Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Thoughts of God?

In the spring, I read Adam Hamilton's Revival.  In the last chapter, he speaks of Wesley's last sermon at St. Mary's Church in Oxford - it was his last sermon there because he would not be invited to preach there again.  This sermon was given to a congregation of ordained clergy and many students pursuing ordination.  Wesley said:
May it not be one of the consequences of this that so many of you are a generation of triflers; triflers with God, with one another, and with your own souls?  For how few of you spend, from one week to another, a single hour in private prayers? How few of you have any thought of God in the general tenor of your conversation? Who of you is in any degree acquainted with the work of the Holy Spirit? His supernatural work in the souls of men?
Do you go to many church meetings? I do. We usually start with a prayer (and its usually the pastor who is asked to pray) - and that might be the last time God is mentioned in the work we are doing.  Do we think of God in the tenor of our conversation? Do we attempt to discern the will of God in our work?  Do we approach a church meeting - for example, the finance committee meeting or the staff parish relations committee meeting - with any attempt to be acquainted with the work of the Holy Spirit in what we are doing?

My confession is that I often do not, and I don't think I am unusual.

How do we do it? How do we turn church meetings into work done for God?  With God? How do we encourage others to do that?

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