Pioneering rhythms

The big news is I’m now a full time pioneer! The Methodist church has employed me as part of their Venture FX scheme. So from now on I’ll be considering what the good news might look like for my corner of Nottingham.

So me and Hannah have been spending a lot of time seeking God for vision and direction. Very quickly we felt God say that the ministry he’s calling us to has to be an expression of what he is doing in us. If we’re to effectively present a Christ-centred spiritual lifestyle to the young adults of this area, then we need to be firmly rooted in that lifestyle ourselves. And so we’ve felt God prompt us to shape our lives around spiritual rhythms. The beat of this rhythm is daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. Daily we’ve felt God call us to commit to meditation, Bible reading, and thanksgiving. Weekly we’ve committed to fasting and to observing the Sabbath, monthly we’re committed to a retreat day, and yearly we’re committed to observing the biblical festivals.

We’ve found it relatively easy to build this rhythm into our lives over the last couple of months (actually it’s something God has slowly been leading us into for the last year), with one exception, the Sabbath. Week after week we’ve failed to stop working and simply enjoying God (Isa. 58:13-14) and enjoying his creation (Gen. 1:32-2:3). The temptation to check emails, post a letter, finish an article, or do some jobs around the house is surprisingly hard to resist. And when I have managed to physically stop working, I’ve found it even harder to mentally switch off. But God has kept challenging us to stop working and to rest.

As we sought God for what the Sabbath might look like for us we sensed God calling us to two things. The first was a ‘digital detox’. This meant switching off the TV, radio, computer, and mobile phones. This would mean that for us the Sabbath was not only a slowing down our lives for a day, but also the quietening down of our lives for a day.  Secondly we felt God encourage us to enjoy the day, to focus on rediscovering the simple pleasures in life, to do those things that give us life and help us enjoy God and the good things he has given us.

The first few weeks we observed the Sabbath I felt quite uncomfortable and even a bit anxious. But it has quickly become a day I really look forward to and a central part of the Christ-centred spiritual lifestyle we’re hoping to share with the young adults of Sherwood.

Tim