Rhythms for Life (part 4: OUT)

Here we are again, the final week of our Rhythms for Life series.

Rhythm - an event repeating regularly over time

Rhythms for Life

What are the regularly repeated events or practices of our lives that help us to flourish as human beings and to grow as disciples of Jesus?

How do we recognize that God is at work forming Christ in us?

And then how do we pay attention to that?

How do we cooperate?

Over the centuries, spiritual practices have emerged among the people of God.

Sometimes, certain practices have been neglected or elevated, but there are a few that have persisted. And over the next four weeks, we’ll look at 12 of them.

During these four weeks, we’re listening for the rhythms that are part of the movement of God.

We’re learning how to notice the patterns or the repetitions and to see where they intersect with our own lives and our own spiritual practice.

And, this connects not only to who we are as individuals, but also to who we are as a community. As SWCC.

Our mission statement is that we are a community who seeks to live and love like Jesus. And we do that by seeking to deepen our connection to God (up), to one another (in & with) and with a cause (out). Up to God, in to self, with in community, and out in mission.

These four Sundays in June we’re exploring the four directions that the Rhythms for life take us: UPward to God, INward to self, WITHward in community and OUTward in mission.

The first week, we looked at practices that help us move UPward, a God-ward movement...

Solitude.

Gratitude.

Sabbath.

The second week, we looked at the INward movement. How does God invite us to relate to ourselves. Before we think about relating to others, we have to start with how we relate to ourselves.

Self-examination.

Stewardship.

Guidance.

Last week, we looked at the WITHward movement. How does God invite us to relate to those around us? How does community shape the rhythms that lead to flourishing and to growing as a follower of Jesus?

Spiritual gifts

Spiritual friendship

Table

This week, we will look at the OUTward movement. How are being invited to join God in mission? What does it mean that God moves outward? And how do we join in?

Hospitality

Generous service

Faith all week long (or faith on the other six days)

Now, a quick reminder once again, this is not a checklist. These are invitations.

There is an invitation to see where you are already practicing these AND a beckoning to maybe deepen a practice or to try it a different way than you have before.

How do you practice hospitality?

What does generous service look like for you?

How do you live this way not just on Sundays, but all week long?

The goal of the OUTward movement is to join God in mission. To discover, in Christ, that God is hospitable. To discover, in Christ, that God self-empties in generous service. To discover that God moves toward God’s creation in love and so God’s people move toward others and the rest of creation in love. Mission is love on the move.

Sterne helps us here when he writes this in a footnote about why he uses the phrase “Love on the move” to describe the mission of God:

One of the reasons I like to define mission as “love on the move” is because it captures how mission existed within the Trinity prior to creation and how it will continue after the consummation of new creation. The missio Dei (mission of God) is eternal. God’s love is always on the move within the Trinity and toward creation, and we join this movement now and forever.

Mission as “love on the move”

Mission as more than evangelism

Mission as going wide and deep

Mission as movement away from abstraction toward actual people and places Three practices:

Hospitality - this word might make you think about hostessing and Pinterest-perfect, magazine ready showhome - dining tables all fancy, house spotless, gourmet meal “effortlessly prepared”… and then we shrink away and say, “Oh, hospitality, that’s for someone else.” But that’s not thinking of hospitality rightly.

Sterne’s def’n of hospitality:  “always room for new people in our lives because there is always more room at God’s table”

By this definition, we can be hospitable in any location.

At home - whether our home could be featured in a magazine or not.

At work - or wherever you find yourself engaging with others - volunteering, interacting with actual neighbours, whatever.

Or as we’ve learned this year - out in a park, or on Zoom, or over the phone. Where do you encounter people? THAT’S where you’re invited to practice hospitality.

And then, yes, what are the ways in which you can contribute to welcoming others? Food often plays a role here, but it can be non-food, too. Gerry, I know you welcome people on hikes with you - encouraging folks to join in and explore this beautiful place we live. Terry & Janice, I know that you guys have experienced the hospitality of Gord & Bonita in some seriously practical “making room” sorts of ways. But we have also witnessed you five making room for us and for many others as you’ve spent time here and in France. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that a fellow Regent alum is going to be spending the summer up here - and this next week he moves into the Rowells. They have made room! Meeting people on driveways, in cafes and parks. Inviting people INto your lives - offering yourselves to others in lots of different ways. I could go on.

