into community with. And God will teach us much more about life and ourselves and himself through these type of relationships than he even does with the types of safe relationships we seek out.
Key pieces of a healthy community are forgiveness and celebration.
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness allows the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, "I know you love me, but you don't have to love me unconditionally, because no human being can do that."
If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we act wickedly and before we know it we become demanding or manipulative or violent.
To forgive other people for being able to give you only a little love—that's a hard discipline.
To keep asking others for forgiveness because you can give only a little love—that's a hard discipline too.
It hurts to say to your spouse or to your friends, that you cannot give them all that you would like to give. But this is where community starts to be created,
True life in Christ is lived in this way. Through confession, the dark powers are taken out of their fleshy isolation, brought into the light, and made visible.
There is nothing we should not bring into God’s light. There is nothing too ugly or damaging for us to bring before God. When things remain in darkness we will not be healed but in the light there is hope and forgiveness. Through forgiveness, these things are disarmed and put away with and a new freedom is made possible."
This is where celebration comes in because If you can forgive that another person cannot give you what only God can give, then you can celebrate that person's gifts.
We start to see the love that person is giving us as a reflection of God's great unconditional love.
"Love one another because I have loved you first."
When we know that is God’s love filtering through the people around us, we can start to see that their love is the reflection of his. And we can celebrate that and say, "How beautiful!"
Ministry
That leads us onto ministry.
All followers of Jesus are called to ministry.
Ministry is not, first of all, something that you do (although it calls you to do many things). Ministry is life style. If you receive God’s love and remember his first commandment, to love God with our whole heart and mind and strength and will and soul and all of us. And to love others. And if you keep forgiving those that you formed community and keep celebrate their gifts, you can’t do anything but minister. God will work in lives of those around you and the kingdom will grow and expand.
Gratitude and compassion are two key elements of ministry.
Gratitude- Healing happens by leading people into gratitude. The world is full of resentment. We say “This isn’t the way I want things." As time passes, there are more and more things we become negative about, and soon we can become resentful people.
Resentment makes you hold onto your failures or disappointments. Then we complain about the losses in your life. Life is full of losses— losses of dreams ,friends ,family ,hopes. So we want to respond to these incredible pains with resentment. It’s resentment that gives us a hardened heart.
But Jesus calls us to gratitude. He says, "Didn't you know that we have to suffer to enter into the glory? He compares the pain to labor pains. that lead you to the joy.
How much can you be grateful for?
Can you be grateful for everything that has happened in your life?—not just the good things but everything?
It was Jesus’ pains that led us into a restored relationship with God
In ministry we help others to let go of the resentment, to discover that right in the middle of pain there is a blessing. Right in the middle of your tears—that's where the dance starts and joy is first felt.
In this upside-down world, there's an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they're never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.
Jesus says, "Cry over your pains,and you will discover that I'm right there in your tears, and you will be grateful for my presence in your weakness."
To minister, you have to be where the pain is. Sometimes that pain is hidden in a person who from the outside might look painless or successful. In Aix there are a lot of people like this, who look fine from the outside but are full of pain and loneliness on the inside.
We are sent to wherever there is poverty, loneliness, and suffering. Sometimes this is physical poverty and other times it is spiritual or emotional poverty but we must be with the people.
If we look back to our four ideas from kids camp #2 is that ‘God is with us.’ He is with us in the pain and in the joy and he is calling us to be with the people we minister to. Not separate.
“Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead... But how can we lay down our life for those with whom we are not even allowed to enter into a deep personal relationship? Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.”
God is with us
God is calling us
But don't be afraid. Don't say, "I can't do that." God can use us. Even in the midst of our brokenness and imperfections.
The people the have ministered most to me in my life were not perfect people, but people who loved God the most and were not afraid to be with me in my struggles and in my celebrations.
What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of your life you might not see yourself but we can trust that they are there. The fruit of your life are born often in your pain and your vulnerability and in your losses.
Solitude, community, ministry— these disciplines help us live a fruitful life. Remain in Jesus; he remains in you. You will bear many fruits, you will have great joy, and your joy will be complete.
Let’s pray together.
May we walk in the light of your life all the days of our lives and dwell in the house of the lord forever.
Based on Henri Nouwen's 'Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry'
'Way of the Heart'
'In the Name of Jesus'
I have to confess that I’m always a little bit nervous to be up front like this,
But what I’m hoping for, is that this will be a little something like karaoke.
