Blessed to Be a Blessing Resources: Pace

Week Two: Pace

...slowing your speed of life so you can notice people with compassion and still have some time and energy to serve them.

Eugene Peterson asks, “How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am perpetual motion? How can I convincingly persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to constantly juggle my schedule to make everything fit into place?”—from “The Unbusy Pastor"

This week we will consider what this kind of slowed pace might mean in our own lives, families and communities.

Resources for further reflection:

• Sacred Chaos by Tricia McCary Rhodes

  • This book focuses on practical ways that we can learn to meet God in our present lives, no matter how chaotic they feel to us. Rhodes teaches her readers how to be present to the presence of God and prayerful in the life they have right now.

• “God Is in Our Moments” by Tammy Tkach: https://www.gci.org/articles/god-is-in-our-moments/

  • This article encourages us to slow down and notice God’s presence in individual moments in our lives. Slowing down and focusing on a particular moment can teach us to be fully present in our lives and to pay attention to God’s incremental work.

• Godspeed: https://www.livegodspeed.org/watchgodspeed/

  • This is a brief documentary about one pastor’s journey to discover the slow work of God in his small Scottish parish. Father Matt Canlis begins his ministry with big ideas about how to change the world for the sake of the Gospel, but by walking his parish, he learns that God’s work is done in slowing down and spending time with people.

• Activity: Spend one day—or even an afternoon or a couple of hours, whatever time you have—intentionally slowing yourself down so that you can notice the people and circumstances around you. We all fall into habits of multitasking--doing more than one thing at a time, like making phone calls while we drive, listening to podcasts while we cook dinner, or working while we eat lunch. As you are able, practice doing one thing at a time, and when you do so, ask God to make you more aware of your surroundings.

Listen to the accompanying sermon here.

The Hidden Blessing of a Hope Deferred

Fr. Kevin’s introduction: Scripture tells us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). I asked Savior member Alice Teisan, who has lived for 26 years with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and POTS on total disability, what she has learned that may help others. Alice writes:

I had a dream in 1992 — a hope – to lead cross-country bicycle trips. I was four days from going on a ten-day, 1,000-mile bicycle trip, when struck by a life-altering illness. 

Proverbs 13:12a says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” John Gill’s commentary from the 1700s described my situation accurately: “If [hope] is delayed any length of time, the mind becomes uneasy, the heart sinks and fails, and the man is dispirited and ready to despond, and give up all hope of enjoying the desired blessing;” My physical reality was out of my control. But, making sure my heart didn’t become bitter toward the Lord would require taking drastic measures, which included regular prayer and intentionally putting on the armor of God (Eph. 6:10-20), to name just two of the many spiritual disciplines I practiced.

Delayed gratification is an invitation to enter into grief, a place where our heart can pulsate with our Savior’s, as we become more like Christ. Isaiah 53:3 says, “He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness.”

Preparation for Kingdom service requires a time of separating the wheat from the chaff (Matthew 3:12). An unknown future ushered me into God’s schoolroom where I would gain the necessary tools for being effective in the Kingdom work awaiting me. There I began learning how to die to myself while relying on Jesus through faith. In the furnace of affliction, I learned that all he required was my obedience.

The gift of dashed hope challenges us to refocus a little more heavenward, whittling away at life’s comforts. Here in this broken and sinful world, our focus on the goodness of a Sovereign Lord becomes a little clearer and we become more acquainted with the mysteries of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter who lives within each believer.

My 1992 dream — to bicycle in all 50 states and on all seven continents (even though by then I had biked coast-to-coast twice, through 30 states and also on four continents) – was too small. God edited my first draft but kept the basics: a love for cycling, traveling, serving, etc. His edited Kingdom plan came in 2005, when I founded His Wheels International (HWI), a Christian bicycle and hand-pedaled tricycle organization. But before his Kingdom plan, there was soul work to be completed.

Instead of having the thrill of cycling the world, I look forward to hearing one day in heaven how HWI was able to mobilize God’s work worldwide through bicycles and tricycles. I proclaim with Solomon, “A dream fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12b).

To learn more about His Wheels International, visit the website www.hiswheels.org

Blessed to be a Blessing Resources: Place

Week One: Place

The first practice for us to be a blessing to people around us is to root in a place. Often, we can be ambivalent about where we live, or work, or the family we’re in. So we withdraw emotionally and relationally; we keep ourselves on the edge. But God calls us to “work for the peace and prosperity” of the place where we live (Jeremiah 29:4). This week, we want to consider what this might mean for all of us.

