Fruit and Roots

At Bishops' Week in June, we decided as a cabinet to focus on the Five Practices at charge conferences this year---each of the 12 of us could teach/preach/encourage around these in whatever way we felt our districts needed. I have thought and thought and thought some more about this. I have read our bishop's book. I read it before it was published. I have heard probably ten times a sermon which our bishop preaches "Through or Around" which focuses on the five practices. I have talked about them in churches, in district meetings, in other states and with emergent leaders. I have prayed and prayed about how to "use" these in the charge conference setting.

And now, the confession: Whether it's just because I'm one of those "devil's advocate" persons or that I have been blessed with a very large dose of critical thinking, I struggle some times not so much with the practices themselves (I especially like the adjectives---Radical, Passionate, Intentional, Risk Taking Extravagant---now those are my kind of words!!!) but with the paradigm and I did write a review of the book on an earlier blog entry. I guess where I finally came down this weekend was that my heart resonates not as much with fruits as it does with roots. And, yes, yes, yes, I know, that one cannot have one without the other. But because this is who I am and the kind of leader I have been increasingly as I pastored in the local church, and now as a d.s., I plan to emphasize with the pastors at least, and most probably with the churches as well, how vital it is for us to sink our roots into the living word of God; how, if we are to grow more vital and fruitful, the soil of our own spirits must be nurtured and tilled with the means of grace. Without works, prayer is dead. But without prayer, we cannot flourish, and I would say we will shrivel and die and the good intentions we have had, as we have set goals and planned programs might, as the seed of the parable, flourish with joy for a day, but quickly fade as we grow weary, because we have not attended to the work of the spirit.

I simply do not know how to lead if I cannot do it as a spiritual leader. And I want to tell the pastors, all of the pastors in my district, the ones who have so many first time visitors each Sunday in their churches that they cannot keep up with them--and the ones who buried many more persons last year than they brought in, not because they have not tried, but because their communities have decreased in size so drastically and it simply is more difficult to pastor sometimes when the resources are not there--and the ones, some of whom I have seen this week, whose faces look weary and whose eyes look, if not frightened, at least wary, because they worry that their numbers in the book of life (i.e., their district red files) aren't looking real great this year---and ones who need a good dose of somebody they respect saying to them "get off your good intentions and get out there and DO something, gosh darn it!---I want to say to all of them that to flourish, both in terms of fruit-production and just to FLOURISH in their lives, please, pastors, spend some time tilling your soul, and the soul of the folks in your church, and even, as one older commentator on prayer describes taking the "sun cure"--- as doctors often prescribes years ago for tuberculosis patients, and still do for babies with jaundice---to just place yourself in the sunshine of God's love and let God's love through Christ radiate through you,body and soul, to not try so hard at prayer that it becomes a drudgery, but to trust the spirit to provide you with the vision and the strength you need to lead.

Hmmm, what do you think???