needed: Tenzing Norgay
The author C. S. Lewis once wrote that, “There is all the difference in the world between reading a map of the coastline and feeling the spray of the ocean upon your face. People come to church, he said, not to be taught to read maps [about God], but to feel the spray.”
(Found in TAD, Pentecost 2003, in an article by Rev. Virginia L. Bennett)
Those who are in church leadership, must take off the tourist guide hats and drop the maps and tourist pamphlets and like “sherpas” begin to help our people journey into the deep that is God (or keeping with the sherpa metaphor; up the Everest or K2 which is God). We need fewer knowledgeable help desk tourist information centers and more trail guides or porters for the journey! Which of course would necessitate that as leaders among God’s people we must be less concerned with being able to provide right answers (and historical theology) about God and actually become acquainted with the person of God (a personal spiritual theology based on our personal encounter).
Stir in us a deep stirring, a yearning, a desire and hunger; may we learn to pray with Thomas Merton:
“My God I want to love You.
I want my will to disappear in Your will.
I want to be one spirit with You.
I want to become all Your desires and thoughts.
I want to live in the middle of Your Trinity
and praise you with the flames of Your own praise.”
(a litany from A Book of Hours by T. Merton p. 112 & 113)
I’m going to push back on that a little.
I think the personal guide and personal God metaphor is a bit overdone these days. My own personal Jesus is getting us into a lot of trouble. But I love the prayer …
And … who/what is Tenzing Norgay?
hmm… not trying to convey a “personal jesus” I am trying to say that the goal of the Christian life is not knowledge about - but an encounter with…
What I was trying to convey is that the church leader is not so much to be the “expert on doctrine and the teacher of all truth” but instead more of a porter or “guide” who helps people and/or a community encounter the living God (and therefore the church leader is not going to do well guiding others into places they have never been if they aren’t well acquainted with the Mystery of God.) Thus the emphasis on leader’s needing to nurture a personal spiritual theology [as opposed to mastering systematic or historical theology] (that may be or might even be best understood in the midst of a trusting community).
Tenzing Norgay was the sherpa who helped Sir Edmund Hillary summit Mount Everest in the late 50’s (the first known/documented summit)
Good stuff Doug. I get what you are saying. For me it’s not about finding my “own personal Jesus” but making my personal life more reflective of Jesus. I also agree with your comments regarding leadership in the church. Help us experience God and Jesus, not just hear about him and what he once did. I can read that all day long, anytime, anywhere. I need to experience God in a real way and a lot of time we need help with that.
Doug,
Love it. Great Lewis quote. Faith is easier to talk talk about than to do - easier as a noun than a verb!