God is always doing something new and sometimes the new is upon us in surprising ways.
I trained a at a low evangelical, charismatic college. It could even be that assumptions were made during selection that I was more acquainted with high church practice than is actually the case: I had married a Catholic (who is now an Anglican).
The days of my high church experience were those of childhood; days in which I believe I was first called to minister as I knelt as a Brownie 'not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs,' knowing that something hugely significant was happening and that my Brownie friends were seeming to miss the point with their giggles and whispers. I clenched my hands tighter and tighter together in the thinking that the harder I squeezed, the more efficacious my prayer might be. I was seven!
I was profoundly impacted by the Eucharist.
I now begin a journey into my first position of responsibility and I revisit some of my thinking regarding higher church practice.
There will be those gestures, not habitual for me, that I am bound to simply miss. I am hoping that some room will be made for my lower evangelical sensibilities. As I rediscover some of those higher church customs that have not been a part of my daily life for many years now and I seek with grace to journey with a body of people into all that God would have for us together, I came across this really lovely exchange between a high church and a low church minister in which their obvious respect for one another, their imputation of good motives to one another and their very obvious friendship is a source of inspiration and comfort to me at this time, as I prepare for my new post.
I trained a at a low evangelical, charismatic college. It could even be that assumptions were made during selection that I was more acquainted with high church practice than is actually the case: I had married a Catholic (who is now an Anglican).
The days of my high church experience were those of childhood; days in which I believe I was first called to minister as I knelt as a Brownie 'not worthy so much as to gather the crumbs,' knowing that something hugely significant was happening and that my Brownie friends were seeming to miss the point with their giggles and whispers. I clenched my hands tighter and tighter together in the thinking that the harder I squeezed, the more efficacious my prayer might be. I was seven!
I was profoundly impacted by the Eucharist.
I now begin a journey into my first position of responsibility and I revisit some of my thinking regarding higher church practice.
There will be those gestures, not habitual for me, that I am bound to simply miss. I am hoping that some room will be made for my lower evangelical sensibilities. As I rediscover some of those higher church customs that have not been a part of my daily life for many years now and I seek with grace to journey with a body of people into all that God would have for us together, I came across this really lovely exchange between a high church and a low church minister in which their obvious respect for one another, their imputation of good motives to one another and their very obvious friendship is a source of inspiration and comfort to me at this time, as I prepare for my new post.
1 comment:
Threads at JAEC have been really helpful. Thank you.
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