Because I’m always nervous before I go up to do some Karaoke but as soon as the first song is over I’m usually left thinking ‘Is that it?” “What’s next?”
For example… We had an amazing kid’s camp last week that fortunately for me, did include some karaoke.
And I knew that I was going to get called up to stage to do some ipod idol for counselor games. For those of you who don’t know what ipod idol is, it is when you are given a song to sing on the ipod and the catch is that the ipod is turned up loud enough that you can’t hear yourself and the audience is left with bad vocals with no accompaniment.
Even though I’ve made a fool of myself in this exact same way several times before I was nervous before I went up on stage. Then I walked up there and got up on stage and as I looked over the faces in the audience , God reminded me that it wasn’t about me. It’s about him. It’s about Jesus.
So… I won my karaoke contest. (sorry Tasha)
But that’s not what’s important.
What was more important were the lessons we took away from kids camp. The kids’ camp talks were based around four important ideas that are applicable to kids and adults alike. And they are (say it with me)
God loves us
God is with us
God can use us
And God is sending us.
The order is important here. We can not move on to the second two without knowing the first two. God using us and sending us are rooted in knowing we are loved by God and that he is with us.
And these four thoughts that we took out of kids camp reminded me of an article that I read a few years back by Henri Nouwen called “Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry” And over the years the ideas behind this article have greatly impacted me.
So that is what I would like to share with you tonight.
And this article is rooted in a scripture verse in Luke, so let’s take a look at Luke 6:12-19.
“12One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
17He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil[a] spirits were cured, 19and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.”
This is a beautiful story that moves from night where Jesus spent the night in solitude with the Father
To morning where he gathered his apostles around him and formed community
To afternoon when Jesus went out with his apostles and preached the word and healed the sick.
Notice the order here:
From solitude to community to ministry
So often in life we want to do things by ourselves. To be independent.
If that doesn’t work we go to other people looking for the community to help us.
And if that doesn’t work, maybe then we’ll start praying.
But the order that Jesus teaches us is the reverse.
-It begins by being with God
-Then moves into fellowship
-And finally this ‘community of people with whom the mission is being lived’ go out together to heal and proclaim the good news.
A note here is that when Henri Nouwen talks about healing he is not just talking about physical healing. But about emotional healing, spiritual healing, relational healing, healing of our thoughts, and our way of life.
So why is it so important that you spend time alone with God?
It’s important because it’s the place where you can listen to the voice of the one who calls you ‘beloved’. In prayer we let that voice speak to the center of our being, to our guts, and let that voice resound in our selves.
There are many other voices speaking loudly:
‘Prove that you are beloved’
‘Prove that you are worth something’
‘Prove that you have a contribution to make’
‘Do something relevant’
‘Be sure you make a name for yourself’
‘Get power’
Then people will love you. Then people will say that you’re wonderful, that you’re great.
These voices are strong in this world.
These were the voices that Jesus heard right after he hear ‘You are my beloved’ at his baptism when he was tempted in the desert. And Jesus said to the tempter ‘No I don’t have to prove anything because I know that I am already the beloved.’
Jesus lived as the beloved. And whether people were applauding him or laughing at him; calling "Hosanna!" or yelling to "Crucify him. Jesus knew that he was the beloved.
And in our lives, long before you were rejected by someone or praised by someone else God’s voice has been there saying ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’. And if you keep that in mind you can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without loosing your identity.
Jesus spent time alone with the Father. And we need to spend time alone with God. Listening to his voice too.
This is where we encounter the Lord of life.
We spend time with God first of all to be with him alone.
Our primary task is to keep the eyes of our mind and heart firmly fixed on Him. Time spent alone with God is where we develop our relationship with God. All relationships take time where we focus on the other person. God is with us always but he reveals himself to us in a special way when we focus our mind and our heart on him.
In the spiritual life, the word discipline means
"the effort to create some space in which God can act." Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.
In our quiet times with God we get rid of our scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, nothing to distract, just me- and God. We may find that in this empty quiet space worries of the day, strange images, and weird associations come to mind. We’ll start thinking about the phone call we need to make or the work assignment that you just figured out. And all these thoughts jump about, as Henri Nouwen puts it, “like monkeys in a banana tree.”
It's not easy to sit and trust that in solitude God will speak to you— not as a magical voice but that he will let you know something gradually over the years.
It is right in the middle of our struggle with our worldly self that God comes to us.
He is beside us in all of it. God is with us.
