Martin Kelley's Library tagged ministry →  View Popular, Search in Google

One thing I have learned is that prophets are mirrors, not problem-solvers.  The prophet's job is to deliver the message; it is up to the people listening to decide what to do with it.  In practical terms, that means I usually don't have answers when people ask me, "What are you going to do to fix this problem you have named?"

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I’d be quite sad if unprogrammed Quakerism died out for want of good ministry, but then I’d trust God to provide some other way for the faithful to gather and worship together. More important than the survival of Quakerism, I seem to hear the Spirit say, is that you remain faithful.

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Teaching First Day School in a liberal unprogrammed Friends meeting is a strange and wonderful business. Somehow you have to transmit whatever it is that is going on mostly in silence among the adults in the next room, without any hint of indoctrination... You soon find yourself navigating between Scylla and Charybdis, your sails flapping ineffectually before the feeble winds of your own insecurity. This has led to some of my most distressing episodes as an FDS teacher and some of the funniest.

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Some see it as a mini meeting for worship, where two or three people meet together to allow someone to share burdens or hurts. This is what I would call the context of holding space but not the contents. The following is an overview of how I approach holding space for another person, which has developed over time through my own mistakes, learning through prayer about it, and going to the library to find out how to do better.

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I remain unsatisfied with this answer. The mainstream Church has a very particular set of boxes that it puts ministry into, and it is a challenge to live into ministry that does not fall neatly within the predominant model.

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