It Is Doing

Last week, a friend of ours reminded us of a Buddhist community in California that has, as its core philosophy, three rules:

• Take care of this space.
• Take care of yourself.
• Take care of each other.

This morning, Kevin Rains, our pastor at Vineyard Central, reminded us of the two great commandments of Christ:

• Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.
• Love your neighbor as yourself.

As I see it, the approach of that Buddhist community is not vastly different than the approach of the VC community.

Each is more difficult than it sounds. And each is more about what I do than what I believe.

As Kevin said in his teaching this morning, it is doing, and not just professing to believe, that will make me a Christian.

Prayer

Prayer plays a key role in the story of Vineyard Central (VC) and St. Elizabeth’s. Prayer has a key role in our ongoing efforts to restore St. E’s as well, although it did not start out that way.

We first started meeting in late spring of 2006. We were scheduled to host an ASG Civic Engagement Series (CES) in St. E’s in October. Our first task was to prepare the community and the space for that event, providing focus for our first meetings. When we met we used the rhythm of the CES: Convening, welcoming those who chose to attend, thanking them for the accepting the invitation, breaking into groups of three and four with instructions engage in one of the six CES conversations around one of the powerful questions.

After the CES, we continued to meet. Often those attending asked questions about why VC owned the building, why it went unused and fell into disrepair, and what VC wanted to do with the building. No one at our meetings had an answer, so we decided to ask the VC leadership. We arranged for a dinner meeting with the Nixons and the Rains, where they told us the story of VC and St. E’s. During the re-telling, Kevin Rains remarked how he was struck by the how much prayer was involved in the process.

“That’s all we had,” he said. And so prayer became the focus of our St. E’s team meetings.

We decided to hold a St. E’s prayer vigil, and we began planning that event. At the urging of Kenny Havens, we agreed on a 24-hour vigil, from 7 p.m. Friday, April 20, to 7 p.m. Saturday, April 21. Lily Lewin joined the planning process to help us think about and develop creative ways of praying. We ended up with a number of different prayer stations that included drawing, asking God to guide our vision, writing answers to questions, sitting in contemplation, listening to a guided prayer, hammering away doubts and fears, and writing our dreams for Sts. E’s on paper leaves and attaching them to a tree.

The result of the vigil was a subtle but powerful change in our focus. Restoring St. E’s had always seemed too big, too daunting, too much. The clear message of the vigil, it seemed to me, was not to worry about tomorrow. Do what was in front of us, give up trying to control the outcomes, trust in God.

How I Got Here

And by here, I don’t actually mean to a physical space, but to the place where I am concerned with being a steward of a Sacred Space.

First, the Earth cooled …

Okay, okay. It’s probably an obscure reference to a movie (Airplane II) that I don’t really like, except for that one line. (If you google “first the earth cooled” you can learn more about the origin of the reference and how it is now used as a teaching point.)

I place the starting point at a Saturday intensive of A Small Group (ASG).

A Small Group is a loosely organized organization of people who would like to create an alternative future, a future distinct from the past, for ourselves and Cincinnati. ASG is loosely led by renowned author and consultant Peter Block, who happens to live in Cincinnati. You can find out more about ASG here and more about Peter here.

At the intensive, late in the spring of ‘06, I was pondering one of the powerful questions: What promise are you willing to make without an expectation of reward? Until that point I had always answered, “Nothing.” There was nothing I would promise without expectation of reward.

This time I had a different answer: Restore St. Elizabeth’s.

At Vineyard Central services the next day, I spoke it out. I got up in front of the congregation and said this is my call. “Restore St. Elizabeth’s.” There was some interest: enough to begin the process. What progress we’ve made has been in fits and starts.

But we have made progress. And we continue on the journey. More about that later.

By the Mark

It was too much – His blood sacrifice.
Most days I turn away, not bearing the idea.
I deny truth’s power
And live comfortably, but not comforted.
If I try to fathom the unfathomable
I weep, I fall, I fail. I cry out, tormented
By this demon: A love so strong He died for me.