Teddy DIckerson's Water Song Reflection

I have to “leap” into pain you say? I have to be willing to be ridiculed, hurt, vulnerable not only at MY choosing, be seen in all of my imperfection? Embrace pain? I don’t want that, I don’t want pain! I feel like I have been standing on the bank of this river for an eternity. My feet creeping over the edge, my knees bent ready to leap, my hands in the perfect divers form…but there I continue to stand. The water is so beautiful in its perfection as its whole being is to be as the Shepherd is. I am faced with the questions, “you want to know me? You want to do my will?” “Of course” is my first thought followed quickly by “sweetest pain,” and so there I stand on the bank of the river.

Enough is enough! My selfishness has kept my feet planted on this bank for far too long. I am saying goodbye to all MY hopes, MY dreams, MY false identity, MY self preservation, MY expectations, MY way, MY image, MY security, MY entitlements. Goodbye to doing the will of the Father for MY benefit (if even possible), to all MY striving for affirmation, MY need to do everything right but not living rightly, goodbye to PRIDE.

Bring on the “sweetest pain” and the “lowest place.” My desire is to flow as water flows. My perfect form does nothing for me, I belly flop into the water. Consider this an alter.

Cassie Boddington's Water Song Reflection

For me this song is a beckoning of self-emptying, humbling yourself and making yourself nothing. It is calling me to release my pride in vulnerability, fears, self-glory and to go to the lowest place within myself and within the body of Christ. It is calling me to have a joyful spirit while being a servant to the body of Christ even to the lowest places on earth. It is calling for an “attitude that should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who Being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” (Philippians 2:5-9)

Joanna Miller's Water Song Reflection

Jesus said, “Follow me, become who you were meant to be in Me.”

So we lay everything at His feet and start on the journey.

And as long as we keep following, keep moving, the current of His mercy will take us where we need to go.

It may be down, further than we thought possible, but the family of God flows and moves with the Spirit, bumping along the jagged rocks, the smooth feeling of fish traveling alongside us lifting our souls because they seem to know exactly where they are going.

We were born in this crevice of the world. We were born to flow, not to fight, but to follow, not defy.

And so each day we hear His voice, and we continue to follow, to flow, down, deeper, deeper. We find joy in fulfilling our purpose. We don’t always know what lies beyond the bend, but when we choose to move with Him, it is then that he guides us, taking us into His arms, carrying us.

He never cushions our fall. Instead he delivers us from the treacherous depths.

How beautiful it is to follow. How sweet it is to surrender.

How awe filled are we to know that a higher place is coming.

Liesl Stuhr's Water Song Reflection

The water song found in Hinds Feet is such a refreshing poem to read in the conviction it presents. I feel like it speaks so much to the call that Christ has given to us. It seems to take his message and put it into one simple sentence “sweetest urge and sweetest pain, to go low and rise again.” The very image I get in my head is of pouring yourself out completely and joyfully. It brings such joy to pour out your heart and serve Christ and those whom he loves.

I find such encouragement in my life from this water song in the image it gives me. When I read it I see a community working together, finding joy in serving Christ through fulfilling what it was created to do. Created to go from the high places to the lowest places, leaping with joy as it is spreading God’s love and peace while flowing down into the lowest places. “It is happy to go low.” I love this line, for even Christ himself said that he came not for the healthy but for the sick. He went from the highest place to the Valley of Humiliation where we have been holding ourselves in bondage by our own sickness. He poured out his love and his blood for us and is calling me with community to pour out myself for others as well.

It’s not easy, at least not for me. That is one way that I find this song convicting. I struggle a lot with giving all of myself and having the vulnerability that is required to pour myself out. I fear what type of image that reveals about me, I fear my lack of ability. Yet in this poem and this book I realize what type of journey that I am on. Like Much-Afraid when I read this song I wondered what the water meant and how the water has such joy while flowing down away from the high places, yet I am learning what pure joy it is to hear the call and to be like the water “always answering to the call, to the lowest place of all.” I find the desire for this growing stronger and stronger in my life, I am now finding joy as I am being sent to flow freely and joyfully down the hill. I have come to look forward to the moments where I can pour out that love, that message to people through a word, a smile a touch. I too want my song to end in “sweetest urge and sweetest pain, to go low and rise again”

Jim Wick's Water Song Reflection

Where is He?

There he is amongst the snags and in the hollows as he rescues those that have befallen the grip of the hydraulic torrent.

He struggles against the grasp of the dark that surrounds the unbeknownst in the depth of their arrested attention.

Like water He moves, fluidly finding the cracks and crevices as he clears way the prey trapped between the frays.

