Review Questions 2

a set of questions for the start of a New Year (thanks to James Lawrence for inspiration)

• What am I grateful for from last year?
• What are the 3 or 4 key things that I've learnt from the year that I don't want to forget?
• What will help my love for Jesus grow stronger this year?
• What am I fearful or anxious about How ill I face these things this year?
• Which spiritual discipline am I gong to major on as a means of God's grace being more at work in my life?
• Which fruit of the Spirit is God longing to produce in my life? What steps will I take to work with the Spirit?
• Whaich leadership principle/aspect of leadership am I going to grow in?
• Who do I long to see come to faith in Christ? What am I going to do to make that more likely?
• What are the next steps in the growth of those I most care for (god-children, family members, friends) that I could facilitate/encourage?
• When am I going to have my regular quiet/prayer days through thisyear? (put them in the diary!)
• Where do I sense God's call on my life developing/changing, and how will this be reflected in my priorities for the year?

They're designed for folk in Christian leadership, but could apply to most disciples. I remembered last week that I'd not got round to arranging any quiet days for 2009, so first up I need to book a day in to tackle this stuf.......

follow the review questions bookmark for others in this series.

Review Questions 1

Part of my plan for the new year is to get back into the habit of a couple of hours on a Monday morning reviewing how things are going, and planning the week ahead instead of just ploughing into it.

Here's a list of questions which I picked up from the superb Arrow Leadership programme a few years go. This is one of several sets of questions which I use, the idea is to come back to these every 6 weeks or so, though often it's less frequent. I have them on a sheet of A4, and use a large notebook to jot down my answers/thoughts. The same notebook comes with me on retreats and quiet days, so that all the jottings go in the same place.

God
1. How is your relationship with God?
2. What have you read in the Bible in the last week?
3. What has God said to you in the reading?
4. Where do you find yourself resisting Him these days?

Prayer
5. What specific things are you praying for in regard to others?
6. What specific things are you praying for in regard to yourself?

Habits and lifestyle
7. What are the specific tasks facing you right now which you consider incomplete?
8. What habits intimidate you?
9. What general reading are you doing?
10. What have you done to play?

Relationships
11. How are you doing with your friends, spouse, children?
12. If I were to ask a close friend or spouse about your state of mind, state of spirit, state of energy level, what would the answer be?

Conflict
13. Are you sensing any spiritual attacks from the enemy right now?
14. If Satan were to try and invalidate you as a person or as a servant of the Lord, how might he do it?
15. What is the state of your sexual perspective? Tempted? Dealing with fantasies? Entertainment?
16. Where are you financially right now? Are things under control? under anxiety? in great debt?
17. Are there any unresolved conflicts in you circle of relationships right now?

Renewal
18. When was the last time you spent time with a good friend of your own gender?
19. What kind of time have you spent with anyone who is a non-Christian this past month?
20. Are you sleeping well?

Review
21. What challenges do you think you're going to face in the coming week? Month?
22. What would you say are you greatest fears at this present time?
23. Do you like yourself at the moment?
24. What are the greatest confusions about your relationship with God?

Subheadings are mine, to break the list up a bit - the original is just a list of 24 questions, and it works quite well like that, as life can't easily be broken up into boxes. At different times, different questions are more 'alive' than others, either to provoke action, prayer, or ring warning bells. I've been using this for roughly 7 years now, and it's still very helpful.

Quiet Days at Home

A brilliantly simple idea from Steve Tilley for anyone with a reasonable sized house, or who can persuade someone with a reasonable sized house to make it available. Like a rectory, for example. Follow the link to see how it works.

St. Aidans Day

... is today, 31st August. Here's a bit about the patron saint of this blog:

Aidan was born in Ireland in the late sixth century and later became a monk of Iona in Scotland before being sent to Northumbria to evangelise the intractable English. Being a gentle person, Aidan successfully put into effect the basic principle of starting where people are and leading them a step at a time to the knowledge of Christ

more here and here. A community which tries to live in the spirit of Aidan is the Community of Aidan and Hilda, based on Lindisfarne but with members in all sorts of places. If you're anywhere in the North-East, I can recommend their 'Open Gate' as a retreat house and place to stay.

Time Out

Did a Touching Base piece on Saturday at the Wardman Wire on the need for time out, but forgot to link it. In a way it's a non-religious version of what I blogged here.

Here's a snippet:
Our local leisure complex has a section called ‘The Retreat’, which offers a typical consumerist solution. By parting with large amounts of cash, you can get a facial, a massage, or something unspeakable with candle wax and whalesong. An hour in another world. It’s not long enough, but it’s all we’ve got time for. The provocative Slow Leadership recommends time out, but recognises that for many of us half an hour a day is stretching it.

