Daily Devotions

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray. Mark 6:45-46

As I shared yesterday, I’ve spent the first two days this week in a gathering of people heavily invested in Christian ministry.  Pastors, seminary professors, post-graduate seminary students, an ELCA bishop, the general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, leaders from a Christian college, an Anglican priest from England, and a pastor from Africa…quite an assortment of voices. 

The question that guided our conversation was “What are the practices for listening, reflecting and consciously living in the life of the triune God by the power of the Holy Spirit?”

While this sounds heady, theological and high brow, in fact it led to the most helpful, down to earth, extended conversation about what it means to be church together that I have had in a long long time. 

Among the practices we identified were things like creating space to spend significant time listening closely to scripture and to one another in ways that go much deeper than listening to someone lead a Bible study or read a two minute devotion.  We talked about what it means to take seriously our identity as the Body of Christ, that ideas like “the mission of God” or “forgiveness” or “reconciliation” or “unity” only exist in the messy flesh and blood interactions of people living smack dab in the reality of creation.  They aren’t “ideas” but a way of living life together in community, for the sake of the community.

We talked about hospitality as a far deeper guide to interaction with one another than a cup of coffee and an easily seen sign to the entrance door of a sanctuary.  We considered the growing influence of Christian experience as it comes to us through the understanding of the growing Christian witness of the southern hemisphere and Asia – places with a much clearer sense of religion infusing all of life, of the interaction of the spiritual and material realities of life.

At the end of the day today, as the group prepared to break up, I found myself seeing the faces of so many lay leaders at our congregation and wishing that they could have been here.  They would have come away, as I am, with a new-found appreciation for the life and mission we share as the church and a renewed willingness to do what it takes to make the most of the time we have.

And now, typing this in an airport, waiting for a delayed flight, I am appreciating again the guidance and modeling of Jesus who, after a busy day of ministry, goes to the mountain to pray.  For it is in prayer, not so much telling God what we want but being with the God who wants us, that we create the space to remember who and what we are about.

Let us pray:  Dear Lord, draw near to us as we draw near to you.  Guide us, fill us, send us, use us, empty us, and fill us anew.  Thank you for the many ways you continue to reveal yourself to us, and through us, for the sake of the world.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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