GENEralities

My Sabbath is on a Wednesday this week. Some interesting bits from my blog reading this morning:

More Anglican good news

…this time from The Rev’d Dr. John W. Yates II who lists the good things about Anglicanism. At its best, Anglicanism:

1. is Biblical
2. is Sacramental
3. is Evangelical
4. is Liturgical
5. is Worldwide
6. is Charismatic
7. is about Accountability (we have bishops)
8. is Musical
9. Engages society and the world us
10. is Prayerful
11. is a Community of Grace
12. loves Children
13. loves Beauty

All here (H/T VirtueOnline).

What Marriage and Leadership Have in Common

In our Sabbath devotional this morning, Jude and I read this:

Contrary to hundreds of Hollywood romance movies, marriage is not primarily designed to make us happy. God is not primarily interested in our happiness, but in something deeper and more lasting: our holiness. Or we might say that God is so interested in our long-term happiness — our eternal joy, which only holiness leads to — that he reserves the right to sacrifice our short-term happiness to ensure we receive it.

Ditto for leadership. Kevin Miller, here.

The Anglican Covenant

The excellent ANGLICAN DOWN UNDER has a good point about the living with an Anglican Covenant and whether or not it can work:

Is homosexual practice compatible with Scripture? Some say No, some say Yes. But together we have not yet agreed to one of two things which would accord with a common approach to truth: either that it does not matter if an open contradiction on this matter is a feature of Anglican life, or that it matters that there is an open contradiction but nevertheless we can live with the contradiction.

That’s the question. Wise Kiwi. All DOWN UNDER here.

Tweet this!

Sobering words by Steve Weatherbe of canadianchristianity.com. His article focuses on the Diocese of British Columbia’s development director, the Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi, who calls for the Vancouver Island Anglican diocese to encourage growth by requiring

50 percent of rental incomes be spent on evangelization; by rewarding clergy with higher salaries and more holidays; by training those that don’t grow their parishes – and, if necessary, move them to non-leadership positions, or out of the ministry entirely.

It’s not just a BC problem. It’s an Anglican Church of Canada, Diocese of Calgary, StB and my problem, too. Lord, have mercy.

All here.

Tweet this!

Tim Keller suggests asking three questions to determine a call:

1. Do you have a passion for it?
2. Do those around you affirm this?
3. Is there an opportunity?

Looks good to me.
Over at Acts 29.

Tweet this!

Something in me (my “flesh,” I suppose) pushes me to succeed. But the success to which I am so pushed is all about bigger, more and “better.” I haven’t been very good at that either in my life or my vocation. By worldly standards of success I don’t rate very highly. 

Then, from Nouwen’s Reaching Out via A Guide to Prayer Readings for Reflection, I read this: 

But it is important that in this world there remain a few voices crying out that if there is anything to boast of, we should boast of our weakness. Our fulfillment is in offering emptiness, our usefulness in becoming useless, our power in becoming powerless.

A word for me in my striving. And one for conservative Anglicans who aren’t feeling very effective or influential but who also feel called to remain in the Anglican Church of Canada.

Nouwen is, of course, referring to this:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12.9-10)

If there is any success, better that it come as a result of that kind of power and strength than anything I can work up.

Tweet this!

From Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life, via Readings for Reflection in A Guide to Prayer: 

…our own feelings and preferences are very poor guides when it comes to the robust realities and stern demands of the Spirit. 

…the spiritual life does not consist in mere individual betterment, or assiduous attention to one’s own soul, but in a free and unconditional response to that Spirit’s pressure and call, whatever the cost may be. 

So much for “if it feels good and I like it, then God must like it, too.”

Tweet this!

From Nouwen’s, The Wounded Healer via Readings for Reflection in A Guide to Prayer: 

…promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. Many ministers, priests and Christian laymen have become disillusioned, bitter and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished. Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts. 

Another hard thing for the likes of me, serving in a declining denomination with the annual meeting looming, to embrace.

And along with this today, 1 Corinthians 1.26-31, on not many of us called being wise or powerful but rather foolish and weak by worldly standards. Nouwen makes it sound like concrete results and success are the exception rather than the rule. When they do happen, there is an implicit challenge to discern very carefully whether it is a free gift or something we’ve wrought by our own strength.

Tweet this!