Paying Attention
Posted on August 1st, 2009
Pastor’s Column published in The Informer (FBC’s Newsletter for August 2009)
It has been a joy for me to come back after my vacation to hear of all the exciting things that God is doing in the lives of the members of Farmville Baptist Church. In our Laity Sunday worship service on July 19, I loved seeing members of our prayer triplets being so at ease with each other and sharing about all the things they are learning from God. I heard the excitement in their voices as common themes came to the fore – themes like the blessing they are receiving from a closer relationship with God through prayer, and a deeper connection with members of their triplets. More than once, participants shared about how we need to trust God to lead us into our future and be less anxious to control and manage what might come. I also heard how God may be calling us to risk more in focusing our energy and resources to people and causes outside the walls of our church.
The next Sunday evening, I attended our youth group’s “No Holds Barred” meeting where I heard reports from our youth about their experience at Passport Camp the previous week. There was such energy and excitement during that meeting as youth after youth shared about how that week at camp was one of the most spiritually transformative experiences they’ve had as a Christian. God had gotten their attention, and now they were eager to follow in God’s footsteps.
Those two experiences reminded me of the wise words of John Westerhoff and John Eusden in their book The Spiritual Life:
For too long we have thought of the Christian life as essentially either involvement in political, economic, social concerns that wear us out and result in depression or activity which keeps the church intact and doctrinally pure. Our primary orientation cannot be an institution or some great cause or even other people, but first and forever to God. Unless our identity is hid in God we will never know who we are or what we are to do. Our first act must be prayer. . . . We are called to continuously formed and transformed by the thought of God within us. Prayer is a disciplined dedication to paying attention. Without the single-minded attentiveness of prayer we will rarely hear anything worth repeating or catch a vision worth asking anyone else to gaze upon.
In the coming weeks and months, I am eager to pay attention to what God will be telling us and what vision He may be revealing to us through prayer and through the members of Farmville Baptist — our children, our youth, our prayer triplet participants and others. I’m confident that we will hear things worth repeating and catch a vision worth following!
— Journeying on, Michael
Filed under News Column, Spiritual Transformation Journey |