Coming Out of the Fog
I have the sense tonight that I am beginning to get some semblance of normalcy back. To switch roles, vocations, jobs, and schedules in a week does more to one's spiritual and emotional equilibrium than I thought. Unlike a call to go to a new church, I didn't move, sell my house, try to find all new places to shop, etc. I just got up one morning and started going someplace else to do my work. Yeah, right, it isn't a trauma.

Some of it is because I am not stepping into a position that is clearly defined with a lot of history to build on. In some ways I have to rebuild it within the ways of my skills. Just show up and do what you're supposed to do. That's the message. So, as things transition into a new semester, I sit around and watch and wait and get the chance to actually write out my mission and direction.

Then today I got an email from a listserve that I had signed up for a month or so ago. It was the Bob Buford's Halftime organization. They say on their home page:

Halftime is a time out -- a time to think seriously about one's purpose in life and draft a game plan for the second half. It is a time when the quest for success loses meaning, and you ask, "Is this it? I've achieved some level of accomplishment, and done much of what I set out to do. What's next?"

Most call this a "midlife crisis." We call it halftime.

Their understanding and goal is to help those of us who are past half-time in our careers to develop new and renewed ways of doing our lives and ministry. They talked about learning curves of a new job. They talked about the fact that after having been highly skilled and even somewhere up the corporate (or church) ladder, we are no longer in that position. But at the same time, we will be able to bring our experience to bear in new ways.

When I read that email, it all began to fall back into place. The reason why I am not now a paid, professional parish pastor. I am in a new place and time where my skills are being called to go into new things in new ways. I am well past "midlife crisis", but I am not too old for halftime. I am called back into the world where what I have learned in thirty years of ministry and growth and crisis and life can be put to new uses.

Then this evening I got to read yesterday's post from Len at NextReformation. He has been pondering some of the same things I am talking about- going back into counseling, leadership, house church. He had a great quote from Gordon Cosby:

One order of ministry is not eternally more valuable than another. It is easy to absolutize the significance of one type of ministry and leave the feeling with many that they are second class members of the body, important only as extensions of official clergy. This I cannot accept.

It was a great reminder of what I am doing and why. It is good to be into a new ministry where it is deeply needed.

Having Lost the Power
LT had some interesting perspectives on the foolishness of the message of the Crucified Christ and how we have messed it up. Here's part of it:

Many sections of the church have become too caught up retooling and repackaging the message. If we proclaim a message, and there is no power, then somewhere somehow we messed up the message. I believe we have messed up that message.

On the conservative side of the spectrum there are those that replaced God with the bible and have no real faith in the crucified Christ. From this perspective faith in a living God is hard to fathom because we can't base any aspect of our faith on something on something subjective like experience. Faith is all about building on the objective foundations of scripture not silly emotionalism.

On the liberal side of the spectrum there are some who have written God out of the picture because the scientific modern mind thinks it is silly to believe in a supernatural God. Faith in a living God seems primitive and unenlightened.

Spiritual Formation at The Living Room
Just noticed that Darren and the community at The Living Room will be exploring new groups for spiritual formation. They will be utilizing resources from Renovare. I find Renovare's tag line interesting: Bringing the Church to the churches.
[Capitalization, and lack of it, in original.]

[On the topic of spiritual formation, I will plug Doug Pagitt's new book again. It's due out in two weeks, is titled Reimagining Spiritual Formation and you can pre-order from Amazon.com now.]