by | Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized

Blog Hopping

::UPDATED:: I’ve added some new folks to the sidebar.. please go and read Mark Pierson’s ongoing reflections and stories from Urban Seed:church in Melbourne, and most of you probably already read Stephen Garner and Andrew Jones. I’ve tried to stop myself from becoming one of those blogdom clichés who simply links to all the cool kids, but I do actually read them. So there. Now I’m just cliché in terms of who I read.

Later on this afternoon I’ll probably write a little more, but in the meantime, I’m archiving this for myself..

Maggi is gracious enough to share this prayer from her reflections..

Disturb us, Lord,
when we are too well pleased with ourselves;
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;
when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess
we have lost our thirst for the Waters of Life;
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity;
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly –
to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery;
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you push back the horizons of our hopes,
and to push us in the future with strength, courage, hope and love.

by | Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized

© Tash McGill

Daily Prayers
I have officially and finally moved into my new office at church. The final touches are nearly in place, just curtains and some extra shelves to come. But the last few times I have been in here, I have lit the candles on either side of my laptop, and written/spoken some prayers as each one has taken light. It seems like a good ritual, and something that will ground productivity as well as spirit into my daily grind. Something about candlelight makes this place feels more peaceful and habitable. So, in the unpacking of the final box, my candles are in place, and there is also a little cardboard giftbox to hold the burned matches, folded prayer slips and bits of wax. It’s going to be a joy in weeks and months to come, to unfold and re-read prayers, knowing some have been answered and some answers are yet to come. Knowing that those small wooden matches may be charcoal dust really, but they symbolize my heart burning for those around me.

by | Jun 21, 2005 | Uncategorized

Displaced Levites
If Easter is my annual liturgy, my offering for my people, then for the rest of the year, I am a displaced Levite.

I have a sermon coming up in a couple of weeks. Well, it’s more like four weeks. I’m going to speak about Reverence, and the Sacred Space within. It sounds fluffy already. It’s probably pearls before swine in terms of the young people and young adults that I’m speaking to. But I hope that part of it will take hold, and a root will go down. I might for a short season call these people, my people, and spend the next few months of my time with them, being a Levite for them.

In the truest sense of the word, I desire to prepare the temple for them, and lead them through rituals of deep meaning, liturgies of deep reverence, profound repentance and precious adoration of a spent out Lord. I have dreams of this people estatic in praise, not because of a pendulum swing in expressive style, but because if the Lord will bring us to our knees, surely he will give us cause to raise our eyes to heaven.

I was thinking about how luscious and rich our worship services are for me. It’s almost selfish, the way in which I layer my thoughts and practices, so that if nothing else, the people have had opportunity to dive into a rich pool of intentional corporate praise, personal prayer and repentance. The only part that sometimes feels empty is the response from people.

I instructed and asked for silence and reverence in one part of our service this week. I was critiqued by one of our young adults that silence and reverence should be by invitation and choice. I was stunned. For a moment, I questioned whether to take on a Levitical approach to the preparations of this work is presumptous. But I have remained sure in my footing on this one.. it is sometimes appropriate for the people to take instruction in how to offer praise to the King. There are times where no instruction and all freedom ought also to be given, but these things must live in tension.

However, I still feel a displaced Levite, making temples out of tents in the desert, and offerings out of skinny sheep. This thought is increased in me, as I spend more time bringing music worship offerings in other places. At Northgate, in our morning service, and this week we go to Te Atatu United Methodist .. something. Going to strange places where I don’t know the people, the story, the ambience to lead them in rituals of deep significance. May the Lord be with me, as I go.

by | Jun 20, 2005 | Uncategorized

One Little Piece Of Grit
What am I but grit and dust? Broken down shell and stone, washed over the shores again and again. I am one small grain of sand among hundreds and tens of thousands. I am insigificant, I am harmless, I am not of great value nor great beauty. But still, there is a chance, that I might crawl, claw, beg my way inside an oyster shell and find myself there stuck in, expanding and transforming and one day be a pearl of lustre, depth and quality.

by | Jun 19, 2005 | Uncategorized

Don’t Keep Me Waiting Too Long
I have this ongoing connection to the full moon. Something about it constantly stirs in me a deep sense of expectation. This is probably a little bit dangerous, but regardless, the full moon will either be tonight or tomorrow night and I can feel it in my bones. There’s a achingness to the light that shines full into my bedroom window from that moon. It’s clarity and white light that’s nearly as bright as daylight was streaming in at 1am this morning. So much so that I had to get up and take a look. I pondered my old prayers again, and said how long, Lord, how long. My Psalm 40 is getting more worn as the days and years go by. However, even though I’m not always sure what it is that I’m waiting for, this verse from John 12.24 keeps appearing to me.

24″Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.

24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

24The truth is, a kernel of wheat must be planted in the soil. Unless it dies it will be alone–a single seed. But its death will produce many new kernels–a plentiful harvest of new lives.

24Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.

24I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest.

24verily, verily, I say to you, if the grain of the wheat, having fallen to the earth, may not die, itself remaineth alone; and if it may die, it doth bear much fruit;

24I tell you for certain that a grain of wheat that falls on the ground will never be more than one grain unless it dies. But if it dies, it will produce lots of wheat.

Interpret that. It ties in very much with what we were talking about at Queens Birthday. The cycle of life and death, growth & decline, building and taking down that is chronicled in Solomon’s reflection in Ecclesiastes. Wok proposed it as a valid cycle of ministry and life.

That under the pressure of a secularly-based, exponential time-profit ratio mindset, we have neglected the value that a death-conception-birth cycle brings to us. We look to borrow and adopt other people’s lifecycles in order to maintain our own.

But.. he says, based out of Ecclesiastes and observing creation all around us .. there must be cycles of barrenness, that lead us to desperation on our knees before God, that then allows for utter emptiness, then a new conception, the preparation for birth, the labour & birth itself (the hardest part beyond barrenness) and then the new life that follows. These ‘new lives’ then continue to grow and develop completing their own life cycles, that eventually end in decline as well. The struggle then, is realising that the cycles of barrenness to new life happen in small ways all over the place, especially in ministry environments, and to understand that they overlap each other. Different aspects of life take hold, while other things decline, only to be born again in new and different ways.

So.. in my life.. where is barrenness? Where is my Sarah-like desperation before God? It comes to me when the moon is full and I feel empty and hesitant, expectant and yearning. Longing for a deeper vision and deeper satisfaction. In letting go of dreams, in holding on to hope despite my weakness.

Lord, make me with the spirit of a barren woman
ever ready to pour out my oil, a vessel empty
and awaiting your gift

a dangerous prayer
for emptiness is dangerous territory
but with all my heart and soul
I entrust to you a seed
that is willing to lay down in the soil
and lay out it’s life
anticipating a less than easy death
but a restorative, worthwhile conception

help me, Lord
to lay down in the soil
and be buried
and also to die
not just go on living
in damp darkness