Tending Scattered Wool

I have been impressed by the responses to the previous post on Spirituality of Companioning. It seems we are bumping into some catch 22’s.

Crammed v. Companioning
Our lives are mashed full of meetings, gigs, conferences, travels and events. We have little emotional energy let alone time for lingering, pursuing, and following up others.

This reality takes us out at the knees in all three areas Jesus calls us to abide: with himself, his word and his people.

Further, one’s stomach can get into a knot just thinking of the transparency that happens when we get close to one another over a very long time.

A spirituality of companionship is likely deficient for most of us. Besides, who pursues you?

A Plea
This may come across a bit dramatic but…..

I implore each of us to make companioning of others a core element of all of our life.

This is the Jesus way of ministry, of leadership, of community, of friendship.

Otherwise, we might find ourselves hiding from one another behind our titles, our schedules, our phones, our weariness. We live the proverbial scene of being in a room full of people and utterly alone.

Philosopher Charles Taylor writes about our society’s image of each of us being “buffered selves.” We individualize everything as we distance ourselves one from another. This is not the biblical reality.

We are one body in Christ, members of one another with Christ as our head. This is not a mere metaphor. This is reality. We are in union with the Son and one another by the Spirit.

In everyday parlance, it comes down to this: Will you be my friend? Will you sit with me and be curious about my story? Will you share yours with me?

The world (and the church) is dying for this sort of companioning.

Principle: Companioning others is not a nice add on if we have time. It is the key element that leads to life change in all of our lives. We cannot mass produce life change.

Resources
Bobby Clinton has written that one of seven characteristics of a person who finishes well is extensive mentoring relationships ( and 2/3rds of us do not finish well….).

You can read some of his articles here.Though his writings can be a bit stiff, I would encourage you to at least reflect on the diagram on page 13. Who are the ones in each of these relational areas of your life? If you cannot write a few names down in each arena, I’d encourage you to begin to talk to the Father about him providing more intimate companions and you opening your life to them.

Paul Stanley and Bobby Clinton co-authored this book on mentoring relationships.

My good friends Randy Reese (d) and Rob Loane at Vantage Pointe 3  co-wrote this important book. I highly recommend it. In fact, I highly recommend everyone look into VP3’s The Journey material. All the folks at VP3 are masters of this craft of companioning. It is why they exist. Their material is the best, the very best, I have seen of its kind. Yes, it is costly in time and money but it is life- and community-transformative. I have been through it three times and each group asked for more at the end of the 8-9 month experience. Give VP3 a call, they are brilliant and kind folks.  (I am on the VP3 board, but receive nothing for an endorsement. It’s the only board I’ve ever been on where I experience personal formation while sitting in a board meeting!).

If you have some resources to share, please do. But at the end of the day, all we need is a willingness to sit with another and hear their heart.

May the Spirit grant us to grow into being masters of the craft of abiding: with Christ, with his word and with one another.

Unbeknownst to me when I wrote last week’s blog, our pastor’s sermon this past Sunday was from Luke 24:25–27 (Emmaus Road story) on the role of Scripture in our knowing Jesus.

It is fascinating that the post-resurrected Jesus’ response to these two Emmaus Road walkers (likely part of the 72 disciples group) as well as later to the Apostles (Luke 24:44-46), is to point them to the Scriptures to understand the events they had just experienced.

In other words, to know Jesus, he points us to the Scriptures. His word is where he meets on a daily basis.

This is an excellent sermon well worth your time.  The speaker is Pastor Ken Robertson at International Anglican Church in Colorado Springs, May 19, 2019.

http://www.springsiac.org/sermons/

Abiding is not a value held in esteem in our current culture of rush to get someplace and get stuff done. “Keep things moving along” is the general sentiment. Relationship does not grow in the currents of rush.

Abiding is one of those words that is used so much in our Christian vernacular that our imaginations glaze over with the mere mention of the word. A fresh inspiration around this imperative could be of help.

An example.  When I go to a movie, I abide with the entire experience. I am engaged, sometimes even a bit transfixed. Seeing, hearing, wondering, feeling, emoting – I am “all in” so to speak.  This metaphor provides a bit of stimulation to imagining a spirituality of abiding, with the caveat that life is not usually as intense as a movie and we progress over time. Slowly. And that is a grace too. The other option sounds exhausting.

