Year: 2018
Advent Week 2: Timeless Moments with God
By Natalie LaValley
In the previous blog, I wrote about waiting. I’m going to return to the lines I quoted from T.S. Eliot’s poem “East Coker.”
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faithBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
In the first line, Eliot connects waiting to stillness. Or rather, stillness is a prerequisite to proper waiting. That can be hard to pull off during Advent. December is notorious for its busyness–there’s so much shopping, wrapping, decorating, baking, and traveling. It can become a time fraught with stress from financial pressures, activity, year-end deadlines, and family drama.
Why is stillness important in Advent? Stillness clears our minds so that we remember what we are waiting for. We typically blame consumerism for taking away from the “real meaning” of Christmas, but busyness is just as much the culprit. In fact, busyness and consumerism feed into each other. When you’re stressed, buying things or shopping online can create an addictive sense of temporary excitement or accomplishment. But shopping adds to the busyness, and so the vicious cycle begins. All the activity and consumption serves to overload our brains. When we practice stillness, we give our brains a chance to calm down so our minds can recenter on Christ.
There’s copious amounts of research showing why stillness is good for mental health, and it makes perfect sense that what is good for our souls is good for our bodies as well. Many people practice meditation purely for the health benefits. So if secular people are practicing stillness, shouldn’t we also be practicing it for our spiritual as well as physical health?
You don’t have to go to a monastery to incorporate some stillness into your life. Maybe it means shopping ahead so you have less to do during December (I know, too late for that now). Or maybe it means deciding you don’t have to put up all those lights or go to all those stores when a gift card will do. Perhaps with that extra time, you can spend thirty minutes reading and meditating on the Psalms. Or spend the first fifteen minutes of your morning in prayer.
The point is not to follow a legalistic procedure that you feel guilted into because some Christian writers are telling you that Christmas is too consumerist and busy. Stillness is so much deeper than that. It’s the place, the timeless moment, where God can quietly reorder your mind and heart.
Advent Week 1: God’s Presence in The Wait
By Natalie LaValley
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faithBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.- T.S. Eliot, “East Coker”
I’ve been meditating on this difficult passage from T.S. Eliot. After all, Advent is all about waiting. But what does Eliot mean by waiting without hope or love? Eliot, as an Anglican, was familiar with the ancient Christian tradition of the via negativa, or way of negation. This tradition recognizes that when we seek God, we often are actually seeking feelings of peace or love, and when we think of God, we are actually imagining our own earthly images. In the via negativa, Christians find God through absence–the absence of those things that we cling to but are not God Himself. Christians have often referred to this experience as “the dark night of the soul” (beginning with St. John of the Cross). The via negativa is a hard road, and not everyone needs to take it. But in this time of Advent, we do well to remember what we are really waiting for. We are not waiting for the arrival of hope or love as feelings or experiences. Even better, we are awaiting the birth of Christ Himself. The Psalms and other places in the Bible exhort us to wait on the Lord. When we wait for the Lord, we do not have wait while trying to generate feelings of hope or faith or love. Rather, as Eliot says, our waiting is our hope, faith, and love. Advent is a hard season for some people. It may mark the anniversary of a loved one’s death or a traumatic event. Or you may simply be having a stressful year, full of busyness or sickness, and you’re struggling to feel the joy that you’re told you’re supposed to feel in this season. If you find yourself in this place, you don’t need to feel bad. Although it has changed with time, Advent was traditionally a time of fasting, much like Lent. Seasons of waiting are often hard, because they are the absence of the thing you are waiting for. Moreover, you might be waiting on something particularly painful–a health breakthrough, a job, or a loved one’s return to Christ. It doesn’t make it any easier that we’re waiting on someone for whom “a thousand years is like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). These experiences, culminated in Advent, remind us of when the whole world was waiting for the Messiah. Whatever you may be waiting for, remember that there is something of immeasurable value that we no longer have to wait for: Jesus Christ, His salvation, and the Holy Spirit. We have an incomprehensible privilege in that Emmanuel has come into history, and His Holy Spirit dwells in us. The absence of joy or peace, though hard to endure, is not the absence of God. God is never absent. God is with us.
“Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” Psalm 27:14.
Discipleship Perspectives featuring Rhonda Spriggs
As I’ve been blogging about discipleship, I began to wonder what other church leaders and staff had to say about it. What are common experiences, frustrations, and hopes? Here’s my interview with Tom Fuerst, the senior pastor at Bluff City Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
Is the Church doing a good job of discipling congregations?
