ridley has a quality about it - that's about as articulate as i can get about it. and i'm beginning to realise just how much that 'quality' is founded in the place of prayer in the life of the ridley community.
the simeon centre which is based at ridley, is a centre of ignatian spirituality, it is one of the main reasons that i felt excited about ridley at the interview day, and today i was reminded just how exciting it is.
prayer is something that is central to my own discipleship - not because i'm a particularly super spiritual pray-er, or because i think i've got the prayer life thing sorted, i absolutely do not. what i mean is that i know that without prayer i cannot do this. and by 'this' i mean life.
when i was going through a particularly acute period of anxiety, i quite literally could not have got up in the morning without starting with prayer. i know that this is my life blood, because it's all about jesus.
i can't wait to spend some time deepening this and enjoying the jesus-like people of the simeon centre, who live this 'quality' and can teach me more than i can imagine.
one thing i would like to learn over my time here is how to make prayer 'central' in a church that i might end up being vicar of in the future. how do we catalyse the prayer life of others? most people find prayer hard at some time or another and this is true of communities too. and quite often prayer becomes the thing around which apathy, guilt, insecurity grows. alternatively there's the legalism which can strangle anything like real life out of prayer. how do we help disciples and communities of disciples (the thing we call church) to want to pray, or at least to want to want to pray? without that being about yet another thing that we can 'beat' each other at - that is genuinely about care of each other on this road we're on.
so hopefully these will be things that i can see happening in ridley over the next little while and can drink deeply from.
the simeon centre which is based at ridley, is a centre of ignatian spirituality, it is one of the main reasons that i felt excited about ridley at the interview day, and today i was reminded just how exciting it is.
prayer is something that is central to my own discipleship - not because i'm a particularly super spiritual pray-er, or because i think i've got the prayer life thing sorted, i absolutely do not. what i mean is that i know that without prayer i cannot do this. and by 'this' i mean life.
when i was going through a particularly acute period of anxiety, i quite literally could not have got up in the morning without starting with prayer. i know that this is my life blood, because it's all about jesus.
i can't wait to spend some time deepening this and enjoying the jesus-like people of the simeon centre, who live this 'quality' and can teach me more than i can imagine.
one thing i would like to learn over my time here is how to make prayer 'central' in a church that i might end up being vicar of in the future. how do we catalyse the prayer life of others? most people find prayer hard at some time or another and this is true of communities too. and quite often prayer becomes the thing around which apathy, guilt, insecurity grows. alternatively there's the legalism which can strangle anything like real life out of prayer. how do we help disciples and communities of disciples (the thing we call church) to want to pray, or at least to want to want to pray? without that being about yet another thing that we can 'beat' each other at - that is genuinely about care of each other on this road we're on.
so hopefully these will be things that i can see happening in ridley over the next little while and can drink deeply from.
No comments:
Post a Comment