Juggling as a Spiritual Discipline

Today we spent more time learning about three important areas of our work as Directors of Connectional Ministry: 

• New Church Starts and Church Revitalization,
• Understanding our and others Leadership Strengths
• Managing Time to ensure Ministry and Self Care

And, we learned (or attempted) to learn to juggle.

Today at School for United Methodist Directors of Connectional Ministry (DCMs), I shared a little about the blog that I stayed up late last night to write when we met together this afternoon.  My new DCM colleague, Dan Dick, who has done some excellant work about Church Revitalization has a provocative blog that I and many others enjoy.  Dan connected me with this excellant and sobering study he did while with the General Board of Discipleship about the importance of self-care for lay and clergy, and the results of neglecting self care. He writes, "One of the main questions we explored was, “how deep is the well from which you draw?” We explored over 200 pastor’s prayer lives, engagement with scripture, worship lives, self-care, and personal relationships to better understand how pastors renew their spirit and stay grounded in Christ."  The results are in this blog:
http://doroteos2.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/how-deep-the-well/

In reflecting upon today's main topics of DCM school I can't help but think that we can hardly talk about Church Revitalization and New Church Starts and Leadership without looking at the spiritual life and practices of the clergy-lay teams that lead our congregations. 

This year, I hope to test my own thesis.  I believe that we can transform our conference by becoming a transforned people--that intentionally focusing on developing deep committments to prayer, spiritual reading, worship and performing self-demanding acts of mercy and justice will transform our leaders, who will transform our small groups, who will transform our churches and their communities and the world. 

I did not say change, but transform.  Flora Slosson Wuellner writes, "Change refers to adaptation, reaction, without necessarily involving any newness of being....Transformation implies a new being, a new creative energy flowing from the center which acts with creative power upon surrounding events." (from Weavings, May/June 2009)

Learning something new, creating something new causes our brains to function differently and better.  Life long learning has been shown to be  a life-giving behaviour.  We DCMs were asked by our coaches, "When will you make time to learn something new?"  And, they gave us some practice--imagine more than a dozen people standing in a front yard of a sedate home in Lake Junaluska, NC, tossing one or two little bags over and over in front of them.  Only a couple of people ventured on to three bags!

What do you make time for in your schedule that is life-giving? What patterns of behavior are transforming you and your part of the world?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.                                         Paul writing to the followers of the Way in Rome