There are indicators that can be measured over generations which suggest we’re not doing a good job. If we’re just asking about programs, we are probably the most programmed people in the history of the world. But as each generation grows up, they don’t come back to church until they have children, and each generation comes back at a smaller percentage. This indicates that they don’t think the church has much to offer for their lives.”
What’s the biggest obstacle church leaders face?
On the staff end: We’re over-programmed. Additionally, leaders don’t want to do anything about discipleship even if they acknowledge that it’s weak. Our primary measurement is “butts in seats” because it looks like success.
On the congregation end: Things in church don’t matter. We have the greatest topic in the world to talk about, and we make it boring and undemanding. We try to keep people in church by entertaining them. But when people graduate and all they’ve been done is catered to, they discover that college groups can fulfill that better – the world entertains better. We’re not showing them how important this really is. We even have adults who have that assumption about the church.
Another major challenge is busyness. We don’t have healthy work/life balance to begin with. Then people have children, and they want their children involved in all the programs, to be busy. God would tell us not to do that with our lives. We don’t surrender our plans to Him, because He’d probably tell us to cut out half our activities.
You can see the problem reflected in the church attendance. Inconsistent attendance is the new norm because people are so busy.
If you look back in history, Ancient Israel understood worship service as a reordering of the world. The world is in chaos, and we reorder it by worshipping the Creator of order.
The final problem is laziness. If we’re honest, we don’t really think God matters, and we would rather watch football.
What do church leaders need?
The pull of American individualism and consumerism is so strong that I don’t know if we know what we need. And if we did, we wouldn’t want it. At the end of the day, our success needs to be measured by faithfulness to God – but the model held up by evangelicalism and conferences is that if you’re successful, you have lots of people. We’ve mixed capitalism into the way we measure church success by assuming that if you have a good church, you’ll have a big congregation. If the product you provide is meeting a genuine felt need, regardless of of the numbers, you will be successful. But what if, at the end of the day, God is not interested in being our product? I’m all for improving things and doing things with excellence – but what’s the motivation? I need the reminder that my identity is not the number of people listening to me. It’s hard.
To have genuine discipleship, we’ll have to dismantle capitalist, consumer, and celebrity Christianity. Just watch in a few years as a new celebrity pulls out a few verses and says this is how church is supposed to be!
We need greater appreciation for the story of the Bible. We don’t tell the story well; we either break it down into hyper-analyzed academic particles without the whole picture, or we think that people will be more drawn to our programs and entertainment than to the greatest story in the world.
Please feel free to comment and share constructive thoughts on these posts. I always love to hear more perspectives, so if you have your own thoughts on discipleship or topics you’d like to see covered in this blog, email me at natalie@ascendingleaders.org.
Discipleship Perspectives featuring Dr. Philip Tallon
As I’ve been blogging about discipleship, I began to wonder what other church leaders and staff had to say about it. What are common experiences, frustrations, and hopes? Here’s my interview with Tom Fuerst, the senior pastor at Bluff City Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
Is the Church doing a good job of discipling congregations?
There are indicators that can be measured over generations which suggest we’re not doing a good job. If we’re just asking about programs, we are probably the most programmed people in the history of the world. But as each generation grows up, they don’t come back to church until they have children, and each generation comes back at a smaller percentage. This indicates that they don’t think the church has much to offer for their lives.”
What’s the biggest obstacle church leaders face?
On the staff end: We’re over-programmed. Additionally, leaders don’t want to do anything about discipleship even if they acknowledge that it’s weak. Our primary measurement is “butts in seats” because it looks like success.
On the congregation end: Things in church don’t matter. We have the greatest topic in the world to talk about, and we make it boring and undemanding. We try to keep people in church by entertaining them. But when people graduate and all they’ve been done is catered to, they discover that college groups can fulfill that better – the world entertains better. We’re not showing them how important this really is. We even have adults who have that assumption about the church.
Another major challenge is busyness. We don’t have healthy work/life balance to begin with. Then people have children, and they want their children involved in all the programs, to be busy. God would tell us not to do that with our lives. We don’t surrender our plans to Him, because He’d probably tell us to cut out half our activities.
You can see the problem reflected in the church attendance. Inconsistent attendance is the new norm because people are so busy.
If you look back in history, Ancient Israel understood worship service as a reordering of the world. The world is in chaos, and we reorder it by worshipping the Creator of order.