As if His concern is only completed by the responsiveness of the removal of the obstruction, as the befallen are absorbed in the flow of His rushing spring.

Alive, without regard and without hesitation He implores them in the cascade of the ensuing waters of the spring.

I can hear Him as I pray, summoned, will I obey? Becoming able to see the need to accept, thanking Him for the persistence of consequence as we follow the way.

How low will He go? How much longer, farther, how deep must I go?

I am realizing that much like Hannah Hurnard’s character “Much Afraid,” we are on a journey of “lower still” its about our need for the Water to seek us out and find the depth of our soul…

“Ours is a journey inward, now, ours is journey outward.” Here we go, lower even still.

Chanelle Freese's Water Song Reflections

Down, down, down, deeper into the dark, oh yeah, but with a dark look on my face and a posture that shows it... This is my confession of what interpreting this song might look like in my life ... When Christ is calling me to humility, I have the choice to release my "sweet will" and "go down lower still", but what is my heart saying, what do my eyes speak of, how does my life represent Christ as He calls me to the depths of His will? Is it really happy to go low? Well, these waters speak of happiness and enthusiasm and urges and ...pain.

I am afraid of pain, why would I want to go low and be humbled and feel pain? Because we have been commanded to follow these moving waters, to the valley and to the answering of the call. This call, to grow and to experience the depths of the valley, so that when we rise again, we are stronger and joyful because of it. To be able to go down with grace is a terribly hard lesson to learn though. Submitting my will to Christ first off, is very difficult for me to do, but to do it with grace, humility and enthusiasm!

Thankfully, it is a process, and the waters flow at a pace that won't be more than we are able to handle so, Lord, "let us away- lower, lower every day"...

Responses on "When the Church was a Family" - Chapter 8 (Joseph Hellerman)

I am not my own. Just as any great movement may be founded on the ideas and desires of one person but can only be actualized by the support of many, so must I make my movements with the support of the faithful. I am currently in the midst of a very transitional stage of life that encompasses many decisions. I have emerged from my season of formal education and into a new season where I can continue to explore the complexity and simplicity of what it means to follow God in new confines. As I find my footing with those I live alongside, it is imperative that I continue to explore these new frontiers in community. What does that mean? It means that my God is your God, and I cannot speak on behalf of His will without your permission. It means that a group of people who together desire to see love, harmony and unity must decide together what that means in individual lives. As I make decisions about where I will go, what I will do, who I choose to spend my life with, I must send that decision through the ultimate filter: God. God is love, and love establishes itself on earth as the brothers and sisters of the church joining together in self-sacrifice. If the church makes my decision with me and for me, then love decides. And if love decides, God decides.

Amanda Paxton

As I learn to delegate my formerly personal decisions into the family church model of living, it allows the chance for those around me to insert “relational stakes” into my life. These stakes form bonds of reciprocal trust between myself, and those I am surrounded by. I am finding that these “stakes” that we place in one another’s life act as “safety-nets of love” when formed and pursued with confident expectation that the Body will be there for me and I for it. This reciprocal trust acts as relational glue to the Body as a whole, as well as invites Christ into every aspect of day to day living. Robert Green

“More often than not, we simply need to figure out how to get out of God’s way in order to let Him do His community-creating work in our lives.” …“Their decisions to enter the ministry did not come as individual emotional responses to a sermon or to a highly charged camp message. The decisions were hammered out in context of a community of peers and leaders who were well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual.”

I am finding that I simply need to get out of the way. Thinking back to six months ago it is nearly impossibly to really see the person I was back then. But in some ways I am still the same person. I like to be in control (of my own paradigm), in the know, in on the joke, and in on the adventure. I simply want to belong. I haven’t fully trusted the Christ, and in that I haven’t fully trusted the body. I do not like to admit this, because this means that my plan has failed, but it’s true. And so how do we get past this? How do we step out of individual crisis and into community struggle? We have to realize that we really do belong and then get out of the way. I have seen how this very reality has affected the people around me, and how when we release our decisions, worries, and struggles to each other the heaviness becomes lighter so that we are able to lean on each other and Christ during our darkest hours. The most significant decision I have made in the last 7 months was to move here (to Portland) and to be a part of the apprenticeship. At the time, I really saw those as my decisions to make, but now I see that they really weren’t mine at all. I threw myself into community, I was all in…or at least I thought I was. I still had A LOT of issues to deal with. And so these issues began to be dealt with communally. Sometimes I could appreciate it, other times, not so much. But in this I learned that I really would be nothing without this body of believers around me. So then, I choose to trust this body, but then I think that I have decided what is next on the agenda, and that it is my job to respond to the call that Christ has on my life. Is it really my decision to make? No, it is not. Joanna Miller

