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stations:move

July 5, 2009

Posted in: stations:awaken, the gathering

MOVE

Consider the items before you, running shoes, candles, and the cross.  Weeks ago we read an excerpt of an email I received years ago before we began Fusion.  The email was a challenge to several church planters about to begin their ventures in cities across the nation.  I have been forever touched by the word picture from a mentor.

Read it again and write what comes to mind.  Respond and react – not being overly careful to judge the thoughts that come to mind.

MONKS ON THE MOVE (an email sent by Andy Williams)
“So, bottom line, this is what I want to see out of us over time:
Depth with direction. Picture a monk in one of those heavy, itchy brown robes. but with the best, lightest New Balance running shoes you can buy. 

Monks on the move.

Deep thinking, deep feeling, deeply CHANGED men. But they don’t sit in a dark, damp monastery and chant and plant flowers all day. They MOVE OUT every day, all day with courage, character and compassion into all the places God gives them to move-toward their wives, their children, their co-workers, their neighbors, the least, the lonely, the widows, the orphans, to the ends of the earth..”

After responding to the words – imagine the ways you are moving out . . . consider the deep desires to move out more fully.  Express to God what you are feeling.

Identify the dread or heaviness you may experience as you consider these things.  Be honest and express that to God.

Light one of the candles before you – as an action of being ‘awakened’ to the movement of God in you.  As you light the candle, consider the way the light penetrates the dark room.  How the light is growing as more of an illuminating force the more others identify the movement of God in them.

“Spirituality is not to be learned in flight from the world, by fleeing from things to a place of solitude; rather we must learn to maintain an inner solitude regardless of where we are or who we are with.  We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.” – Meister Eckhart