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See also past Facets
God's Bird's-Eye Perspective
For my 35th birthday Parker and I went to skydiving school. On the first
morning, from 6 a.m. until noon, we leaped from a three-foot-high platform,
learning to tuck and roll when we hit the ground. Secure in our ability to
prevent bodily harm, we checked and double-checked our gear, then boarded the
airplane and left the ground.
Our landing target was a small circle painted on the grass. From 3,500 feet I
could see not only the target but also the roof of my house twelve minutes away.
Directly below was the freeway running adjacent to the airfield. Electrical
wires bordered the landing zone on three sides. Eleven miles from the Puget
Sound, I could see the ferries coming and going across Elliott Bay. To the south
Mount Rainier glistened in the sunlight. The view was awesome.
The plane was noisy, and we yelled at one another to give and receive
instructions. When my turn came, I climbed out on the wing strut, took one last
look at Parker, and let go. When my chute opened ten breathless seconds later, my
heart began pumping again. The silence was deafening. Like being suspended in
time, there was no sensation of movement — just a bird's-eye view, spectacular
beauty, and a parachute to prevent the ground from approaching at 32 feet per
second!
Seeking God's Perspective
God always has the bird's-eye view — the whole picture. When I jump into a
ministry opportunity or a new relationship, I may think I can handle all the
details, but I may not have all the information. God sees the freeway, the
electrical wires, and the small target on the ground. God has packed my
parachute, maneuvers the dangers, and guides me to a safe landing. The outcome I
desire involves God's contribution.
God has a perspective on my life that I do not have. I am earthbound, looking up
or out from my predicament. Whether I am experiencing success or failure, my
point of reference is narrow and imperfect. Sometimes, by the grace of God, my
husband, a coworker, or a friend will broaden my vision. But without God's
expansive goodness, I am stuck with a limited worm's-eye view.
In the creative, fulfilling, challenging, and sometimes messy work of leading a
congregation, I know I need more than my skill, more than a tried and true
leadership book to read. I need God.
| The precious work of
keeping company with God partners me with the creative power of the
universe, overturning my worm's-eye view, unraveling life's mysteries. |
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I confess that I don't know why it is so difficult to detect my own complicity
to undermine God's efforts on my behalf. I don't mean that I blatantly ignore
God, purposely work to hide my copy of the Means of Grace, or attempt to subvert
the community of faith. In fact, I regularly seek the listening ear of a
spiritual mentor. But there have been more times than I wish to recount when I
have drawn my strength for leadership from the generic well of the system we
name "the roster" rather than from the Spirit of God. I have allowed other
leaders and power structures within the church to intimidate me, blocking the
flow of God's power through me. Or I have succumbed to the pressures and
preferences of congregational life.
"When imagination is blocked by routine, personal preferences, or prejudices, we
place at risk God's plan to bring about something really extraordinary." These
are my own words from a previous "Facets" article ("Resiliency and Creativity,"
Nov./Dec. 2005). This is what I believe — but not always what I am able to
do.
How gracious of God to pursue and remain, to woo and wait.
In my effort toward personal spiritual formation I continue to bump into the
human frailty of failing to invite God's larger perspective. I struggle to
consistently open my view to include an outcome far greater than what I could
ask or imagine. Sadly, when I can't or don't offer God the invitation, I stand
as a roadblock to that greater good for the entire community I serve.
Wanting What God Wants
True friends — true alliances, true partners — hold each other accountable. The
precious work of keeping company with God partners me with the creative power of
the universe, overturning my worm's-eye view, unraveling life's mysteries. From
that new point of view I discover that the knock of my persistent prayer is
honorable not when it satisfies my hopes and dreams but when it yields and seeks
the mind and heart and spirit of God.
Eugene Peterson, author of the Bible paraphrase called
The Message, makes this
intriguing observation: "Praying puts us at risk of getting involved with God's
conditions... praying most often doesn't get us what we want but what God wants,
something quite at variance with what we conceive to be in our best interests.
And when we realize what is going on, it is often too late to go back" (Working
the Angles, [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman's, 1987], pp. 30-31).