Blogging only makes things worse. On a web that never sleeps, it takes a matter of minutes for a new story to circle the globe. Report it tomorrow and you’re already too late. Its said that todays newspaper is tomorrows chip paper, blog posts start to whiff of deep fat whilst you’re off having your lunch.

and it's been picked up on this blog roundup, which is nice. It's quite a challenge to write something spiritual for a non-Christian audience every week, but it's a good challenge. How can we communicate the gospel and Christian wisdom without resorting to Kingdom catch-phrases? Discuss............

Off on a few days retreat, so it will be quiet here till the weekend. Venue is the lovely Mill House in Devon, and the books in my bag are:

Velvet Elvis - Rob Bell
Evangelical Theology - Karl Barth
Watching the English - Kate Fox
The Wild Gospel - Alison Morgan

and the Bible, obviously. And a large notepad...

Compton Durville Open Afternoon

Compton Durville - a Franciscan Convent in South Somerset, is holding an open day on Saturday 24th May, 2-4.15 pm including a tour of the house and gardens, followed by Evensong at 4.3opm. If you've not been to Compton Durville (just off the A303 near South Petherton) it's well worth a visit. Good place for quiet days, PCC/leadership away days etc.

Contact details: 01460 240473

comptondurvillecsf@franciscans.org.uk

St Francis Convent, ComptonDurville,
SouthPetherton, Somerset TA13 5ES

website for Compton Durville.

From Surviving to Thriving, Part 1

I wanted to bring together a few thoughts about leadership, and being a Christian in general. I come across folk all over the place who have dropped out of church, Christian faith, and leadership. Meanwhile 'Extreme Pilgrim' Peter Owen Jones is finding his faith dry and his church uninspiring, and gone off on a world tour to find spiritual depth and nourishment.

At a New Wine conference a few years ago, a speaker on leadership was talking about the importance of leaders giving a significant chunk of their time to 'personal renewal'. It's not just leaders. Life is demanding whatever you do, and any Christian needs renewal time to move from surviving to thriving. This renewal includes
- Time out
- Accountability
- Spiritual disciplines
- Learning

A few thoughts on Time Out...

'The Unreflected Life is Not Worth Living'
Socrates I think. His point is that if you never stand back from what you're doing, saying, thinking etc., you won't really live. In this weeks Touching Base I raise the question of whether we are thermostats or thermometers. The thermostat sets the temperature, the thermometer merely reflects the temperature. We'll be thermometers all our lives (or to use Biblical language 'blown here and there by every wind of doctrine') unless we're able to stop, stand back, stop reacting to things, and plot our own course.

This comes back to the idea of putting the big rocks in first. Jesus was able to withstand incredible pressure because he knew what his priorities were. After 40 days fasting in the desert, he withstood temptation because he knew his God and his mission. After the (possibly even greater) pressure of success, he told the disciples it was time to leave and go elsewhere to declare the good news 'for that is why I have come'.

How did Jesus manage it? When the disciples find him, he's been away praying. Jesus is always doing this. He manages to be at his best with the crowds, because he's already been with God.

What Peter Owen-Jones is doing is getting away from it all in order to find spiritual life. I don't know if he normally goes on retreats, or whether he's now catching up for 14 years of not taking them (!) It's the same impulse, but done on catch-up. Jesus knew that he needed time with God before the pressure came, rather than when he'd got to a point of frustration or burn-out.

My own pattern for putting the big rocks in first, which is just what works for me, not a blueprint for anyone else, is:
- weekly: a couple of hours on a Monday morning looking at the week ahead, putting the big rocks into the diary (rather than squeezing them in around smaller things), getting a handle on what needs to be done, and spending some time reading and praying, and using some review tools (e.g. a short stress levels questionnaire, questions on how my walk with God is going, where the pressure points currently are, Bible passages which help to reflect on character and discipleship etc.)
- monthly: either a quiet day at a nearby retreat house (see below) or a study day - a local family has lent me use of their granny flat, which gets me away from the phone and the internet, and is a great space to read, pray and think.
- yearly: at least one major conference (for teaching and encouragement) and a retreat of 3-4 days to really get into stillness and silence, and to try to hear what God's saying about the year ahead, and about where I'm at and where my key relationships are at.

I've discovered through hard experience that this is the minimum of what I need in terms of time out, though it's a constant struggle to make and protect these times. That's the trouble, unless we make them happen, nobody will make them happen for us.

The next bit will be useless for those of you who don't live anywhere near Yeovil, unless you fancy a pilgrimage to the West Country. If you want some time out locally, and are wondering where to go or how to start, then here's some links:

Abbey House Glastonbury
Compton Durville - Franciscan convent just off the A303
Mill House, Tiverton
Chantmarle Centre, Dorset
Hilfield Friary, Dorset - sadly scaling down what they do, but still open to some visitors
Monks Yard, nr Ilminster - opening up in the next few months, has the advantage of an on-site cafe! Looks better for group awaydays than individuals
Chemin Neuf Community, Langport. Their current programme is here.
Sheldon (Society of Mary and Martha) Devon - specifically aimed at clergy couples, but available to others too.

May God help you thrive.