We meet around a cozy fireplace, coffee and bagels in hand. As we engage with one another, we soon learn everyone in the room has a back story to share. It drives our personal vision for a care ministry to the forefront of mission. We go around the room, listing our spiritual gifts and holy calling. We explain what brings us to this gathering in this particular point in time.
Dialogue is encouraged and we slowly get a glimpse of each others' journeys. Passion to help others from brokenness to healing is deeply expressed. By the time the circle of sharing is complete, my heart fills with gratitude for this new connection to people I've just met.
I wonder, how often do we rush by getting to know someone for the purpose of knowing something is getting done?
Talk ensues, not about developing a plan, but about the need for prayer; prayer for leadership, prayer for the next step, and prayer for the ministry. On paper, it may appear that not a lot was accomplished.
But by the end of our morning together, an intercessory prayer ministry is birthed! Two volunteer to gather intercessors to pray for God's leading, his covering, and his will. We leave with the charge for prayer to be our focus as well. Prayer becomes the bones, the infrastructure of ministry. Prayer bones become the anatomy of this new work for the church.
Since our "organizational" meeting, I've been asking some questions. What is the anatomy, the shape and structure of my ministry of care to others?
Is prayer the skeleton, the bones that provide for the structure to stand and live?
I believe the challenge God is speaking here is to dissect the anatomy of our ministries, our work, our care and our relationships. When the "body" is examined, is it prayer that we find?
donna
In the (local / district / denominational) church there is an exoskeleton that we rely on for protection, safety, security, and structure. Commonly called "The constitution and bylaws," we run to it and pull it tightly about ourselves whenever the slightest wind of chaos comes our way. Everything that is the church happens within this exoskeleton. And like insects, when we get too cramped or uncomfortable with the current shell we want to moult and grow a new one. In fact, it seems to me that much of what is called "ministry leadership literature" these days is really about "moulting management."
ReplyDeleteYou're talking about prayer as an endoskeleton, though, and I can tell you that in the church that makes people uncomfortable. We can at least see the exoskeleton, and have a good idea of what it's supposed to do. But when you start talking about prayer as an endoskeleton, suddenly the whole picture of the church changes. The images becomes changeable and uncertain. One human's skeleton is pretty much like another's, but the outsides are vastly different. And they change over time, depending on a lot of factors. Who wants a church that's so mutable, we ask. Isn't it better to go with what has always worked?
But the exoskeletons haven't always worked - ask Gregor Samsa, who died of despair in his. The endoskeleton of prayer has. We are human beings, not insects. The model of the church in Scripture is the body of Christ, not the body of a grasshopper. Yes, that's a flexible, uncertain, changeable, dangerous-looking concept - why, to be that kind of church might mean we might get persecuted or hurt or made fun of or even crucified!
Personally, I like my exoskeleton. It's composed of several protective and admirable segments like my false selves, my coping mechanisms, my avoidance behaviors, and other things I've taken refuge in over the years. To shed this all and stand as a human being with the internal skeleton of prayer at times seems threatening, but it's only when I come out of that shell that I am able to minister in care, love, and compassion to those around me.
What a great extension of the analogy of anatomy of prayer!
ReplyDeleteYour comments and posts are incredibly creative and helpful analogies. Today I will pray for God to give us softened "exoskeletons" that will fall away to reveal Him in us. Grace and Peace!
ReplyDelete