"Tending the Garden of God"  

Stated Presbytery Gathering  

Saturday, May 18th

 

- Nurture our relationship in Christ;

- Celebrate the gifts God has given us;

- Develop a ministry strategy canvas as we heed God's call.

To RSVP, please email Shauna at Shauna@MVPJourney.org or call 330-339-5515 by May 29th.  

Space is limited!  

The Shape of Our Time Together

Monday, June 3
11:30a - Check In
Noon - Lunch
1:00p - Opening Devotions
2:00p - Celebrating Our Gifts
4:30p - Break
5:00p - Dinner
6:00p - Developing Your Ministry Canvas
8:30p - Compline
9:00p - Fellowship

 
Tuesday, June 4

A Call to All Poets and Prophets...

The articulators of experience and the rememberers of tradition.  They image and symbolize the unarticulated experience of the community, identifying and expressing the soul of the people.  The poet is a listener and an observer, sensing the experience of the body and giving that experience a voice.[1]

Many voices compete for our allegiance.  The poet helps us to remember who we are that we might reclaim the integrity of core identity and character.  Beyond the quick fix, beyond the individualization of our times, beyond the loss and pain born of deep change, the poet helps to draw people into hope for the future.  Through image and story, the poet shapes meaning out of chaos that memories might be shared and new visions emerge.  The poet weaves together the disparate (and often, dissonant) voices into a rich tapestry of story and meaning that neither reduces, nor eliminates creative tensions, but rather nurtures exploration of new collective possibilities.  

The word of the poet is heard because the poet is not didactic.  The poet neither scolds, nor sells; rather the poet invites the community to imagine together another way of being.  By painting a picture of Shalom through words, the poet intuits a way forward that permits relinquishment of old ways of being.  The poet thereby creates movement beyond the present crisis of identity to fresh forms of community.  These possibilities allow the community to shift from a focus on deficiencies, individual interests, and entitlement to a focus on possibility, strength, and generosity of spirit. But, as Roxburgh points out, "Without the prophetic voice, poetic leadership is little more than adaptation and consolation."[2] 

The prophetic challenge of the leader becomes the means by which the community crosses over into a new understanding of role and responsibility in seeking the Shalom of "the cities" to which we have been sent into exile.  Pain has the potential to open the door to deep, kenotic change.  Kenotic change, the emptying of real and perceived rights and prerogatives that we might embody Shalom, requires attentiveness to both the guilt and the yearning that stirs in our souls.  The prophetic voice is the voice of truth.  As both individual and collective whole come to claim the truth about their present state of being, they are thus invited into a paradoxical experience of loss and hope.   Seeking Shalom involves a delicate dance of repentance as the community acknowledges their state of brokenness and delight as they yield to the possibilities born of an alternative vision.

It is important to note that the truth, which the prophetic voice speaks into the life of the community, is not an ephemeral ideal or abstract concept, but rather an embodied reality.  This reality is tested and refined in the context of relationship.  Truth is made real as the community comes to experience the Shalom of body, mind, spirit, and emotion.  The leader as prophet names dehumanizing policies and structures, as well as introducing new practices that nurture community.   These practices help the community to surrender old ways of being, thereby allowing the new to emerge. 

The prophetic voice of the leader thereby empowers the community to reside in the liminality of this time.  Instead of avoiding or minimizing differences, the leader as prophet helps the community to claim the gift of conflict.  Deep, adaptive change will not come apart from challenge: of our structures, of our processes, of our very understanding of community.  Beyond the individualism which seeks to care for "self" apart from the "whole" of the community, Shalom calls us to realize our inter-dependence upon one another.  The leader as prophet refocuses the conversation from that which is unsustainable to finding new solutions to the environmental, social and economic challenges we face.

Taken together, the leader as poet and prophet transforms pain into hope, thus inviting previously unimaginable levels of engagement in shaping a new reality.  The leader as poet and prophet invites the community into a place where deep change can take place, not for the sake of change, but that the freedom, energy, and courage of an alternative identity might be formed for "the Shalom of the community."

Don't ever doubt the power of your voice in this season... even from the sidelines!

Deborah Rundlett, general presbyter 

Deborah@MVPJourney.org  

Holy Habit: Nurturing the Poet and Prophet Within

Hmm... does that sound a bit like the church of the 21st century?  Like us?  Of course, the prophets among us have never shield from speaking the truth even when the result is expulsion from the very community they are seeking to reform.  Hence the need to nurture both the poet and prophet that dwells within each one of us!  For such a time as this, we have been called to reclaim the voice deep within our souls-the voice that speaks truth and life and love.

This week reacquaint yourself with poetic and prophetic voices found in scripture.  Pray through your favorite Psalms.  Dare to connect with the prophets.  And then ask God how these words-The Word-speaks into your life and living.

First Presbyterian Church of Minerva

204 Edgewood Dr.

Minerva, Ohio

Presents

Stockdale Family Band

May 19, 2013 

at 

7:00 P.M.

The Stockdale Family Band performs bluegrass,

gospel and Old time music with stories and comedy about faith, family and farm life.  

Performances highlight alternating lead vocalists  

and 3 & 4 part harmonies.  

Free will offering to be taken.