Open Ears, Open Hands

On a podcast entitled “Why Bother Praying,” author Sarah Bessey reflected on the church tradition in which she was raised, where the purpose of prayer was “to get your health, your wealth, your healing, your whatever it is you were out for.” In her words, this type of prayer had the purpose of “controlling outcomes.” In this approach to prayer, if you don’t get what you’re praying for—if the answer to prayer doesn’t look exactly like what you think it should—it’s because of your lack of faith (not because the infinite God of the universe just might have a broader perspective on things than you do, or that perhaps the Holy Spirit isn’t a divine lump of Play-Doh to be manipulated and moulded to your will). There’s an often quoted saying of Jesus from Matthew 17:20 that says, “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.” While “moving mountains” takes the smallest amount of faith (mustard seed size), it occurs to me that it takes a whole lot more faith to continue praying and trusting God when we don’t see anything happening, or when what we do see happening is vastly different from what we prayed for. This type of faith is more coconut sized (or perhaps more in the realm of Semi-truck sized, but it was trying to stay with the seed theme) than mustard seed sized. I know for myself a great area of growth in my faith—and I’m speaking future tense here! I’m far from arriving—is to be continuously prayerful, giving space for Jesus to move and to speak, trusting God by the Holy Spirit to bring his Kingdom, even when I don’t feel like I’m seeing anything happen. Or when what I am seeing isn’t the outcome that I was hoping for. Trusting that God hears me, that God still does miracles, but that at the end of the day God’s will is better than mine. Being in the head-space and heart-space where I can be faithful to doing what I sense God 3

calling me to do while remaining open handed with the results. Not trying to control the outcomes. This is something that has been personally challenging to me in church leadership. As 1 of 2 Co-Lead Pastors in Spring Garden Church, I feel at times as if I should have some glorious vision or the organizational systems to cause the Kingdom of God to explode from among our community. This of course is something I believe to be “overstepping” God’s role, but it doesn’t stop the insecurities and temptation to validate myself through works from creeping in. In “A Burning in My Bones,” a biography about the late Eugene Peterson, the author writes about Peterson’s first church as ‘the pastor’ and describes how the denomination handed him “an overstuffed red three-ring binder filled with instructions on everything one could possibly think of related to forming a new church. The promise of the binder was seductively simple— whatever problem Eugene might face as a pastor, he need only run his fingers down the index and find appropriate instructions”. That sounds like a dream! Simply follow the binder and you can control all of the outcomes! But, as Peterson recognized, God is noticeably absent and unneeded in this method of ministry. Whether through our prayers or through our programs or through our vision or our policies, trying to control the outcomes leaves little place for God to do the foundational work of growing the Kingdom in our midst. Yes, we’re all called to do our part with integrity and intentionality, stepping forward in faith that God has us where we are for a purpose. But let’s be honest, between us and God, it isn’t an equal partnership! To use the image of a yoke (picture a wooden beam over the necks of two bulls or oxen that is attached to a plow or wagon so that the two animals equally bear the weight of pulling the plow/wagon), God’s like a strong heavy lifter on one side, and we’re like a toddler on the other side hanging comfortably in a kiddy swing kicking our legs but not even touching the ground! We have a part to play, but without God’s work we aren’t able to move forward. But thank God it isn’t all on us! What is on us is seeking God and the Kingdom, opening our ears to hear and offering our hands and feet to serve, and choosing to trust that God will pull the plow.

Returning to Spring Garden leadership, Sam and I as Co-Leads have been trying to think through how to communicate with you what we feel God is calling us to—what is on the horizon for Spring Garden church. It’s tempting to get into words like “vision” and “plans” and programs, but none of these feel sufficient. We, like you I imagine, want to be faithful and diligent in our work. We strive to be integral in the places you as our church have entrusted us with responsibility and authority. But we are also deeply aware that, at the end of the day, it is God who is building the Kingdom of God. Later in February as part of our Ministry Resource Budget we’ll offer more thoughts on a few specific areas of focus that we along with Spring Garden Leadership (Pastors, Elders and Deacons) sense God is calling us towards where we wish to invest our energy and resources. However, it is so important for us as individuals and as a community to see all of our plans and ‘visioning’ through the lens of the Kingdom of God—where we humbly resist trying to control the outcomes, and instead, entrusting to Jesus our small offerings of worship and mustard seed sized faithfulness in stepping forward, witnessing and participating in how God will grow something beyond our plans and expectations. It is exciting to open our hands and hearts to the possibilities of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst! As I have been contemplating how to express my hopes for this coming year, I found in “A Burning in My Bones” a profound reminder and challenge, and that is simply the call to worship: “The [neighbouring] community did not need a church to craft little programs to assuage their consciences or perceived needs for safety. It needed the church to invite people into a new reality ruled by the kingdom of God. Christ Our King [the church] needed to worship…Worship was the call. Worship was the work”. We worship by turning our hands and hearts and minds and souls to God; we worship by gathering together (in person and online); we worship by laying aside our preference for the sake of unity, love and reconciliation in a diverse community; we worship by holding open hands to allow God’s Spirit to move in ways our closed controlling hands would never think to move; we worship by using our feet to take us into places of brokenness

and discrimination, bringing God’s restoration, reconciliation and justice to our local and global neighbours. Let us never stop worshipping God together, no matter the outcome.

If you are in a place where you find prayer hard and have trouble praying, whether because of doubt or exhaustion or depression or you simply don't have the words, I highly recommend checking out Canadian author Sarah Bessey's "A Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal". It is kind of like surrounding yourself with a group of prayerful women praying very real and raw, beautiful and deep, prayers.

Many church-going folks wonder about the purpose of church ‘membership’. Why get all… official about it? Shouldn’t membership be reserved for gyms, golf clubs, political parties and Costco? To be honest, I asked myself the same question before becoming a Spring Garden Church member many years ago. After all, I was already happily involved in our faith community. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, right? I had never even heard of official church membership before coming to Spring Garden. My small home church didn’t have membership, but we functioned together just fine. Strangers in the pews were enthusiastically welcomed during worship. Smiles and handshakes were plentiful each Sunday. The ministries were volunteer-run and there were many opportunities for fellowship. People of all stripes hung out. It wouldn’t have been odd to see the banker, the truckdriver, the retired missionary and the teacher in conversation with those cool, leather-clad Francophone bikers from the chiropractic college… More like a family than a membership. But now that I think of it, someone had to be running the place. Who were the individuals that took ownership of that community? There was no formal membership in my former congregation, but there were a few people who were somehow bestowed authority. And you know what? They had a few things in common. Namely white hair, white skin and a name starting with ‘Mr’. So I suppose it had a type of membership in a sense… Now, this is not to complain about the way some churches organize (or in this case, used to organize) themselves. Every community feels led to develop particular norms and structures over time. But through the years, I’ve grown to appreciate the value of SGC’s membership. On paper, it doesn’t seem very exciting or inspiring (yes, there’s paper involved!). But in real life, church membership is a remarkable opportunity for diverse people equally taking ownership of their community.