Sunday, October 24, 2010

Prayer Retreat for Women "Pastors"

This past Friday, I had the privilege of attending a prayer retreat for women "pastors". I put "pastors" in quotes, because, in our faith tradition we reserve this title to be interchanged with "elder", a man's role.

But, this prayer retreat was for women in many different faith traditions, and for most of those traditions, pastor is the title given to the women leading the church or serving in a ministry role.

Now that I've helped my one reader, if that, understand the audience of the retreat, I'll explain some things I took away from the retreat.

The prayer retreat was held at Cenacle House, a spiritual retreat center in Houston. Lead by the nun's (I guess) of the Cenacle tradition that founded the retreat many years ago with a primary mission to serve others women, the Cenacle is now a place for any Christian to come and center themselves in God.

While I've been exposed to the idea of spiritual guides and personal spiritual retreats, it's still a concept I'm not very familiar with and I'm clumsy with the terminology. However, I love some very basic ideas of 1) going with there are no phones 2) having a place to focus only on the personal relationship with Christ 3) having mentors as resources to help one pray more deeply, commune more thoroughly and even understand the idea of personal and community discernment.

So, I was invited to this retreat at the Cenacle. The retreat was interesting in that many faith traditions were represented so worship was very different. Responsive reading and singing. Candles. Exhortation gave way to discussion which gave way to personal meditation and then the cycle repeated. And before I knew it, the hours that I was certain could not be filled up with prayer (almost 6 hours in total) were done and I felt that I'd barely scratched the surface. We even used a "visual aid", a bowl, cluttered, that we emptied and re-ordered throughout the day to symbolize how God can be lost among the clutter and we have to let go of the clutter to find Him, center on Him, and then place the clutter with God in the center.

I also felt, that I had a few defining conversations with women I don't even know and may never see again. One, was about the "role of women". These two women did not grow up CofC, they grew up in another faith tradition. They are not CofC now. In fact, they talked of the pain of leaving their "home" to seek out a tradition in which would allow them to minister, pastor, preach, teach, and lead the way they feel God had gifted them lead. The pain of choosing to leave was still in their voices, many years after the decision. Their conclusion, should they had stayed, and not used their gifts, they would not be in the will of God for their lives. So they felt they had no choice, though the sadness was still there.

Then, as it has other times, the question was turned to me, "will you leave?". "No", I answered, almost immediately, with perhaps a sound of guilt in my voice that had come from hearing their pain and not wanting to sound better, or, entrapped. "Why?", they ask. Almost apologetically, though not quite, I said, "because this is my home, God put me here to carry out His Will to the best of my ability." I wonder how they felt, I felt awkward. As if I could have been seen as passing judgement, though, I know they did not feel that I was doing any such thing. "Maybe it would be different if I was called to preach. But, I am not. I feel very strongly about my ministry calling, to help children love God with all of their hearts, souls, minds, and strength. In order to fulfill that passion, though, I do have to teach and equip parents, teachers and church leaders. That can be a quite confusing task. Sometimes it doesn't seem fair, but, it is where God has put me. Maybe I would have arrived at a different place if I was not clear about my task in life. But, I am clear about it, and, I cannot confuse one issue with another".

In a church that has seemed to become "label friendly", I hope that no one ever tries to guess which label I wear. Because, they will find out that I do not know. I arrived to a decision many years ago that God knew, in His infinite wisdom, that the teachings in the Bible are going to be hard. He knew, that Paul, writing those oft-discussed topics a woman's place in the church would set off centuries of discussion, inquiry, hurt. God had to have known. Sometimes, I think He did this to keep us interested, for, if the Bible was "easy" we'd master it in the early years and never look back. But, it is not. So, if it is not possible to understand God, His every command and desire, through the text ... if we will always have questions and decision ... then we have to decide where to stand. For me, I stand with my calling, to be missional in my life, and to fight for the next generation and the next. For everything else, I submit to those that God has raised up to lead us, to discern with them how to best carry out my role, and to continue to be part of the tradition that is like family to me.

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