Sunday
The church is at its greatest vitality as the “Jesus Movement,” and the institution is merely the vehicle for that movement.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
Jesus began a movement, fueled by his Spirit, a movement whose purpose was and is to change the face of the earth from the nightmare it often is into the dream that God intends.
—Michael Curry
Tuesday
Church, do you realize we are on the cusp of a new Great Awakening? God’s new thing is networked, exponential, Spirit-breathed, decentralized, a vast planting of small communities of faith. It is very much the work of laypeople, and it is emerging as a natural progression out of the church that used to be.
—Elaine Heath
Wednesday
Many Christians keep Jesus on a seeming pedestal, worshiping a caricature on a cross or a bumper-sticker slogan while avoiding what Jesus said and did. We keep saying, “We love Jesus,” but more as a God-figure than as someone to imitate.
—Richard Rohr
Thursday
We cannot enjoy the spirituality that truly is of God unless we are enjoying the struggle for justice-love, compassion, nonviolence, and forgiveness in the world. And we cannot stay in the struggle unless we are drawing personal strength from God whom Jesus loved, however we may experience and image this sacred power.
—Carter Heyward
Friday
Dare we believe that this contemplative work and exploration and study that we’re engaged with is not to just make us happier people, but rather to help us be partners together in loving action?
—Brian McLaren
Week Two Practice
Stir It Up
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you…. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
—2 Timothy 1:5–7
Inspired by Paul’s letter to Timothy, Rev. Yvette Flunder encourages us to use our own gifts in the service of others:
Paul is talking to Timothy about the gift of God placed in Timothy by God. Apparently some thing or some string of things has caused Timothy’s gift to die down. It is there, but barely distinguishable. Paul is encouraging the young Tim to stir it up.
The metaphor literally means to kindle anew the flames of fire … to shake the ashes off the God-given fire that is already in you so a new blaze of fire can be clearly seen….
Stir it up: You cannot stand off from a fire that has died down and command it to flame up. You must get involved with it. Move it around, see what is there, and assess what is needed…. Knock the ashes off to reveal the hot spots. Challenge yourself. Search around internally and externally for your gifts. Tune up your ear to listen for the voice of God…. Tune out those voices and choices that stand in opposition to the voice and will of God for you. Find your creativity again … dream again … vision again. Don’t let traditional things be a barrier to stirring up the gift of God in you—things like age, time, physical disability, and lack of resources. Your destiny is in those coals. They are still burning, passion is still there; you just need to shake off the ashes and stir it up….
Power, courage, and strength alone can be devastating, selfish, and destructive. Love, sensitivity, and charity can be sentimental, codependent, and misdirected. A sound mind, good sense, and self-discipline can be self righteous, academic, and analytical. But together these qualities temper each other and are the foundation for our gifts to come forth and enable us to do great exploits for God!
Stir up those gifts, reach out again for your destiny without fear and with full assurance of faith, knowing that God’s Spirit will grant the power, love, and self-discipline to accomplish it.
Reference:
Yvette A. Flunder, Where the Edge Gathers: Building a Community of Radical Inclusion (Pilgrim Press, 2005), 70, 71, 73.
Image credit and inspiration: Earl Wilcox, Untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like a potter creating a bowl out of clay, this moment shapes us.
