Today’s Readings: Psalm 2; Genesis 25:19-24; Matthew 27:55-66; Acts 13:26-43; Psalm 16
After 6 years in parish ministry, I’ve made a concerted attempt to re-think the way I approach living in spiritual community. Like many traditionalists I spent the first six years of my ministry conceptualizing church/spiritual community primarily as an institution. I often found myself relating to folks in terms of the way they could help support/maintain the institution. If we needed a person to serve on the Business Administration Committee, for instance, I’d be on the lookout for an individual with those set of skills. If we needed someone on the Mission Committee, I’d look for someone with those set of skills. Without even realizing it, I slowly slipped into the trap of thinking people existed primarily to serve the institution. About 18 months ago, however, I started to rethink my approach. Many resources I bumped into (people, books, tapes, websites, etc.) began to challenge that popular notion and reverse it; they began to ask, “What if the institution exists to spiritually develop and serve the people?” This reversal has turned my world upside down. One of the consequences of this shift is that I’m more conscious of helping individuals identify their spiritual gifts so they can begin to pay attention to those gifts and develop them. None of the spiritual gifts are better than any of the others; they all have an equally important role to play. I’m talking about all of this today because of today’s Gospel reading from Matthew. In that story there is an important person in Jesus’ story that often gets overlooked. That person? Joseph of Arimathea. There’s a good likelihood that Joseph has one of the most overlooked and underappreciated spiritual gifts of all time; it seems likely that he had the gift of servanthood. While most would focus on other individuals in Jesus’s story whom they considered to be major players – people like Pontius Pilate and Peter – it is Joseph’s quiet but powerful witness that stays with me even to this today. As a spiritual leader I’ve found that many individuals find themselves in a similar life circumstance as Joseph – with their spiritual gifts often overlooked and underutilized. The first step in valuing one’s spiritual gifts is to know what they are. Do you have a sense of what your spiritual gifts are? If not, today I invite you to take a short 5 minute spiritual gifts inventory on line in order to help you discover your gifts. You can take the brief test by clicking on this link: spiritual gifts inventory. When you arrive at the screen, choose the third box on your right marked “Online Gifts Assessment” and the inventory will appear. Once you know what your gifts are, the next steps on your faith journey will be to develop and deploy those gifts in service to God. May God’s grace and peace be with you as you embark on that journey of discovery. Til next time…
After 6 years in parish ministry, I’ve made a concerted attempt to re-think the way I approach living in spiritual community. Like many traditionalists I spent the first six years of my ministry conceptualizing church/spiritual community primarily as an institution. I often found myself relating to folks in terms of the way they could help support/maintain the institution. If we needed a person to serve on the Business Administration Committee, for instance, I’d be on the lookout for an individual with those set of skills. If we needed someone on the Mission Committee, I’d look for someone with those set of skills. Without even realizing it, I slowly slipped into the trap of thinking people existed primarily to serve the institution. About 18 months ago, however, I started to rethink my approach. Many resources I bumped into (people, books, tapes, websites, etc.) began to challenge that popular notion and reverse it; they began to ask, “What if the institution exists to spiritually develop and serve the people?” This reversal has turned my world upside down. One of the consequences of this shift is that I’m more conscious of helping individuals identify their spiritual gifts so they can begin to pay attention to those gifts and develop them. None of the spiritual gifts are better than any of the others; they all have an equally important role to play. I’m talking about all of this today because of today’s Gospel reading from Matthew. In that story there is an important person in Jesus’ story that often gets overlooked. That person? Joseph of Arimathea. There’s a good likelihood that Joseph has one of the most overlooked and underappreciated spiritual gifts of all time; it seems likely that he had the gift of servanthood. While most would focus on other individuals in Jesus’s story whom they considered to be major players – people like Pontius Pilate and Peter – it is Joseph’s quiet but powerful witness that stays with me even to this today. As a spiritual leader I’ve found that many individuals find themselves in a similar life circumstance as Joseph – with their spiritual gifts often overlooked and underutilized. The first step in valuing one’s spiritual gifts is to know what they are. Do you have a sense of what your spiritual gifts are? If not, today I invite you to take a short 5 minute spiritual gifts inventory on line in order to help you discover your gifts. You can take the brief test by clicking on this link: spiritual gifts inventory. When you arrive at the screen, choose the third box on your right marked “Online Gifts Assessment” and the inventory will appear. Once you know what your gifts are, the next steps on your faith journey will be to develop and deploy those gifts in service to God. May God’s grace and peace be with you as you embark on that journey of discovery. Til next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment