Week of June 6, 2010

  • Pastor Duane Cross
  • Jun 7, 2010

 PATHWAYS

In a wonderful book by Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership, the author describes 7 different pathways through which people learn and connect with God.  In the next few weeks, I would like to share them with you.  Sacred pathways are like doors that open into a room where we can feel particularly close to God.  We all have different personalities and spiritual gifts. Maybe in understanding your pathway to God, you will be able to revitalize your own walk with God.

THE CONTEMPLATIVE PATHWAY

            Throughout church history there have always been some Christians who feel like they’re marching to a different drummer.  While other believers are joyfully filling their calendars with relational commitments or serving opportunities, these sincere Christians are carefully guarding their schedules, avoiding at all costs the patterns of busyness they see around them.  For reasons they may not fully understand, these people are easily drained by relationships and activities.  But they can spend almost unlimited time in solitude.  Give them a Bible, a good piece of literature, a poem and a journal, and they’ll disappear for days.

            These people thrive on the contemplative pathway.  For them, just being alone with God is enough.  They spend hours reflecting on the goodness of God and have an enormous capacity for prayer and private worship.  They operate with sensitive spiritual antennae and can discern the activity of God wherever they are.

            But the downside to this wonderful pathway is that sometimes contemplatives feel out of step with the rest of the Christian community.  Their sensitivity causes them to take very seriously things that other people don’t.  They observe beauty in the natural realm and wonder how others in the Christian community can walk right past without even breaking stride.  They often serve as the conscience of the faith community, calling us to ministries of compassion and inclusiveness.  They reflect on the numbers of people suffering in the world and wonder why so few people care.  Often idealistic, they help us focus on what kingdom life is supposed to be like.

            Contemplatives also tend to have rich inner worlds.  They can at times seem scattered, but often in reality they’re incubating creative ideas.  Though these folks may seem a little out of step with the rest of us, they’re the ones who compose the songs that stir our hearts or write the books that make us think new thoughts about God.

            If you know contemplative types, relate to them very carefully.  Immature leaders usually think that contemplatives are wasting time with all their deep thinking.  “Get busy!”  they want to say.  “There’s a hill to take.  Let’s go.”  But mature leaders understand that contemplatives need to spend considerable time outside the mainstream.  They need to protect their thought life.  Eventually their reflections will lead to something wonderful that will bless the whole church.

            Leaders whose primary pathway is contemplative need to give themselves an extra measure of grace.  They need to give themselves permission to spend long hours in quiet reflection, even if others view it as inappropriate or strange, because for them that’s the door that opens into the presence of God.

 

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Pastor Duane

 

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