As we come to realize that we are connected with the same Christ who died so that we could be restored to himself and that he loves us so much that he lives in us, then we can take off our masks, and begin to experience freedom as God’s beloved children. We have freedom to be molded into Christ's image, freedom to mature in him, freedom to love and freedom from sin. . And It is only in Christ's grace and unconditional love that we can face our sin, show our wounds, and face our true self.
This type of encounter challenges us to hide nothing from God and to surrender ourselves unconditionally to his mercy.
“In doing this we will unmask many illusions about ourselves and about God and we will be led into the true relationship we are purposed to have with God.”
Time spend alone with God is a time of
Purification and
transformation,
It’s a place of struggle,
and of and encounter with the Lord.
This time is not only a means to an end. It's ends are met within it.
It is the place where Christ transforms us into his image and frees us from false desires. It’s a place of salvation.
We can come in with a heart of stone and that can be turned into a heart of flesh. A rebellious heart can be turned into a contrite heart. A closed heart can open itself up.
A whole new self can grow when we have a loving encounter with Jesus.
Time spent with God will renew our minds as well as descend slowly from the mind to the heart.
“The crisis our time (in scripture and prayer) is that our minds are filled with the ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.”
The heart is the central unifying piece of our personal life where we are totally one with no divisions. It is the seat of our personality and it is where Christ dwells in us
So what does this mean in our daily lives?
The very first thing we need to do is set apart a time and place to be with God and him alone. The concrete shape of this discipline of solitude will be different for each person but will not remain vague or general. It must be as concrete and specific as daily life is.
Before I moved to France I was much more dependant on my friends to fulfill me, to affirm me, to give me worth and feed me spiritually. I have to confess that I did not spend a lot of time alone with God. So I found myself running around from person to person asking them to fulfill me.
But when we moved to France we left all those friends behind as well as our families and church and jobs and anything else that gave us roots or security. I had to depend on God more because He was all I had to look to. Everyone else was new. But sometime the times that are the most difficult can be the most rewarding. God worked in me to satisfy my soul and find my true identity in him like never before.
I see it like a prism. When the people we know are connecting with God they shine in God’s light, but it is filtered light, like through a prism. Some giving off red light others blue others yellow, so we run around trying to gather all that we need from the people around us. But this is impossible. We will never have enough time or energy to gather all the encouragement and kindness and love and patience that we need to be full.
But when we come to God, the source of all light, we receive pure white light. And within white light there are all the colors of the rainbow. All that we need to be satisfied. There’s every color of the spectrum. And in just a short time each day of that pure God light we can be satisfied.
Solitude is where spiritual ministry begins. That's where Jesus listened to God. That's where we listen to God. Because without time spent with God we will look to others begging for affirmation, praise or success. And then we are not free.
Community
It's in that communion with God, that we discover the call to community. It's remarkable that solitude Will always call us out to other people to live life together.
And by community we are talking about families, friends, churches, prayer groups.
By community we are not talking about an organization; community is a way of living:
Community is not easy. Somebody once said, "Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives." In Jesus' community one of twelve apostles betrays him.
Why is it so important that solitude come before community? This is a quote that I’d like you to reflect on:
‘If we do not know we are the beloved sons and daughters of God, we're going to expect someone in the community to make us feel that way. They cannot. We'll expect someone to give us that perfect, unconditional love. But community is not loneliness grabbing onto loneliness: "I'm so lonely, and you're so lonely.’ It's beloved grabbing onto beloved.
Sometimes you are close, and that's wonderful. Sometimes you don't feel much love, and that's hard. But we can be faithful. We can create a space for God to move and for his children.
I once had a conversation with someone who was about to leave France. I asked this person what their initial impressions of some people were, expecting to hear good thing, but what came out was a lot of judgment and negativity. This person had been going through a big life change and this caused increased judgment of others.
Fortunately when we moved to the next question of ‘What will you take back with you?’ This person answered ‘Community’. They had made a commitment to community and despite their initial reactions they stuck with it. And in the end it was the main thing that they will take home with them.
Why this is so important to us here at ICCP is that so many of us are in this same place of being uprooted from our worlds and placed in a totally new culture, school, language, church, group of friends, world. And along with this can come increased insecurities and fears or increased judgment like in the case of this friend that I had mentioned. So the importance of commitment to community is really heightened.
I have found that the same people that may not connect with you at first can become the closest to you. In times of change like this God opens up our minds to not just seek out people who are just like me but to look to people who are different from us to draw into community with. And God will teach us much more about life and ourselves and himself through these type of relationships than he even does with the types of safe relationships we seek out.
