Lent resources

I stumbled across some Lent resources last week by Christine Sine. We’ve mentioned Tom & Christine Sine in the past – their books have been really insightful in our journey over recent years, particularly Living on Purpose and Sacred Rhythms. They run Mustard Seed Associates – which has a great website with lots of resources – and have just started the Mustard Seed Journey blog. They have also just formed an intentional community in Seattle US (something that Polly and I have been dreaming of for many years, and will be watching with interest) which is called Mustard Seed House.

Anyway the Lent resources…Christine Sine has produced a guide for Lent called A Journey Into Wholeness – which you can freely download here. It is designed to take us “each week on a journey into a different aspect of the brokenness of god’s world”, using the time of Lent as preparation for, “being instruments of God’s healing and restoration.” We will be using the guide over the coming weeks – there will be additional resources added at the Mustard Seed Journey blog and also at Christine Sine’s blog GodSpace.

Lent invites us to re-enter the school of life and be disciplined in the endless possibilities of growth Christine Sine – A Journey Into Wholeness

Another great resource for Lent is 40 by Revive. Forty illustrations depicting Jesus in the Wilderness (as described in Matthew 4: 1-11) making one image for each day of Lent. The images have been made into PowerPoint and movie presentations with a soundtrack – which you can order from CMS or Proost.

 

GodSpace by Christine Sine

I was pleased to see that Sacred Rhythms (which we’ve mentioned before) has been updated and revised, now reprinted as GodSpace: Time for Peace in the Rhythms of Life – and Christine Sine has started a blog called GodSpace.

GodSpace… looks at the natural rhythms God built into our world and how paying attention to them can strengthen every part of your life. God’s rhythm makes time for all the good things life offers… as well as the creative activity of work, the joy of relationships, and the soothing relaxation of rest. Follow the sacred rhythms and… discover a peaceful, Christlike pace that liberates you from the frenzy of a culture enslaved by time.

Pray As You Go

Came across Pray As You Go recently and have found it to be a great prayer resource. The site is run by the Jesuits in the UK and produces a daily MP3 file that you can listen to whilst on your way to work or as a break at your desk etc.

As the website says “It is not a ‘Thought for the Day’, a sermon or a bible-study, but rather a framework for your own prayer”. Each day has a ten minute guided time of prayer with reading, music and reflection, helping to create moments of peace and quiet in our hectic world.

They come recommended by us both. You can download the week at once – and the following week is usually on the site the Friday before.

When the time was Right

Despite the fact that we couldn’t feel any less like Christmas with the current heat of Zambia, Polly and I keep humming Christmas carols – must be inbuilt in us I guess? As advent approaches I thought I’d mention that Stephen Rand – my former boss when I worked for Tearfund – has just written a new book, When the Time Was Right: Bible Readings for the Advent Season – the blurb says…

“In this book of daily readings and reflections, we meet the kind of people God used to unfold his plan at just the right time: the failures, the reluctant, the ordinary, the humble, the faithful, the persevering – and he can use us too”

You can find out more at the publishers website or amazon.co.uk.

Daily Prayers

I have already blogged about our mission statement in ‘Getting to this point’. Since trying to put our statement into action through our lives, we have produced Daily Prayers that embody our statement. For some time now we have been exploring Celtic Christian traditions – using Morning, Midday and Evening prayer from, amongst other sources, The Rhythm of Life by David Adams. So we decided to produce some daily prayers based on our mission statement, which we can use a few times a day to create a rhythm of prayer and help us to put our statement into action. You can have a look at what we came up with by downloading our Daily Prayers PDF.

Some of you may find it too ritualistic, ordered or descriptive – or even frankly find us quite mad for praying in the first place – but we have found it extremely helpful in finding peace and calm in a busy individualistic world often full of stress. In making these times for prayer we hope to create a daily rhythm to live life.

“We have replaced the holy fast of Lent with our spring diet obsessions prior to bathing suit weather. We shy away precipitously from community and the pain associated with carrying one another’s burdens but exchange it for individualism and the agony of isolation and loneliness. Our days are no longer interrupted by times of nourishing spiritual reflections but by coffee breaks, aerobic workouts, and our favourite sitcom shows. We think we have escaped from the dead rituals of the past, but are caught up instead in the compulsions of fashion fads, shopping sprees, and the allure of a new vitamin pill that promises healthy longer life.”

From the book Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World by Christine Sine

Getting to this point

Some of you may be interested to know how we got to this point – well leaving the practicalities to one side… Over the last year or so we have been on a journey to discover what we believe as Christians God wants us to be doing with our lives. We wanted to see Gods Kingdom purposes leading and guiding our lives.

So, with the help of a book called Living on Purpose by Tom and Christine Sine, we entered upon a process to write a mission statement – or a summary of what we felt called to do with our lives. We soon rediscovered the words of Isaiah 61 – which summarised for us Gods Kingdom purposes – the practical and the spiritual.

Jesus sets out in his work through these prophectic words – reading them at his first sermon (recorded in Luke 4). The words call into being the Kingdom or Reign of God. They shape Jesus’ ministry, giving it expression as he proclaims God’s liberating love for all.

From this first sermon to the rest of Jesus’ life he challenged his hearers to live a life that trusted his Kingdom-agenda, and it is that which has helped lead and guide us as we have prepared to return to Africa.

We’ve ended up with a sentence that summarises for us what we believe God wants us to do with our lives – “To be trees of justice… in community, with the poor, speaking out and caring for the environment.” It was a hard process to go through, but it has been a really valuable process – and that is why we share it here.