3 Days
If I'd only read days 19, 20 and 21 of PDL, I would have got enough value to set the book aside and never pick it up again. Not my intention but you get what I mean. Cultivating Community, Restoring Broken Fellowship, Protecting Your Church .... It's so odd to me to think that when people find their way to a Church or learning Centre like CPL that there is a suspicion that all we'll find there are highly evolved and enlightened beings with whom we will commune and grow and enjoy harmonious fellowship with nothing ever appearing to disturb our peaceful ... communion. I expected to find that in the Abbey, that's for sure! ... and imagine my shock when I found out that the men there were all like me ... fallible human beings who are there precisely because we needed to be there. My learning started with a young monk who pissed me off because he was such a "know it all"; an older one who I caught sneaking a smoke in his office one day; a novice master who who was totally insensitive to my needs (so I thought) and an abbot who disappointed me because he didn't live up to my expectations.
There should be a sign over the door of all Churches (and monasteries), according to Rick Warren that says "No perfect people need apply. This is a place for people who they need grace and want to grow." I translate "grace" as the gift of other people to grow with!
I am surrounded by a leadership team ... those who are closest to me in the Centre, who challenge me to grow at every turn. If I were to begin to attach myself to the perfect team of people to love and love me according to my expectations rather than the team I have, I would become the destroyer of the latter ... Well Deitrich Bonhoeffer said it best
"If we do not give thanks daily for the community in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary, we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty ... supply your own pet peeve here ................................................ then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow"
Rick Warren ...."Everyone needs and wants to be loved, and when people find a Church where the members genuinely love and care for one another, you would have to lock the doors to keep them away."
A great building my attract new people and a great teacher may get their attention ... but only love will make them stay ... and that's the TRUTH. I'm off to find out about Undefended Love this weekend. So ... think of me, pray for me and most of all ... "love one another, as I have loved you" (OK Maybe better than that) See ... I scanned forward to the 3rd Purpose of life .... to become like the Christ! I thought becoming a saint was tough!
There should be a sign over the door of all Churches (and monasteries), according to Rick Warren that says "No perfect people need apply. This is a place for people who they need grace and want to grow." I translate "grace" as the gift of other people to grow with!
I am surrounded by a leadership team ... those who are closest to me in the Centre, who challenge me to grow at every turn. If I were to begin to attach myself to the perfect team of people to love and love me according to my expectations rather than the team I have, I would become the destroyer of the latter ... Well Deitrich Bonhoeffer said it best
"If we do not give thanks daily for the community in which we have been placed, even when there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if on the contrary, we keep complaining that everything is paltry and petty ... supply your own pet peeve here ................................................ then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow"
Rick Warren ...."Everyone needs and wants to be loved, and when people find a Church where the members genuinely love and care for one another, you would have to lock the doors to keep them away."
A great building my attract new people and a great teacher may get their attention ... but only love will make them stay ... and that's the TRUTH. I'm off to find out about Undefended Love this weekend. So ... think of me, pray for me and most of all ... "love one another, as I have loved you" (OK Maybe better than that) See ... I scanned forward to the 3rd Purpose of life .... to become like the Christ! I thought becoming a saint was tough!
posted by Rev-T at 6:31 AM
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