Key pieces of a healthy community are forgiveness and celebration.
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness allows the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, "I know you love me, but you don't have to love me unconditionally, because no human being can do that."
If we want other people to give us something that only God can give, we act wickedly and before we know it we become demanding or manipulative or violent.
To forgive other people for being able to give you only a little love—that's a hard discipline.
To keep asking others for forgiveness because you can give only a little love—that's a hard discipline too.
It hurts to say to your spouse or to your friends, that you cannot give them all that you would like to give. But this is where community starts to be created,
True life in Christ is lived in this way. Through confession, the dark powers are taken out of their fleshy isolation, brought into the light, and made visible.
There is nothing we should not bring into God’s light. There is nothing too ugly or damaging for us to bring before God. When things remain in darkness we will not be healed but in the light there is hope and forgiveness. Through forgiveness, these things are disarmed and put away with and a new freedom is made possible."
This is where celebration comes in because If you can forgive that another person cannot give you what only God can give, then you can celebrate that person's gifts.
We start to see the love that person is giving us as a reflection of God's great unconditional love.
"Love one another because I have loved you first."
When we know that is God’s love filtering through the people around us, we can start to see that their love is the reflection of his. And we can celebrate that and say, "How beautiful!"
Ministry
That leads us onto ministry.
All followers of Jesus are called to ministry.
Ministry is not, first of all, something that you do (although it calls you to do many things). Ministry is life style. If you receive God’s love and remember his first commandment, to love God with our whole heart and mind and strength and will and soul and all of us. And to love others. And if you keep forgiving those that you formed community and keep celebrate their gifts, you can’t do anything but minister. God will work in lives of those around you and the kingdom will grow and expand.
Gratitude and compassion are two key elements of ministry.
Gratitude- Healing happens by leading people into gratitude. The world is full of resentment. We say “This isn’t the way I want things." As time passes, there are more and more things we become negative about, and soon we can become resentful people.
Resentment makes you hold onto your failures or disappointments. Then we complain about the losses in your life. Life is full of losses— losses of dreams ,friends ,family ,hopes. So we want to respond to these incredible pains with resentment. It’s resentment that gives us a hardened heart.
But Jesus calls us to gratitude. He says, "Didn't you know that we have to suffer to enter into the glory? He compares the pain to labor pains. that lead you to the joy.
How much can you be grateful for?
Can you be grateful for everything that has happened in your life?—not just the good things but everything?
It was Jesus’ pains that led us into a restored relationship with God
In ministry we help others to let go of the resentment, to discover that right in the middle of pain there is a blessing. Right in the middle of your tears—that's where the dance starts and joy is first felt.
In this upside-down world, there's an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they're never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.
Jesus says, "Cry over your pains,and you will discover that I'm right there in your tears, and you will be grateful for my presence in your weakness."
To minister, you have to be where the pain is. Sometimes that pain is hidden in a person who from the outside might look painless or successful. In Aix there are a lot of people like this, who look fine from the outside but are full of pain and loneliness on the inside.
We are sent to wherever there is poverty, loneliness, and suffering. Sometimes this is physical poverty and other times it is spiritual or emotional poverty but we must be with the people.
If we look back to our four ideas from kids camp #2 is that ‘God is with us.’ He is with us in the pain and in the joy and he is calling us to be with the people we minister to. Not separate.
“Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead... But how can we lay down our life for those with whom we are not even allowed to enter into a deep personal relationship? Laying down your life means making your own faith and doubt, hope and despair, joy and sadness, courage and fear available to others as ways of getting in touch with the Lord of life. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.”
God is with us
God is calling us
But don't be afraid. Don't say, "I can't do that." God can use us. Even in the midst of our brokenness and imperfections.
The people the have ministered most to me in my life were not perfect people, but people who loved God the most and were not afraid to be with me in my struggles and in my celebrations.
What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of your life you might not see yourself but we can trust that they are there. The fruit of your life are born often in your pain and your vulnerability and in your losses.
Solitude, community, ministry— these disciplines help us live a fruitful life. Remain in Jesus; he remains in you. You will bear many fruits, you will have great joy, and your joy will be complete.
Let’s pray together.
May we walk in the light of your life all the days of our lives and dwell in the house of the lord forever.
Based on Henri Nouwen's 'Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry'
'Way of the Heart'
'In the Name of Jesus'
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