The final problem is laziness. If we’re honest, we don’t really think God matters, and we would rather watch football.
What do church leaders need?
The pull of American individualism and consumerism is so strong that I don’t know if we know what we need. And if we did, we wouldn’t want it. At the end of the day, our success needs to be measured by faithfulness to God – but the model held up by evangelicalism and conferences is that if you’re successful, you have lots of people. We’ve mixed capitalism into the way we measure church success by assuming that if you have a good church, you’ll have a big congregation. If the product you provide is meeting a genuine felt need, regardless of of the numbers, you will be successful. But what if, at the end of the day, God is not interested in being our product? I’m all for improving things and doing things with excellence – but what’s the motivation? I need the reminder that my identity is not the number of people listening to me. It’s hard.
To have genuine discipleship, we’ll have to dismantle capitalist, consumer, and celebrity Christianity. Just watch in a few years as a new celebrity pulls out a few verses and says this is how church is supposed to be!
We need greater appreciation for the story of the Bible. We don’t tell the story well; we either break it down into hyper-analyzed academic particles without the whole picture, or we think that people will be more drawn to our programs and entertainment than to the greatest story in the world.
Please feel free to comment and share constructive thoughts on these posts. I always love to hear more perspectives, so if you have your own thoughts on discipleship or topics you’d like to see covered in this blog, email me at natalie@ascendingleaders.org.
Episode 17: Revise and Revise Again
Our Guests for this Episode – Ginny Itz and Teresa Rossy:
During my fifteen years as a staff member of Chapelwood, my focus has been to help people grow a deeper relationship with God and our faith community. As Director of Connect Ministry, “connecting” new members to Chapelwood and “reconnecting” those stepping into a new stage of life is our mission. These connections come from helping people find meaningful worship, small groups, and learning and serving opportunities to strengthen their partnership with Jesus. For the past two years, I have been an active participant in Ascending Leaders workshops and AscendingOn cohort.
Recommended resources:
- The Chapelwood Discipleship App is available in app stores. Their pathways is also available online at www.chapelwood.org/mynextstep
- Our blog on 10 Steps Toward a Clear DisciplePath – Step 7: Revise
- Our blog on the stages of faith or the ten steps
- Our series of Youtube talks by Mike Johnson
- 10 Steps toward a clear DisciplePath by Mike Johnson
- More by Greg Hawkins
- The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich
- Learn more about DiscipleOn!
Discipleship Perspectives featuring Phil Morrow
As I’ve been blogging about discipleship, I began to wonder what other church leaders and staff had to say about it. What are common experiences, frustrations, and hopes? Here’s my interview with Tom Fuerst, the senior pastor at Bluff City Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
Is the Church doing a good job of discipling congregations?
There are indicators that can be measured over generations which suggest we’re not doing a good job. If we’re just asking about programs, we are probably the most programmed people in the history of the world. But as each generation grows up, they don’t come back to church until they have children, and each generation comes back at a smaller percentage. This indicates that they don’t think the church has much to offer for their lives.”
What’s the biggest obstacle church leaders face?
On the staff end: We’re over-programmed. Additionally, leaders don’t want to do anything about discipleship even if they acknowledge that it’s weak. Our primary measurement is “butts in seats” because it looks like success.
On the congregation end: Things in church don’t matter. We have the greatest topic in the world to talk about, and we make it boring and undemanding. We try to keep people in church by entertaining them. But when people graduate and all they’ve been done is catered to, they discover that college groups can fulfill that better – the world entertains better. We’re not showing them how important this really is. We even have adults who have that assumption about the church.
Another major challenge is busyness. We don’t have healthy work/life balance to begin with. Then people have children, and they want their children involved in all the programs, to be busy. God would tell us not to do that with our lives. We don’t surrender our plans to Him, because He’d probably tell us to cut out half our activities.
You can see the problem reflected in the church attendance. Inconsistent attendance is the new norm because people are so busy.
If you look back in history, Ancient Israel understood worship service as a reordering of the world. The world is in chaos, and we reorder it by worshipping the Creator of order.
The final problem is laziness. If we’re honest, we don’t really think God matters, and we would rather watch football.
What do church leaders need?
