Perspectives of St John's 3: Going Deeper into God

 The series continued with probably the most challenging questions. We can look from a perspective of outside the church and look around inside, but overall it comes down to each one of us. We have to look around to see where we stand and consider how we respond to the challenge of 'Going Deeper into God'.

‘I rather think things are going to get more personally challenging,’ she said as we began another conversation. ‘You’ve talked about what people outside the church might think, and given some thoughts about how we operate as a church community at St John’s, but I can’t help thinking that it all comes down to each one of us as an individual.’ I smiled gently. ‘You’re not wrong. What happens to us as a church community directly depends on our own individual situation. Put precisely it depends on our relationship with God. That can sound a bit profound, but before we get too concerned about it we need to remember that we are talking about good news, about how things happen as we get closer to God and nothing could be better than that.’ ‘But we’re not all perfect, we’re not nuns or monks or priests or whatever.’ ‘Quite right, we are all different. The point is not getting marks for where we are right now, but that we are part of a process of growth. It’s what our bishops are calling Going deeper into God. When I was working for SB and GSK we had something similar called continuous improvement. It worked in the same way. It’s good to be where you are and to recognise the good things that have been done, but there is always more that can follow and build on what has already happened.’

‘Still, it can seem a bit depressing,’ she said, frowning a little, ‘that means we never make it.’ ‘I think we have to look at it rather differently,’ I replied, being quite sympathetic to this point of view. ‘As I said, the spiritual life is not about passing exams, reaching a standard, collecting badges as in the Brownies, or any kind of qualification. Scripture is quite clear about this. It’s there in the parables (think of the hired workers in the vineyard) and Paul knows about it too when he talks about all the different gifts and roles we are given. So it’s none of these. It’s about commitment and growing in holiness, going deeper into God in fact. None of us will reach the holiness of God in our lifetime. Only Jesus did that.’

‘Ok, so how do we grow in holiness? It’s not easy being a Christian and living a normal life as well.’ I agreed with the basic point and indeed as we’ve noted frequently being a Christian is not normal now with respect to most of the population. Once again, we need to recognise and support each other bearing in mind that for us at least living as a Christian is normal. It is our default setting. So I began to develop the idea. But first I said, ‘Now we come to the challenging bit. At least that’s what I think whenever I try it myself. Shall we go ahead?’ A possibly tentative nod gave approval.

‘Remember we are talking about a continuing process. Things change. The way we may think about things next year may well be different from the way we think about them now. I’m sure you’ll agree that your spiritual perspectives (we might call them) are different from ten years ago?’ ‘I don’t know. I’d have to think about that,’ she said, looking a bit puzzled. ‘Well, that’s would be a good place to start. See what you think. What I’m going to say now takes a bit of work. It requires thinking about some of our deeper background thoughts and experiences. I’m afraid it’s not really what people want to hear in a sermon. I have tried it a few times before. Left the whole congregation silent!’ ‘That’s just a preacher’s trick to amuse them and get them interested!’ she replied, and I had to agree that that was indeed the case.

‘Let’s have a go. The first thing to say is that everything must be done in prayer and be supported by prayer. As we go on we need time for listening to what God may be saying, or making us aware of, or drawing our attention to through the Holy Spirit. And we can’t do everything at once. Sometimes a particular occurrence will encourage us to think about where we stand. For example, we may have surprised ourselves by being strongly irritated by a particular turn of events or by a certain person. There may be good reasons for that, but one useful reaction is to look at the events prayerfully. It’s quite possible that there is an opportunity here to go deeper into God, to grow spiritually. I think it happens all the time.’

I could see that she was thinking about whether she had any recent experiences like this, so I said, ‘we don’t need to talk about an example now, but it’s good to do it at some time if you want. Let’s look at a more general process which anyone can try at any time, although I’ve often recommended something like it in Lent. It may sound rather dramatic but it’s worth looking at in this way. Perhaps without realising it we all have what we can call a Rule (capital R), or perhaps a Pattern. I don’t mean something rigid and monastic. What I mean is the way we have decided to live our lives as Christians, the way we do it at present.’ ‘I’ve never thought about it like that,’ she said, ‘what would you include in a Rule?’ (again with a capital R). ‘I’d firstly look at what you do now. Do you pray?’ She nodded. ‘That’s great. So we can think in more detail about it. For example, when, and how often? What do you pray about? Do you allow some time in silence to allow the Holy Spirit to direct your thoughts? Do you tell God exactly how you are feeling about things, what your concerns are, what you are pleased and happy about, what you think you could have done better …’ She interrupted, ‘Come on, I can’t do that all at once.’ ‘Quite right,’ I agreed, ‘but you can check out your current pattern of prayer and see if there are ways in which you might develop it.’ She seemed to agree, but also looked a bit uncertain. ‘Yes, I know it is a challenge. The more we are prepared to offer things to God in prayer, the more we are likely to come across things that need attention, shall we say. But, as I said before, this may seem paradoxical, but it is a good thing. It means we are going deeper into God. And if we decide to go that way we know the Holy Spirit will support our decision.’

‘But let’s move on. Prayer is very important, but there are a couple of further elements we could add. What do you think they might be?’ ‘Reading the Bible?’ she offered. ‘That’s right. Reading the Bible and other spiritual writings (there are so many) are also important. Scripture provides a window for us onto so many important things. It’s good to have our own pattern of reading scripture as well as following the sequences we follow in our Sunday worship.’ ‘Ah, and that’s the other one,’ she said, looking pleased. ‘The other main activity is worship.’ ‘Yes indeed,’ I said. ‘And worship can be a great delight because we celebrate together. This brings us back full circle to where we were in our last conversation. Remember that coming together in worship has lots of give and take. We receive and give support to each other and we all receive support from God.’

Then just to summarise I said, ‘So if we were doing a review of the kind I suggested, developing a Rule or Pattern of our Christian life, we would want to include at least these three components – prayer, reading scripture and worship. We’d need to think about what we do under each heading and we’d need to think about how often and when, just as I’d asked about prayer a moment ago. Then, and this would be listening part of the prayer, we’d need to discern whether we are being led to a development in any of these areas. A different pattern of prayer, timing and frequency? A plan of scripture reading? Or a change in coming for worship? – if our pattern is to come once a month, how about one more time a month, on Sunday or on another day when we have a service? Whatever we decide, these could become part of our Rule, which we would decide to follow for the time being. Then in six months or a year we could review it and make changes where it seems appropriate.’

At this point I thought I could not really add anything more because each of us has to make the next steps ourselves. The important thing is that we do continue to move forward. We may feel we don’t have the time. But it’s my experience that when we feel called to make a move and offer it to God, and if it’s the right thing to do, we will be supported, the time will be there and we will indeed find ourselves going deeper into God. And for a Christian there is nothing better than that.