Jesus’ imperative to us is to abide, remain, keep to, stay present, attentive to the subject at hand. God is always the subject in our lives.

Three fundamental realities beckon our abiding: Jesus, his Word, and one another. Three blogs to imagine a spirituality of abiding.

First, abiding in Jesus.

Union is the relational impact of our life in Christ. We are “oned” with Father, Son and Spirit. Amazing.

As the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son, so the Son is in us and we in the Son (see John 14, 15, and 17). In the Son we are also unified with the Father. In 1 John 4 John says that we are in the Father and the Father is in us. The Spirit is the binding agent in this relational reality we find ourselves in. It is very beautiful. 

Jesus says, do not wander from this holding love of the Trinity. A growing awareness of Jesus’ abiding presence in and with us is the grace to avoid wandering.

What are the dynamics that facilitate one’s staying present to this Triune God? What distracts? I don’t take the newspaper with me to the movie theatre. I show up and am ready to be there with the story line of the movie. Yet, I sure am creative at importing all sorts of distractions, disruptions and wanderings into this abiding life. What are your particular distractions?

How might one respond to Jesus’ abiding presence during the ins and outs of any given day, in any place, at any time?

The implication of an un-abiding life is that our life is not up to anything of substance on our own, “for without me you can do nothing,” he warns. Nothing is not a little bit of something. Its nothing. We don’t “figure out” this abiding way. We are taught by Jesus. How is he teaching you this way?

What has he shown you, that is particular to you, that he uses to expand your capacity to be aware of he in you and you in he?

How might that, whatever that is, be increased or expanded, that he may deepen your abiding? Might I encourage you to give greater swaths of time to that? 

A Shepherd’s Reality
When we consider the life of a shepherd in the field with her or his flock, we are aware that they face heat by day, cold by night, rain or snow at either time, bandits, thieves, predators, and all sorts of stuff sheep get themselves into – sore hooves, briers, cliffs, illnesses, holes,
snakes….Shepherding is a never-ending demanding job.

Little wonder that God uses the shepherd metaphor to describe how he relates to us – he pours himself out to us, always tending to as the sheep of his pasture. Our Lord is the Shepherd-King!

Jesus suffered for our well-being. So too do shepherds endure hardship in pursuit of the well-being of those for whom they care.

Like Shepherd, like shepherds.

Gospel Orientation
The temptation is to bear down and just press on in this work. But there is no gospel in “try harder.”

The invitation for all of our life in Christ is him living his life in and through us. Paul’s well-known testimony is “not I, but Christ lives his life in me (Galatians 2:20).”

As shepherds, we abide in Christ that he may  live his life through us as we care for others.

This is not merely a utilitarian relationship. It is one born of sacrificial love. Jesus has given his life for and to us in love for his Father and for us. The Father and the Son have sent the Spirit to bind us to themselves and to pour out life and love into us. As shepherds, this is what (who) we offer to others.

So as we press on in the care of others, even at personal cost to ourselves, Jesus will live his life in us and through us. Outwardly, we may experience all sorts of adversities, inwardly God will be renewing us day by day (see 2 Corinthians 4).

This is the Christ-life manifested in the context of our service to others.

Here is how Paul described it, “He (Jesus) is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me (Colossians 1:28-29, emphasis mine).”

Christ powerfully works in Paul. Paul strenuously contends for the maturation of the flocks.

Fear Not Hardship
Fear is one way the enemy causes us to draw back. What if I am rejected? What if I am misunderstood? What if this costs me too much? What if…..?

Jesus knows all these concerns and he continues to pour his life into us. The Gospel orientation in life is that because Jesus is always enough, there is always enough to go around.

Jesus’ all sufficiency is in direct opposition to a scarcity mindset.

So we lean into Jesus and he offers himself to us and through us to others.

Be encouraged. Jesus is with you and in you. The Father sees you and pours his life into yours through the Spirit and the written Word. We are never alone.

How has God been shaping and using you in this area of caring for others?