We Are Facing Huge Challenges in Our Society and in Our Churches

NOVEMBER 16th 2010

Looking after ourselves:

wholeness and well-being in ministry

INTRODUCTION

We are facing huge challenges in our society and in our churches. And as part of both society and the community of faith we face those challenges for ourselves also.

So how can we be best equipped to both survive and flourish personally, and offer the power and love of Christ to those who we serve? How do we ensure our own well-being and model the health and wholeness Christ offers? When we find ourselves ministering in times of brokenness and pain where do we find the help and support we need from God, within ourselves, and from others?

Today we have the opportunity to think through how we look after ourselves, and have the opportunity to help each other identify ways to nurture wholeness and well-being in ministry.

As a basis we offer a few thoughts to get us thinking about wholeness and healing in the context of ministry.

A few weeks ago I re-read Moltmann’s The Crucified God, and several things struck me afresh as being relevant to today. For if we are talking of wholeness and healing we are challenged to think about what causes the brokenness and needs which are being met in Christ’s healing touch.

The reminder I had in Moltmann, among all his central themes, was how we follow and worship the resurrected, glorified, Lord, who is the resurrected crucified Christ.

Moltmann challenges us to face thetemptation of making the cross too comfortable - decorating it, literally and metaphorically - jumping too quickly to the resurrection, if you like, without fully embracing the power of the fact that it is the crucified Lord who now reigns on high. So he warns against allowing our Christian religion to take over from a radical understanding of following Christ in his suffering

…an active suffering,born out of love, in which the wounds are abandonment – the cry of dereliction, and powerlessness.

With our understanding of Christ on the cross – outside the city walls, in the place of the outcast, and the place of humiliation, we are reminded of how his ministry led him to that suffering. Moltmann reminds us that ‘The symbol of the cross in the Church points to God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city.’

I found myself getting excited as I recognised a fellow understanding of some of the brokenness we can experience in our ministry. How we experience pain when we disturb the natural desire to find a comfortable place for faith, in our congregation or in ourselves. When we battle with the ever present desire to be inside the city walls, not to be confronted with challenge, not to be asked to live with a radical and ever-moving journey of faith.

Moltmann says the cross ‘criticises religion, deifications, all assurances, all images and analogies and every established holy place which promises permanence.’

And I thought ‘yes’ – so many of the challenges we face in ministry are because we rightly see that Christ CAN make a difference here … or there ….. in this situation … or that person’s needs. Because we serve and follow one who is constantly active and at work .. so WE are constantly on the move, in a world or a parish that would prefer the comfort of permanence.

I am sure you will agree that it is such a privilege and joy when we see God at work, when our hearts are thrilled because we recognise him. We stand back in awe as we find ourselves used in a conversation and see the dawning sense of light in someone’s eyes as they recognise God too, or we offer a word of comfort that hits the mark, or stand beside someone making life changing decisions, or stand at the threshold of life, or death, and sense the eternal becoming more tangible than the earthly moment. There can be no greater privilege than ministering with Christ and for Christ, as such times.

But alongside those we often find ourselves on the receiving end of criticism, dissatisfaction, frustration, apathy, lack of vision, when we struggle to excite people about a gospel that changes us, changes our parish, changes our situation, changes our attitudes and disturbs that status quo. And wecan find ourselves wounded and hurt when those to whom we are ministering have not yet seen the potential of what God can do in them or their situation, or in the community or parish where they live.

Sometimes that struggle is in ourselves. We get tired as we try to motivate ourselves to keep on trying, to keep on moving, and go on changing ourselves. Or we feel guilt and discouragement, maybe even a sense of powerlessness and rejection.

So being reminded of how Christ’s own suffering was born out of ministering in precisely that place struck me afresh. And it’s a huge encouragement that this is where God is, where Christ is, because he has chosen to be here. So today it may be encouraging - literally en-courage-ing - to help one another recognise how we are experiencing the way of the cross, the suffering of ministering in places of brokenness, abandonment, powerlessness, pain. Not to wallow in the pain, but to offer it for Christ’s healing touch - as the one who came through the crucifixion to resurrection.

As we go through the day and look at different areas of our life and ministry we will have the opportunity to really listen to one another, and acknowledge and name the struggles we face.

Then we can work together to think what wholeness and healing means in those struggles.

As I have said …. we follow and worship the resurrected crucified Christ. Moltmann says – ‘the suffering of abandonment is overcome by the suffering of love, which is not afraid of what is sick and ugly, but accepts it and takes it to itself in order to heal it.’

How does God want to minister to us - accepting and taking in to himself the brokenness in order to heal it?

How can we minister to each other - in what ways can we personally, or in the structures we adopt, counteract the sufferings of isolation, powerlessness, abandonment - the cost of ministry?

How can the diocese help? As we reflect on what health and healing means in our situations are there needs that are better resourced centrally than locally?

Christ’s healing presence and healing touch, that we teach others about is, of course, here for us too. We hope that in our time together today we can remind ourselves of all we teach our congregations, about health, wholeness, and healing; and that we can turn the mirror back on ourselves and see how God offers us health, wholeness and healing.

In order to do that we will look at five different areas of life and see what wholeness and healing can mean in each of them, for us in our life and ministry, from the larger context in which we live through to our inner life. The groups are quite large, and time is short, so it will be more of a brainstorming session than in-depth discussion. But hopefully the conversations will stimulate further thinking for us personally, as we hear of the experiences and ideas of others.

So the five areas of reflection on life are:-

Environmental

Social

Physical

Psychological

Spiritual

By looking at all these areas we will be taking a holistic view of our life, and by thinking what health and wholeness means in each of them, we will be forming an agenda for prayer and openness and to Christ’s healing, and also forming an agenda for healthy living and healthy ministry in the future.Then not only can today be about receiving healing, but perhaps more importantly and more exciting, it can be about setting a vision.

As we know, we are living in a challenging time in society and the Church.

In society we are facing huge demands through the times of restraint. We are already ministering to people in hardship, redundancy, depression, and we do not yet know the full extent of effect on every part of our local population.

In the Church we are developing new ways of working and ministering and that means big changes.

Such a time of challenge and change gives rise to great opportunities to develop something worthwhile, to contribute to our society and show the relevance of Christ and a Gospel of good news to the most needy and disempowered, and to a situation that is not permanent and unchanging, but is walking towards the uncertain future.

It is exciting to continue to minister in new and diverse ways to build our communities, develop our people, and handle the changes well - to see the resurrected crucified Christ at work in peoples’ lives and in our communities.

And today we take the opportunity to be reminded of those strands of personal and professional life that need to nourished and developed, for our ministry to be enjoyable as well as effective - to be able to look after ourselves so that we can minister from a basis of health, well-being and wholeness.

So we will now introduce the five areas of reflection:-

Environmental

Social

Physical

Psychological

Spiritual

Revd Carolyn Headley