In a Transition?

May 28th I had a delightful morning in the Adult Center at Rolling Hills Covenant Church. We had an hour together to talk about Navigating Transitions. Here's my favorite nugget of advice:

How to Thrive 

• Lower the bar. 
• Set small short term goals (example). 
• Talk about it and deal with feelings openly with the intention to overcome and not to whine and stay stuck. 
• Strengthen connections (intentional with only a few from the past, and dig in with new ones who are reciprocating as God brings them along). 
• Resist blaming or lashing out at those who are going through with you. 
• Strengthen your relationship with them because they are your allies. 
• Pay attention to replentishing activities in the new situation. (What are examples of this?) Accept and embrace with your heart this new beginning and let go. Even though the unknowns of the future are scary, refuse to mull on the past (ie. “Remember when…” “The good ol’ days”) 
• Covenant with God to cling to him and make the most of your transition to grow in knowing and serving him.

SACRED PATHWAYS: The Enthusiast, Loving God Through Mystery & Celebration

The wonderful ladies in the Rooted group have agreed to explore Sacred Pathways with me in the coming months. We took the survey in Myra Perrine's book What's Your God Language? and have decided to focus on one pathway between now and when we meet again at the end of the month.

How Myra defines the Enthusiasts: 

• ·      Loves God with gusto
• ·      Is called the "cheerleader of the faith"
• ·      Is often closest to God when gathered with others, singing and worshiping the Lord in the congregation (for them, worship is “party time”)
• ·      Is inspired by joyful celebration, and is usually comfortable expressing emotion during worship
• ·      Is at home with spiritual mystery and living a life of expectancy, prayer, and creativity
• ·      Gives merit to dreams as a way of receiving direction from God, and feels the freedom to explore the supernatural
• ·      Enthusiasts are cheerleaders of the faith who often feel closest to God when expressing themselves with open emotion and celebration.
• ·      Enjoy the freedom to express their love and devotion to God with complete freedom and abandon – they’ve lost in the love and mystery of God.
• ·      Contemplatives vs. Enthusiasts: Contemplatives express love to God in intimate, private ways; Enthusiasts express love to God in open displays of affection.
• ·      They write much of our worship music and allow us to see the joy of the Kingdom!

Kimberly's IDEAS to explore this Pathway…

• 1.    Take time (maybe even an hour!) to listen to/sing along with worship music. Journal what you experienced in this focused time or personal worship. Don’t be concerned about the quality of your voice…think of what you are doing as “as sacrifice of praise” no matter how you sound!
• 2.    Choose a hymn or praise song that enthusiastically praises God as your “theme song” for the month. Sing it or listen to it as much as you are able. Learn to play it on an instrument you know how to play (or once knew how to play!)
• 3.    Memorize Revelation 4:8 or  and recite it aloud, repeating if you want, or if you find you have trouble concentrating.
• 4.    Before attending corporate worship at church, pray for the Lord to help you be focused on worshipping him through the service, and enjoy the fact that you are in the midst of the assembly of saints together worshipping and honoring him. While more aware of the fact that you are in the midst of this big family of faith, “Fix your eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.” Hebrews 12:2 Ask him to fill your mind with himself and guard you from distractions, critique, or sleepiness! Keep your journal with you in church and enter into worship with an expectation that he will speak to your through his Spirit. Write down your impressions and insights through the service.
• 5.    Create something, or give something a new sparkle with the work of your hands. Do your best to make something shine for the glory of God. Love him with the work of your creativity and hands. We were made in the image of God and he is our Creator! Choose something that won’t frustrate you, but will be a joyful experiment/practice. Take a photo of it and send it to us, and/or ring the fruit of your work next month to our meeting so we can rejoice with you and be inspired to do more creating ourselves!
• 6.    Begin a long letter of thanksgiving to the Lord, see how long the letter can get over the month. Aim for 1000 reasons you are grateful to him!
• 7.    Read through the Psalms this month looking for the ones which show the Psalmist’s Enthusiast worship style. If you get to the end of the book before the end of the month, go back to chapter one and read them again. Before the end of the month, write your own Psalm or more than one!
• 8.    Identify someone you know who is an Enthusiast and get together with them to talk about their advice for cultivating this in yourself.
• 9.    Keep your journal by your bed to write down any dreams you have that wake you up, or that you remember in the morning. Ask the Lord if he is speaking to you through the images or story in the dream. Share it with a mature friend or two to seek their opinion about what you sense God may be saying.
• 10. What other ways might God be asking you to take risks and expectantly step out eager to see him do a new thing, do the miraculous, show his power and glory to you (or through you) to others? Conscientiously work to step out of your comfort zone this month!
• 11.  If you need a boost to recapture “childlike enthusiasm and faith” spend some time with little ones…visit a children’s Sunday school class.
• 12. Read your Bible this month with more imagination involved. Place yourself in the scene as your read. As you are working on difficult things, actively imagine that Christ is present with you while you do it.
• 13. Use more exclamation marks in your writing this month! ;-)