At my Wednesday morning coffee & bagel meetup we began using new questions today. Stolen straight from the Brian McLaren book THE LAST WORD AND THE WORD AFTER THAT. They are:
THE FIVE QUERIES:
1. How is your soul?
2. How have you seen God at work in and through your life since we last met?
3. What are you struggling with?
4. What are you grateful for?
5. What God-given dream are you nurturing?
Anyone care to participate???
I've been wrestling with querie #5. I'm not sure what my dream is. Or if it's something other than what I'm doing. Is that a bad sign if I want to avoid thinking about it?
I always wanted to be a song-writer, and maybe a performer; but more a writer (I don't remember the last time I wrote anything though). I've also always thought it would be neat to run a small coffee shop. Or operate a youth center - someplace where bands could play, kids could hang out, stuff like that. My real dream when I was a youngster was to work on a garbage truck. Think of all the cool stuff you could get! But... I really do like pastoring a small church. I like the freedom; I like the discipline (I am a fairly self-disciplined person); I like the feeling of community. I just wish it wasn't so lonely, you know. I wish I had a place where I could go to interact with people. Anyway, I need to pick out songs for Sunday.
Peace. Revolution. And hey... don't be bashful. Feel free to comment if you like. :)
4 comments:
That number 5 is a loaded question - how do you discern between God-given dreams, and some wackiness your ego cooked up? I suppose you could place your dream alongside the Seven Deadlies, and see just how many of them apply. e.g., if your dream is to win the local hot-dog eating contest, the "Gluttony" light would go on, etc.
Or that might just be a pietistic dodge I'm employing. My own dream has long been to publish fiction, enter the fray of words, and come out looking somewhat respectable. Hmm - "Pride"? And yet, and yet... Thanks for the provocation - Darrell.
Darrell asked:
"How do you discern between God-given dreams, and some wackiness your ego cooked up?"
Yeah, good question. I like your idea of lining them up with the Seven Deadlies (as long as we don't kill ourselves in the process). :)
Your comment reminded me of this quote from a few years ago:
It is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord... In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God... Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.
... Ingmar Bergman (b.1918), The Seventh Seal, introduction
Pretty incredible that Bergman, of all people, can assert something like that. His concept of worship is something that the CCM "industry", for starters, could benefit from - DR
Amen to that!
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