recovery and transformation personally and as a church

I just posted the following comment on the UCC Local Church Transformation listserve or email discussion group. I thought afterwards it was something I should post here. It is in response to two other pastors expressing their lostness in how to lead their congregations to listen and discern God's will for them and their own frustration and desire to cut and run because of all the resistance and sabotage they experience as pastors at the churches they are serving:

The first thing that helped me was 17 years ago beginning working a 12 step recovery program and learning in practical ways what it meant to have a spiritual relationship with God. After years of "talking about God and Jesus" and focusing on the "social justice agenda", 12 step led me to see the necessity of and what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had avoided the latter for years because the fundamentalists only talked about that seemingly all the time in my opinion to avoid the question of social justice. But I began to realize I was cutting off my nose to spite my face. And that it was my way of keeping large pieces of my life from God's control or believing that I was. I kept calling it "responsibility" as if by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and trusting God with my whole life I was somehow becoming a numbed out idiot who would never again act responsibly in the world if I "turned my whole life over to God." What I found was that I began to act more responsibly! And that my life was changing in ways I never imagined. And that listening, and prayer and Bible reflection and meditation became daily practices in my life. I couldn't live without them now. It is the only way I can preach God's Word because I know God and God's beloved Jesus Christ...rather than knowing about them.

Thus, when 10 years ago we began to look at "transformation" here at Fairlawn West...or when I began to and when I began to hear from Bruce Cole and Bill Easum and Tom Bandy and others the hard work that would lie ahead...I trusted that word because I trusted God. I shifted from being a local church service manager to being a spiritual leader. I just kept modeling personally and as the pastoral leader that role. Its what my ordination vows and my installation covenant called for anyway! Not everyone liked that. They wanted me to be more their personal social worker, to be the church manager, to be their personal "prayer", to take all the responsibility for the spiritual life of the church. I would not except that but continued to model my own personal and church pastor spiritual life. I had to trust it myself or I could never help them to see the power of trusting in their lives. So...transformation has to begin with us...personally!!!!!....first!!!!! Focus on your spiritual life. Take the time. Give your life over to the commandments! For me the 4th...honor the sabbath and keep it holy...is preeminent. Not talking about Sunday per se, but an every 7 day sabbath which is the beginning of my doing what God does. My life through sabbath observance begins to be in line with God's "weekly" practice from Genesis 1. And then...all things will follow. I need fewer if any "retreats" to monasteries or church camps, because sabbath is part of my life. If you ask our congregation now...they will tell you that the practice of prayer, Bible reflection and listening to God are much, much more clear for us. Whereas even up to 10 years ago for me it was still something "out there" I was struggling to do let alone understand it now was becoming something naturally part of our whole life...it was a recovery or a transformation...by the grace of God. Our corporate life is focused first spiritually...and the justice work multiplied at least 4x when our spiritual life became a core value and a bedrock belief of our congregational life. But it took Bruce many years ago in an email on the Easum Bandy leadership listserv when we were just starting and I was ready to throw in the towel, saying the word "persevere" that I decided to keep at.

My family took a deep wound during that time. I hit a severe depression for 6 mos in 2002. I was looking for a way to get out of here, but I couldn't find anywhere else that was as "far down the road" as we were!!!!! I would have to start over with this process at any church I read and knew about on "UCC Employment Opportunities." PLUS, my family said they weren't moving from Akron. It was home to them. The latter is what forced me to stay even when I was responding in the early part of this decade to Fairlawn West the way you and xxxx are to your congregations. I began to trust God...and the rest is history...or God's salvation history (oh, that good ole heilsgechichte)!

Love,
David