Two thoughts resonated with me when I woke up this morning: contemplative and subversive. Only a contemplative pastor can inspire another pastor to be contemplative, so as only a subversive pastor can pray and live alongside the congregation subversively.
Contemplation helps me to see that God is present and active in any given person, situation, or problem. “My job is not to solve people’s problem or make them happy, but to help them see grace operating in their lives” (3; emphasis added). Being a contemplative pastor set me free from being too rigorous or relaxing, and becoming more relying on his grace. It opens my eyes to see God’s works in my life and ministry. It allows me to receive Christ’s costly grace and letting it does its work to transform me into his likeness.
Being a subversive pastor is to live with people at church and community with an open-eyes prayer. This subversive spirituality creates a mentality to “take on the coloration of the culture” while committing to Christ by “working quietly, hiddenly, and patiently” and “planting suspicion that there is something beyond what the culture says is final” (11). Pastor always thinks in terms of people, place and relationship, rather than program and planning. Instead of setting borders and boundary in ministry, a praying pastor immersed in the parish and the surrounding community. In this earthly locality, praying pastors alongside praying Christians subvert the secular cultures with sacrificial love, justice (faith), and hope. A subversive spirituality that is scriptural and prayerful are nothing fleshy but central to our family life, go to work, and worship as a church body. Slowly but surely, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.
These two pages speak into my prayer life as a pastor with the church. God reminds me that even in revival prayer, what all we can do is to receive grace and participate in the presence of Christ contemplatively and subversively.
No comments:
Post a Comment