Be New Wine

Someone once said that old wine skins can’t handle new wine. They’ll burst. It is a picture of convention’s inability to endure change.

Once in a while I notice that I’m feeling more tired than usual, sad, bored, unmotivated, and easily distracted. It takes something like a two-by-four over the head for me to realize what’s going on.

Almost always, it’s because I’ve begun serving the system rather than the people. It’s because the machine has asserted its supremacy and priority over my life. And this always numbs my heart, stuns my mind and kills my passion. There is no single person to blame. It is the subtle yet insidious domination of the powers, so beautifully embodied in our thought systems, networks, institutions and traditions. It is the gravitational pull of all powers and authorities toward the death of the human spirit. It is when, because of my inattention, these powers begin to hold sway in my life that I fall into a debilitating hopelessness. My work, as a result, becomes mundane, boring, spiritless, monotonous and lifeless.


At this point I realize: I must change! Be transformed! My number one job is for personal transformation. Change is urgent! A new creature! I must become new wine again. Then the dry, old, oppressive and constricting systems can’t contain me. They will burst. I must avoid their traps. And if I unwisely fall into one of their traps, then I must be changed to break those chains that would imprison me. The key is not to wait for the new wine, but to become the new wine! Only then will I live in the freedom I’ve been promised.

Posted in thought by nakedpastor on the May 15th, 2009

Will You Go.....?

“Will you go where you are sent?”

This question is asked of every Methodist Minister when we candidate for the ministry of this church. And we all say “yes” – because if we do not then we will not be accepted! Of course we do not admit this at the time, saying instead that we really want to serve Jesus and will trust that “God knows best for my life”. But as the years pass this question is not as simple to answer as it might have been at candidature.

This is because we have other obligations that demand responsible choices of us. For example: Is my promise to go where the church sends me greater than my marriage promise to honour my wife in her choices of career, or housing preferences? I also have discoved that there are dark and devious places in this church to which I have given my life: the kind of dark places that will move me to solve other people’s political agendas, or to fill a gap caused by someone else’s mistakes. And so I am drawn into taking responsibility for my assent to the places the church wants to move me. “Will you go” continues to be a question that haunts each of us who work for this church.

After 30 years working for this church, I was again asked this question. My church leadership wanted someone to move immediately to Pretoria to take up a training post. I knew that I would go alone because my wife has a deeply fulfilling job here in Cape Town, and my children are committed to studies at the University of Cape Town. I knew too that I am not free to immediately abandon the congregation that I am serving. I tried suggesting that the job could be done from Cape Town, but the leadership disagreed.

So I did not get the job... mainly because I was given the privilege of being free to choose. And I realise that the tension between freedom of choice and the consequences of my choices will always be with me. And I continue to trust that my life has significance in the dreams of God.

Old Fart

I feel like a dinosaur.
Wayne Burrows, Wade Britton, Rick Matthews, Ray Dibden, Neville vd Walt, Geoff Ryan, Cedric Muller, Eric Jurgensen, Alan Brews, Charles Villa Vicencio, Errol Grey, Mike Chapman, Pieter Greyling, Yvette Edwards, Vic Smith, Kevin Light, Mike Crommelyn ... names of friends of mine who used to be colleagues. They resigned from being Methodist Ministers and have gone on to other things. And sometimes I feel like a dinosaur because I have stuck around.

I often think of leaving.
I am disappointed by the poor national leadership of this church; I am embarrassed by the theological nonsense spoken by some of my colleagues; I am deeply saddened by the immoral behaviour of some ministers/leaders/preachers; I mourn the unthoughtful churchiness of many of our members; and I long for more Christians to be passionate about justice and righteousness and spiritual integrity. I notice how many really good people have left the confines of organized religion - not only the colleagues mentioned above, but the many, many church members who have moved out. And I know that God has continued to bless the work they do. And I have often thought of leaving too.

But I stay.
I stay because I am convinced that a small bit of yeast can make a difference to the loaf of bread – and I choose to be the yeast in this church. This is not from some sense of self-importance. No, it is rather from a conviction that God has called me to be here. So even though I feel like a dinosaur, I will stay... because this is a calling.

Career?

There are moments when I want to resign.
I work in a small corner of a large religious institution that is run inefficiently, by people who have very little integrity. The things that drive this national institution are political correctness (ensuring that every committee has enough black people/women/...no not gay people), naked ambition for power, greed , and old boy’s (male) networks.

And I mostly live with the junk because I believe that God has called me to be here.
But recent experiences have demoralized me:
- bureaucratic inattention closed down a training programme I loved and which gave my life meaning and purpose.
- I have been given administrative supervision that I really hate.
- My work load has been increased, with a reduction of staff to do it.

But I came across this cartoon which both challenged me, and got me over my self-pity.
So I look in the mirror and ask myself: “Whose career path do you think you are following?”
And I realise that I love the local church where I work. It is a community of caring people who often affirm me and thank me for the things I do. I work alongside local church leaders who are all that the national leaders are not. And I am reminded that the authentic church is local.

And I sense that my capacity to rise to new challenges in life is beginning to reassert itself.
Watch this space! (and keep praying for me).