So I'm reading in Romans and one thing that strikes me is how much Paul quotes the Old Testament. What he's arguing is that what God has done in Jesus is surprising, but it's not out of line with his intent from the beginning.
In other words, there's some dis-continuity in what's happened with Jesus--it's not exactly what was expected--but there's also a strong degree of continuity: what God was about in calling Abraham and through the hopes of Isaiah and the Psalms and others, he has accomplished supremely in Christ.
So Paul's understanding of the present situation and his vision for the future is rooted in the history of God and his working with his people.
As I'm thinking about what it means for our group of guys to have vision for our lives, our careers, our families and our souls for the next ten years, I've come to the conclusion that any vision needs to be rooted firmly in our own histories and be in step with how we have already met Jesus along the way.
We have to know and begin to perceive God's work in our stories to this point if we have any hope of leaning into a God-ordained vision for our futures.
So here's how we're going to proceed for the next couple of months. I'm posting this in the hopes that it might help some of you think about your own community/relational context and that it might spark application in your relationships.
Four Stages:
1. Each of us draws up our own segmented life-line. This is from Bobby Clinton's book "The Making of a Leader."
The line is segmented at a boundary marker: going to college, getting married, a move, a birth, a death, a job change--any significant shift in your life that marks the end of one season and the beginning of another.
In between each of those markers, you list the significant 'process items' that happened during that season: people, roles or jobs, communities you were a part of, Scriptures that were important, crisis that happened, etc. When it's done, this should be a rough-sketch of the major movements, players, moments, moods, communities and roles in your life.
Each of us will share our lifelines. The goal here is to start to see patterns: what kinds of opportunities seem to come your way? What passions or gifts seem to emerge? What kinds of sins seem to regularly trip you up? Where are the fingerprints of the Holy Spirit?
2. I've come up with a list of questions for 5 main categories that we've all agreed are the major ones: relationship with God, family, work, self, and "scrapple."
Scrapple is a meal that's made up of whatever's leftover in the fridge. So scrapple is the other stuff of life that doesn't fit those categories--a hobby, for instance, or something that you've always sort of thought about or dreamed about but don't ever think it could happen.
In all five of these categories, one of the last questions is: How is it with your soul right now, during this season of your life, in this area of your life?
3. From there, we'll start to talk about vision for the future. Given what God has done and where you are now, what is your picture of your preferred future in each of these categories?
4. Once we've got some vision-stories in place, some images and words and ideas, we'll start to talk about strategies and tactics. What concrete steps do we need to take to get to that place of vision in our family, in our work, in our relationship with God, etc?
My hope is that we might be done by Christmas. This process, completed thoughtfully and prayerfully, would be a pretty cool Christmas present for ourselves...and (I hope) for the women who are stuck with us!
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