Your Unique Call
Hello –
God has given each of us gifts. We become most ourselves and most fully alive when we use them for God’s glory. What are your gifts? How are you using them for God’s glory?
I believe modern life breaks us into segments but Christian call makes us whole. For the next six months, a lot of us are going to be asking those questions of ourselves and so seek wholeness in the context of one of our six Discipleship Groups. I write to invite you to join us in listening for your unique call.
This is, intentionally, a longer email than usual. I write it as a rich invitation, with matter for slow and careful thought and prayer. It has four parts: a brief word about Discipleship Groups, a reference to the teaching on call I shared last Saturday, an encouragement to take Basic Discipleship and, finally, a ‘save the date’ for our Discipleship Group workshop in September.
1. We are becoming a church, not with Discipleship Groups, but of Discipleship Groups. Nonetheless, as in nearly all things Episcopalian, ‘all may, none must, some should.’ I wonder if the time is right for you to join a group structured to help you take the next step in your life with God? That’s what these groups, with their seven vows, are for.
2. In the next six months, all of our groups are invited to beta-test a way of approaching the sixth vow, which is on God’s call on our lives. This sixth vow is “by God’s grace, I will listen for God’s call on my life, confident that I have been given ‘a gift of the Spirit for the common good’ (I Cor. 12:7) entrusting my Discipleship Group to test and support that call.”
I have attached to the bottom of this post the one-page sheet I handed out last Saturday, which is an outline for how to discern call in the context of a Discipleship Group. One of the three stages of discernment asks that we all imagine that we share the same ultimate goal, which is to be Citizens of New Jerusalem. This is a rich image taken from Phillipians 3 and Revelation 21. The last two sermons I preached were on this image and can be found on the front page of our website.
3. One way to start or get into a Discipleship Group is to take Basic Discipleship with me. In this class I meet with three of four of you at a time-slot that works for all of us. We meet weekly for four or five weeks. In the first class I teach on prayer and then tell three stories from my life of when I felt close to God. Each following week we do a brief check in about prayer and then, each week, a different person tells three stories from their own life of when they felt close to God. This experience is excellent preparation for being in a Discipleship Group. Please respond to this email if this interests you. I hope to start at least one group right after Easter, which is in less than three weeks.
4. I’ve scheduled another Discipleship Group Workshop for six months from now on Saturday, September 17th, 2016. That meeting will be the best opportunity to reflect on the three stage process for discerning Christian call, using Discipleship Groups as a base. I expect that we will have conversations every bit as rich and moving as the conversations the 20 of us shared this past Saturday at the most recent Workshop. Please save the date.
Thank you to all of you who came Saturday. I feel that, with the guidance of the Spirit, we are doing some deep and powerful work together.
Blessings,
Christopher
p: (415) 456-4842
The Restoration Project: Your Call
Beta Test
Discipleship Group Workshops on March 5 and September 17, 2016
The Rev. Christopher H. Martin
We each have a call from God and we will not be fully alive, fully ourselves, until we are following that call, offering our best gifts to the glory of God. What is that call for you? How might you find out? Today I offer three stages using an old, reliable spiritual metaphor, a mountain. Imagine that following your call is like scaling a mountain with your Discipleship Group. There are three things that must be done. In order, they are:
1. Establish your base camp. This means that you join a Discipleship Group, become known by these other Disciples of Jesus and begin practicing the seven core Christian practices. This base gives you the assurance that the way you are following is a godly way.
2. Fix your eyes on the summit. This means you set the eyes of your heart on your ultimate goal, which is to be with God. I suggest that, at least for a season, you and your Discipleship Group read carefully and repeatedly Phillipians 3 and Revelation 21 and so imagine, in a rich sense, that your ultimate goal is Citizenship in New Jerusalem. Play with the image, with the scripture as your starting point.
3. Answer three questions. There are three questions that you and your Discipleship Group ought to be able to answer as you make your way up. They are:
a. Can you make a coherent story of your life with what you are doing? An essential exercise for Discipleship Groups is for each person to take an entire meeting to tell their story while everyone else listens carefully and attentively. Does this call fit into the whole story of your life? Be fully aware that modern culture tries to break our lives into segments. Christian call makes us whole.
b. Is your call a vocation, a pilgrimage or a quest?
i. A vocation is a piece of work that you are called to do. Perhaps you are to care for someone while they are dying, or write a book or assume an important role of responsibility.
ii. A pilgrimage is a journey to the center. It may literally be walking the Camino, or it may be a retreat, or it may be simply being still where you are and being kind. It is Sabbath time.
iii. A quest is when you have a strong but mysterious sense of both where you are going and that you must pursue it, but each step along the way is filled with learning about both what it is and how you will get there. Think of the Holy Grail. Job searches can feel like quests. The words ‘quest’ and ‘question’ share the same Latin root.
c. Does it pass the I Corinthians 13 sniff test? Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest this famous passage. In your call, do faith, hope and love abide? Is ‘the greatest of these’ love? We all see through a mirror dimly, but do you believe that, following this call, you will, by grace, see God ‘face to face’ as a citizen, with all the saints, in New Jerusalem?