Read:

• “This Time, This Place: An Excerpt from Eugene H. Peterson’s The Pastor”:

  • This is a brief reflection from Peterson on our situatedness. His reflection encourages us to notice where we are and see the uniqueness of our own time and place.

• Theology of the Ordinary by Julie Canlis

  • This book is about living an ordinary life in the presence of God. Born out of her family’s experiences of living in a small parish in Scotland, and then in a small community in Washington state, Canlis explores the practical theology of slowing down and noticing where God is in our everyday lives and learning to do his work there.

Listen:

• Kingdom Roots Podcast, “The Neighboring Church (Conversation with Rick Rusaw),” Episode 24

  • This podcast is a conversation between Scot McKnight, one of C4SO’s Canon Theologians, and Rick Rusaw, a pastor. They discuss how Christians can learn to follow Christ’s teaching to love our neighbors as we build relationships with people right where we live.

Act:

• Take a prayer walk around your neighborhood, or sit on your porch and pray as you watch people walk by. As you begin, ask God to remind you of how he has worked in your neighborhood before and to open your eyes to how he might be working now.

  • This activity can encourage us to notice where we are and who is here with us. It’s a small step toward blessing others by engaging in the life of our community or neighborhood more intentionally.

To listen to the sermon, click here.

Word from Father Kevin: Blessed to be a Blessing Series

Dear Friends of the Savior:

Starting this Saturday, we begin a sermon series titled “Blessed to Be a Blessing.”  I see this as one of the most important series for Savior this year. I pray it provides a vision, an impartation, to Savior that will help us on our outward journey. Specifically, I’m hoping this series will:

•  affirm that many things Savior people are already great at—e.g., listening, caring, showing interest in people—are a gift for people in their community and workplace 

• re-frame the idea of evangelism, which in many people’s backgrounds was high-pressure sales work for extroverts.  Maybe we can accept (wink), “Savior, you may think you’re reserved and thoughtful and not naturally suited for evangelism, but you really do have what it takes, because your gifts in compassionate spiritual direction are perfect”—if we re-conceive evangelism in a more generous way

•  start to lead us all in answering our recurring prayer, “Show us the people and places you would have us serve."

In the 5 weeks, we will be drawing upon themes from Eugene Peterson, from the short film LiveGodSpeed, and of course, from the way Jesus interacted with people.  Here are the titles:

 Sept. 22: Place: the power of staying put (Fr. Kevin)

Sept. 29: Pace: slowing so you can notice people with compassion (Deb Nickerson)

Oct. 6: Face: asking questions that help people tell their story (Fr. Kevin)

Oct. 13: Grace: affirming how God is already at work (Fr. Kevin)

Oct. 20: Embrace: finding the relief of not being on your own (Sandy Richter)

Pastor Sandy will be creating a resource guide to help us all take these practices deeper in our lives.

Would you please pray that God sends his Spirit upon us as a people during these weeks?  That we receive what he has for us?

Also, if you have any questions or want to talk further about the series, I welcome that.

Spotlight on Josh Steele

Over the next several months, we're highlighting ministry leaders at Savior. These leaders have answered some questions to help us get to know them and their ministries better.

Deacon Josh Steele, along with his wife Rachel and brand-new daughter Eva, has been attending Church of the Savior for a little more than a year. Josh serves in multiple roles at Savior, including volunteering with youth and on the worship team. He also manages Savior's website and coordinates the Pastoral Care ministry.

Where do you live, and where are you from?

I live in Carol Stream, IL with my wife Rachel and daughter Eva. I'm originally from Toledo, OH.

What do you do when you’re not at church?

I'm a Ph.D. student in theology at Wheaton College and the Managing Editor at AnglicanPastor.com.

My hobbies include holding Eva, watching soccer, and reading about productivity and leadership.

What's something unusual about you?

In high school, I ate mostly oatmeal (at least twice a day) for an entire year.

How does the ministry you lead serve the life of our congregation?

I hope that the website, the Breeze online directory, and my coordination of pastoral care all help to enlarge and enrich the sense of community at Savior.

How can people get involved in the ministry you lead?

For the website, we could use another person or two to join JoAnn McNeely in uploading old sermons to the Sermon Archive. For the Breeze online directory, we could use a few people who are willing to learn and train others on the basics of volunteer scheduling using Breeze.

With pastoral care, we could use a few more people who are willing to spend time with and encourage others. If you're interested in any of these things, please contact me—in person, by phone, or by email.