Hospitality. What we do when we realize that God always makes room… we join in.

So the question is where has God placed you? Who are your literal “neighbours”? Do you know their names? How can you welcome the people around you? (And do you know them?)

Generous service - meeting needs of others (all types of needs) mimics how Jesus demonstrated love on the move in self-emptying generosity

We see a physical, relational or spiritual need and we move towards it…

This doesn’t mean that we always meet every need we encounter. But it does mean that we know that sometimes when we see someone in need, it IS ours to respond. We can seek to always respond to the needs of people around us with grace and empathy, but we also have opportunity to sometimes go beyond being gracious and empathetic and actually meet the needs we enounter.

This can happen by serving within our church family - from leading us in worship to facilitating a small group or a breakout prayer room. From setting up a farewell event to serving in Kidnection Zone to make space for our youngest ones.

And then of course, it also happens in the wider community. Often the needs of the city of Kamloops might feel overwhelming. What can we possibly do to meet ALL THOSE NEEDS? But when we actually look at what needs move us most, and at what we have to offer (whether time or skill or ??)

Now, this is another spot where all I had to do was think about you all for a few minutes, and I could come up with a bunch of examples. Marilyn, Judy & Carol are at the Red Cross every week. Sheryl heads up a PIT stop team and because so many of you sign up to be on her team, and that work has earned SW a really good reputation with Rick and the crew down at KUC. Florence recently started volunteering at the Mt Paul Food Centre - and of course, we know that Florence and Reg often participate in MDS trips, helping out all sorts of people in all kinds of practical ways - and I hear they have another trip coming up!

Sometimes we do this kind of work for people we have connection to, and sometimes we do this kind of thing for the stranger.

Generous service. It can look like a million different things. But it is love on the move.

Faith all week long - the integration of faith into our everyday lives. Not just a Sunday morning kind of faith, but all seven days a week. What does it mean to be a Jesus follower when I’m at work, at home, at the gym, on the soccer field, at the grocery store, in volunteer work (whether in the church or the community), at the bank, on the internet, with my kids or grandkids, etc.

practicing hospitality and generous service in the places where we spend our days…not just in our faith communities or when we’re with other Christians

As people who declare that we seek to live and love like Jesus, we then seek to do so not just when we gather together, but also on a Tuesday afternoon and a Thursday morning, and late on Friday night.

So maybe the real question as we think of these practices is

Where is love on the move … where is Love moving towards others? Where is Love beckoning me to make space for someone else? Where is Love highlighting a need that I actually could meet? Where am I being invited to offer myself on behalf of someone else - and maybe even someone I don’t know?

Where is love on the move

… in my home?

… on my street?

… in my neighbourhood?

… in Kamloops? in the Interior? in BC? in Canada?

Where are you/we being invited to watch for opportunities to make room for others?

Where do we feel the “pinch” of moving over, so that there is room for someone new? Where do we resist that? Where do we draw the line and say, “No. Not for them!”

Now, let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute… this is where in church life, things can get really messy. Because as excited as we get to welcome new people into our church family, they also change us by their very existence.

And so, sometimes, this movement OUTward in mission can feel daunting. We will sometimes see other people moving OUTward and worry that God is asking us to do what they’re doing. And God will, God is inviting us to hear this part of the music too. To connect with a cause as our mission statement says. But God knows us. God knows who the invitation is going to. God knows how we’re made, how we are wired, what our passions and our biggest problems are. So, we can trust God’s invitation. Listen for the rhythm of this OUTward movement and just tap your toe. Nod your head. Sway to the music. Who knows what beautiful expressions of hospitality might come to be? What acts of gentle and generous service might be done - some in obvious ways, and many in quiet faithfulness behind the scenes. But the outpouring of what you have to offer will change you. Maybe even more than it will change the one whose needs are met. And as we learn to listen for this rhythm, we will discover that this rhythm doesn’t go out of earshot when we are at work or school, doesn’t necessarily get drowned out on the golf course or the hiking trail, in our weekly routines, whatever they may be… the music is inviting us. UP, IN, WITH and OUT.

May it be so.