Deep, Dark Listening

by Mark Tidsworth, Team Leader

There are so many topics I would like to write about as this year draws to a close. What a strange year it’s been, a winding and twisting journey for sure. Here in these last weeks of December, observing and listening closely during coaching groups, clergy are reflecting what appears present in the larger church – two specific dynamics.

Exhaustion And Innovation

Not only pastors and church staff, but lay leaders and most everyone else in church is exhausted. In every coaching group, I’m observing people who are bone-tired. This tiredness is the mirror to the other dynamic: Innovation. This year churches have been extremely responsive, reshaping their common life in amazing and impressive ways. Churches certainly deserve a gold star on their sticker chart for showing-up and engaging during this historical pandemic. So, one can easily recognize how the exhaustion and innovation are intricately linked, as they bounced back and forth in 2020.

So where to now? What’s next for God’s Church?

I have two answers to these questions, the second required in order to move forward with the first.

We are grateful to the responses to my new book (ReShape: Emerging Church Practice In A Volatile World) published in August, along with the strong interest in the companion church transformation process. We anticipate launching Communities of Practice through Pinnacle in June of 2021, though plenty are already working the process including a group funded by a Lilly Grant. ReShape is a guided process for capturing and integrating the innovation rising in our churches during this volatile season. June seems like it is in the sweet spot for connecting the hope ahead with the urgency of the moment, reshaping churches toward greater expressions of the body of Christ.

Yet, before launching church-wide efforts, the exhaustion must be addressed. Recently, my insightful spouse raised my awareness at the dinner table as we were discussing the state of our world. “What do you expect when the world is remaking itself? Of course people are tired. It takes energy to participate with deep reshaping.”

Extending her wise insight, intentionality is needed for participating well with God’s reshaping of our world, our churches, and ourselves. We are living with unprecedented opportunity for transformation. God did not create or spread the Coronavirus (in my view), yet God is drawing good from the effects of the Coronavirus. It’s up to us to intentionally participate with God’s efforts to reshape our existence.

All this brings me to what I most want to communicate to you this week between Christmas and New Year. Here in the deep dark of December is the time to gather around the light of Christ and grow still, listening deeply. No, it’s no longer time to preach or teach or write or promote. It is time to enter the deep dark, illuminated by the Christ candle, listening deeply, allowing God’s Holy Spirit to reshape us from the inside out.

On December 20 I withdrew from social media, driven by this very longing, to grow quiet and still. Relief immediately flooded my system. Perhaps you might join me, or pursue whatever other ways might get you to stillness with our God. Listening, silent prayer, solitude…these spiritual disciplines position us for receiving God’s gifts; position us for giving our energy to the reshaping of ourselves during this unprecedented transformation opportunity.

May you and I be still and know that God is God, enjoying the quiet companionship of our constant friend and companion, Jesus the Christ.

Amen