The pull of American individualism and consumerism is so strong that I don’t know if we know what we need. And if we did, we wouldn’t want it. At the end of the day, our success needs to be measured by faithfulness to God – but the model held up by evangelicalism and conferences is that if you’re successful, you have lots of people. We’ve mixed capitalism into the way we measure church success by assuming that if you have a good church, you’ll have a big congregation. If the product you provide is meeting a genuine felt need, regardless of of the numbers, you will be successful. But what if, at the end of the day, God is not interested in being our product? I’m all for improving things and doing things with excellence – but what’s the motivation? I need the reminder that my identity is not the number of people listening to me. It’s hard.
To have genuine discipleship, we’ll have to dismantle capitalist, consumer, and celebrity Christianity. Just watch in a few years as a new celebrity pulls out a few verses and says this is how church is supposed to be!
We need greater appreciation for the story of the Bible. We don’t tell the story well; we either break it down into hyper-analyzed academic particles without the whole picture, or we think that people will be more drawn to our programs and entertainment than to the greatest story in the world.
Please feel free to comment and share constructive thoughts on these posts. I always love to hear more perspectives, so if you have your own thoughts on discipleship or topics you’d like to see covered in this blog, email me at natalie@ascendingleaders.org.
Discipleship Perspectives featuring Tom Fuerst
As I’ve been blogging about discipleship, I began to wonder what other church leaders and staff had to say about it. What are common experiences, frustrations, and hopes? Here’s my interview with Tom Fuerst, the senior pastor at Bluff City Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
Is the Church doing a good job of discipling congregations?
There are indicators that can be measured over generations which suggest we’re not doing a good job. If we’re just asking about programs, we are probably the most programmed people in the history of the world. But as each generation grows up, they don’t come back to church until they have children, and each generation comes back at a smaller percentage. This indicates that they don’t think the church has much to offer for their lives.”
What’s the biggest obstacle church leaders face?
On the staff end: We’re over-programmed. Additionally, leaders don’t want to do anything about discipleship even if they acknowledge that it’s weak. Our primary measurement is “butts in seats” because it looks like success.
On the congregation end: Things in church don’t matter. We have the greatest topic in the world to talk about, and we make it boring and undemanding. We try to keep people in church by entertaining them. But when people graduate and all they’ve been done is catered to, they discover that college groups can fulfill that better – the world entertains better. We’re not showing them how important this really is. We even have adults who have that assumption about the church.
Another major challenge is busyness. We don’t have healthy work/life balance to begin with. Then people have children, and they want their children involved in all the programs, to be busy. God would tell us not to do that with our lives. We don’t surrender our plans to Him, because He’d probably tell us to cut out half our activities.
You can see the problem reflected in the church attendance. Inconsistent attendance is the new norm because people are so busy.
If you look back in history, Ancient Israel understood worship service as a reordering of the world. The world is in chaos, and we reorder it by worshipping the Creator of order.
The final problem is laziness. If we’re honest, we don’t really think God matters, and we would rather watch football.
What do church leaders need?
The pull of American individualism and consumerism is so strong that I don’t know if we know what we need. And if we did, we wouldn’t want it. At the end of the day, our success needs to be measured by faithfulness to God – but the model held up by evangelicalism and conferences is that if you’re successful, you have lots of people. We’ve mixed capitalism into the way we measure church success by assuming that if you have a good church, you’ll have a big congregation. If the product you provide is meeting a genuine felt need, regardless of of the numbers, you will be successful. But what if, at the end of the day, God is not interested in being our product? I’m all for improving things and doing things with excellence – but what’s the motivation? I need the reminder that my identity is not the number of people listening to me. It’s hard.
To have genuine discipleship, we’ll have to dismantle capitalist, consumer, and celebrity Christianity. Just watch in a few years as a new celebrity pulls out a few verses and says this is how church is supposed to be!
We need greater appreciation for the story of the Bible. We don’t tell the story well; we either break it down into hyper-analyzed academic particles without the whole picture, or we think that people will be more drawn to our programs and entertainment than to the greatest story in the world.
Please feel free to comment and share constructive thoughts on these posts. I always love to hear more perspectives, so if you have your own thoughts on discipleship or topics you’d like to see covered in this blog, email me at natalie@ascendingleaders.org.
Episode 16: Assess Your Current Ministries
Our Guest for this Episode – Pastor Darrell Delaney:
Recommended resources:
- Our blog on 10 Steps Toward a Clear DisciplePath – Step 4: Personally Own It
- Our blog on the stages of faith or the ten steps
- Our series of Youtube talks by Mike Johnson
- 10 Steps toward a clear DisciplePath by Mike Johnson
- More by Greg Hawkins
- The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich
- Learn more about DiscipleOn!