True confidence and lasting joy are the gift of partnership with God.
Connecting with God's perspective — God's power
— is the "stuff" that makes me a
better person and leader. Even closer to my heart, I desire God's presence not
to make life easier or to gain some supernatural power in my earthly affairs but
to know God. I value God's activity in my life more than I need something from
God.
I yearn for a church that engages God, anticipates holy surprise, and eagerly
desires to be earthly partners on the journey to healing and new life. I am
eager for colleagues who seek to understand and cherish our different roles,
ours and God's. As God made clear to Job long ago, we humans lack the capacity
to figure out divine intervention, cosmic justice, and answers to the Why?
questions. Our work is to follow in Jesus' footsteps with actions and prayers
that demonstrate to each other and the world God's forgiveness, mercy, and love.
Of Dogs and Persistence
In our household we have two dogs. Theophilis, the elder, is quiet, thoughtful,
obedient. Lucianno is tempestuous, stubborn, and charming. Luci uses every
behavior in his power to connect with humans, and his pesty persistence is his
greatest tool, wins him favor and attention, and brings about the future he
desires. Our guests love Luci — even when he has eaten their hat, stolen a wallet
from their purse, or dragged their underwear into the living room.
I like to think of my relationship with God in a similar way. It's not the
goodness of my behavior but the persistence in wanting to engage God's mind and
heart that is useful to God.
| In this last year our congregation has been involved with a
Renewing Worship
grant through the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship and the Lilly
Endowment. Grant recipients from 33 denominations have used these dollars to
experiment, dream, and cast a new vision for the life of God's people gathered
to worship. The grants have encouraged new collaborations and extended
partnerships. These projects have challenged the "organized religion" of a
variety of faith traditions with astounding results and brought about a future
for their congregations that might not otherwise have come to be. Here are just
a few of their enthusiastic reflections: |
- At first it seemed as if this worship renewal effort might tear the
congregation apart. However, we learned to collaborate even when we all had
distinctly different ideas. As this project has developed, our discussions around
worship opened a deeper issue — how to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the
midst of disagreement and how to be the body of Christ when change threatened
the body as some knew it and made possible the body that others longed for.
- We learned generosity of spirit. By this we mean that we affirmed the
generosity involved in recognizing that a particular song or instrument or
rhythm, while it may not enhance my worship, does bring my Christian brother or
sister closer to God. Because I care about them, I welcome what nurtures them
spiritually.
- Young people are willing to engage themselves fully in the worship life of a
congregation. We found that their involvement doesn't need to be a superficial,
feel-good type of involvement, and that passionate, interested youth actually
appreciate a deeper, more behind-the-scenes, approach.
- It has helped us learn that we must deepen our understanding of worship in
that it involves every aspect of our lives. That is something we can teach, but
not something we can accomplish easily. We have learned what it means to be
effective leaders by asking "Are we leading lives worth following?"
Partnering in God's Future
In one of my favorite scriptural scenes recorded in Revelation, the apostle John
foresees the visible and invisible worlds linked in prayer. At a pivotal moment
in history, heaven is quiet. I picture the seven angels with their seven
trumpets, listening on tiptoe. And then an angel collects my prayers with
others — all the accumulated invitations for God's partnership, including the anger, praise,
wailing, desertion and rejection, hopelessness, and petition — and mixes them with
incense, and delivers them to the throne of God. The silence is finally broken
when God hurls those fragrant prayers down to earth: "And there came peals of
thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightening and an earthquake" (8:5).
On that great and glorious day, history will belong to the intercessors who
persisted through the joys and challenges of human existence, those who
partnered with God to bring God's future into being. We partners are essential
agents in God's victorious outcome. Our partnership linked to God's power will
make things come to pass that would not otherwise take place.
It seems God doesn't want to do it without me
— or you. I love that thought. Will
you partner with me to make it possible?
Katie Adelman, an associate in ministry, is director of spiritual formation,
worship, and music at Ascension Lutheran Church, Paradise Valley, Arizona. Katie
also serves as president of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, a
pan-Lutheran professional organization for musicians and clergy. |
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