Gaining and loosing the gift of prophecy
In Romans 12, Paul writes these words:
Recently I completed reading "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann (which you can find my Kindle notes here). And in my reading of this book, with the Scriptures as well as what I recall from Seminary, it has awoken an awareness in me that prophecy is something more of a skill that we cultivate than a trait that we possess (or do not possess).
First off let me use Brueggemann's words to clarify what a prophet is:
While the prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present.
The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us
It is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order.
As we grow in the faith of Christ and live into the call of God in our lives...
As we understand the message of Jesus and how he rooted his message in a rich tradition of prophets...
As we undertake spiritual disciplines and grow in the fruits of the spirit...
As we mature into the beings God desires us to be...
We grow in the skill of prophecy.
MLK did not just wake up one day and "discover" he was a prophet. No. He cultivated a love of Christ for years before he stepped into that role of the prophet. Even Jesus was 30 years old before he stepped into public ministry! Becoming a prophet takes time. And it is clear in the Biblical witness, it is something that we can all grow into.
"For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness."
One of the striking phrases to me in this section is the idea of one receives "prophecy, in proportion to faith". It is striking to me because it is often understood that prophecy is either something you have or you do not have. Much like brown eyes - you either have them or you do not.
However, if we are to consider that we are to grow in faith then does that mean that we too can proportionally grow in prophecy? And if we diminish in faith then do we proportionally diminish in prophecy?
Recently I completed reading "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann (which you can find my Kindle notes here). And in my reading of this book, with the Scriptures as well as what I recall from Seminary, it has awoken an awareness in me that prophecy is something more of a skill that we cultivate than a trait that we possess (or do not possess).
First off let me use Brueggemann's words to clarify what a prophet is:
While the prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present.
The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us
It is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order.
As we grow in the faith of Christ and live into the call of God in our lives...
As we understand the message of Jesus and how he rooted his message in a rich tradition of prophets...
As we undertake spiritual disciplines and grow in the fruits of the spirit...
As we mature into the beings God desires us to be...
We grow in the skill of prophecy.
MLK did not just wake up one day and "discover" he was a prophet. No. He cultivated a love of Christ for years before he stepped into that role of the prophet. Even Jesus was 30 years old before he stepped into public ministry! Becoming a prophet takes time. And it is clear in the Biblical witness, it is something that we can all grow into.
Another greatness to the Kindle
If you are not rockin a Kindle yet, then I would invite you to consider this thought.
If you are the type of person who reads and highlights things or takes notes in the margins then you forget what was highlighted or where you wrote that margin note then the Kindle has a gift for you.
All your margin notes and highlights are recorded, organized, and saved in the cloud for later access and manipulation.
If you have an amazon account then go to https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights and log in. There you will see your notes/highlights and be overjoyed.
In addition, you will be able to see what looks to be highlights from others whom you have shared the book with right there in your notes. So you can see what your friends are thinking about when they read the book with you!
Oh, and if you want to share your notes with the public you can do that or make them private. Here are my notes and highlights for the book Almost Christian by Kenda Creasy Dean.
This just saved me ton of time typing in my notes and highlights or manually transferring my notes/highlights to documents saved on my computer (which I have saved over 30 books worth of notes and highlights on my computer which I can now delete!).
Kinda awesome.
If you are the type of person who reads and highlights things or takes notes in the margins then you forget what was highlighted or where you wrote that margin note then the Kindle has a gift for you.
All your margin notes and highlights are recorded, organized, and saved in the cloud for later access and manipulation.
If you have an amazon account then go to https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights and log in. There you will see your notes/highlights and be overjoyed.
In addition, you will be able to see what looks to be highlights from others whom you have shared the book with right there in your notes. So you can see what your friends are thinking about when they read the book with you!
Oh, and if you want to share your notes with the public you can do that or make them private. Here are my notes and highlights for the book Almost Christian by Kenda Creasy Dean.
This just saved me ton of time typing in my notes and highlights or manually transferring my notes/highlights to documents saved on my computer (which I have saved over 30 books worth of notes and highlights on my computer which I can now delete!).
Kinda awesome.
Fort Worth Dish Out
A little project I have had the honor of working on is the Fort Worth Dish Out. Which is not a huge thing in the world of micro-finance and micro-granting, but it is a huge thing in my little world.
Not one. In fact, the opposite was true. People asked when could we do it again and even offered up their time and resources to help the FwDo in the future. It really was remarkable.
If you were not there, we had 162 people in attendance on a Sunday evening who each gave at least $20 to break bread, meet new people, share ideas, and participated by voting to support different mission/service projects/ministries in the Fort Worth community.
People were there for 2 hours. Which by most accounts, is 100% longer than most worship services.
And not a single person said to me, "hey, this thing ran long".
But more than that. It was Church.
Too often we think of Church as what we do in worship. And while worship is important to Church, worship is just one expression of Church.
And the worship expression has become the dominate, and seemingly only acceptable expression, of Church.
Recently I was asked by a respected clergy friend if there was any fall out from church members or from my bishop about putting on an expression of Church that had wine. (The UMC has a stance that does not jibe with alcohol consumption.)
Frankly, while I respect my bishop and will do as I am asked to do I would have to respectfully disagree with him if he decided to take issue with the FwDo. However, based upon a recent blog post he wrote, I do not think that will be a problem.
Here is the last paragraph of the linked post which I think expresses an incarnational theology beautifully (emphasis added):
"Wesley took the commanding mission (and commission!) to spread the gospel through making disciples way beyond radical hospitality. He went where the people were out of love of Christ and love of those who have no relationship with the living God as Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. What is the equivalent of the New Room and field preaching for us this day? I believe the same living Lord who called Wesley and early Methodists calls us today."
It seems to me that the UMC has at least one bishop who understands mission and service to a world in need and might be willing to support some ministries that move the Church into other expressions of Church that are not just worship.
I am thankful that there were many people at the FwDo who also caught a glimpse of what Church can look like in addition to Sunday morning worship.
Let us hope that vision does not fade in time.
Frankly, while I respect my bishop and will do as I am asked to do I would have to respectfully disagree with him if he decided to take issue with the FwDo. However, based upon a recent blog post he wrote, I do not think that will be a problem.
Here is the last paragraph of the linked post which I think expresses an incarnational theology beautifully (emphasis added):
It seems to me that the UMC has at least one bishop who understands mission and service to a world in need and might be willing to support some ministries that move the Church into other expressions of Church that are not just worship.
I am thankful that there were many people at the FwDo who also caught a glimpse of what Church can look like in addition to Sunday morning worship.
Let us hope that vision does not fade in time.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.