Decision making within the framework of church as family perhaps is the hardest reality that we have encountered yet in the journey this book has taken us on. Seeing how our western culture has distorted the strong group family that the new covenant church lived out is one thing, but consenting to practically put our personal decisions into the hands of that family is another. The activities that our church is involved in, the place where we live, and how we gather are things that I would like to determine. However, being in community is changing my own ideas of what church should look like because relationships with my brothers and sisters are starting to become more and more of a first priority. It is within those relationships that we can, together as one, envision a more perfect reflection of life as the church, and no longer do my own expectations have to be unveiled as false, leaving me with despair and disillusionment. When my paradigm reflects a lying down of personal desires, it frees up others in the body to do the same, leading to reciprocated giving. Agape love then becomes the reality and decisions as a group are no longer a hurdle to jump, but rather a joy to be experienced. Trevor Williams

Within my own personal confine, I see making decisions within the family (body of Christ) somewhat complicated but not an unexpected matter. Complicated in the sense that there are decisions of different matter and magnitudes. Those which are hard, I usually make alone and don’t include no one and those that are easy, I usually include others. But there are also instances that are the other way around. In other words, I can still make decisions alone even if I’m part of the body, its not automatic, we have to get in the habit of doing so in spite of the independence that is in our bags.

Being a part of the body though has helped me get a better understanding of how we operate as the church. Switching from independence and blood family to depending on the family of God. No longer an I but a we, no longer a one of singularity, but a one of plural. And only when we get to a point where we operate as one can we then be a community. A common-unity which is Christ. P.s. It doesn’t stop there. Mikey Romo

I’m observing that my thought processing and desires are shifting within myself. I have a habit of holding everything within me, emotions, thoughts, decisions and letting my pride control me. Pride saying: that I am capable of taking care of myself and do not need anyone else’s input or perspective or help. As my journey continues with this family I see things beginning to take shape differently within me. Not that I have arrived and am able to live this life perfectly or without struggle, but now I am finding myself fighting my selfish desires and fighting to release my pride daily. Realizing my decisions to be vulnerable to the community or to not be vulnerable affect the community, and that this family of God is not just about me an individual but it’s about us as one body in Christ. The by-product of putting the family of God first and allowing them to have a voice in my life and my voice in theirs is the fruit of the spirit. A voice that is more than just something occasional to draw from whenever I am facing a fork in the road, but one that is being breathed into me and me into it daily. In that posture of only drawing advice or help every once in awhile is me just consuming the church and not conceiving life into it. I am learning to release my fears of vulnerability and trust, and to get out of God’s way and let His Holy-Spirit work and to let this family of God invade my life. Knowing that, I now have hope in where this family is at now and what the future holds for us, because of what Christ did and is doing. Cassie Boddington

My decisions need to be made in the family of God. The journey to this point has been long and filled with much pain. My individualism lead to detrimental decisions; my entitlement lead to a broken relationship, a broken man. I am humbled and privileged to have a church family to which I can lay down my life in Christ’s name. If we truly believe in Christ incarnate, submitting my decisions to my brothers and sisters is submitting my decisions to Christ. Travis Reill

"My personal confine", my space or what I am limited to, isn't mine anymore, it's the community's and I am submitting to them and essentially to Christ through them. This affects me because I am in relationship with them and them with me and they know me, as family would, through time and experience of shared life, to know what the individual needs are. As a whole, they know the body's needs as well and inside of that, the best decision can be pursued when every best interest is in each decision, through that we can be united. As a whole we all are submitting to each one's needs and when we can take care of the community's needs then we can, as a whole, reach the “world's” needs as Christ’s body. Chanelle Freese

In the “strong-group” model the individual does not make individual decisions; the group comes together and collectively a decision will be made for the individual, a decision that will benefit the whole. The application of this has been difficult with the transformation from theory to practice. In theory I desire the church to help me make decisions in my life like job, spouse, where I live, etc. But sitting down with the body and freely laying down my own wants in each of these decisions is just not easy. There is still that voice in your head that will whisper, “If you don’t like what they decided you can just do what you want anyway.” Not listening to that voice is far more of a reward than giving into hyper-individualism and the fruit it creates. I have recently brought a decision to leadership about an upcoming trip with my dad’s congregation to rebuild a church building in Haiti. I can already see how not leaving this decision to be made on my own has affected not just myself but others as well. Normally I would have a certain level of anxiety with this decision but because I have released this to the body, I have little anxiety because I am not carrying the weight of this decision alone and whatever my brothers and sisters decide I know that decision will have been dealt with care and love. In sharing this decision there is greater opportunity for partnership between Adsideo and my dad’s church. When it could have been just me going, there is now the possibility for others to also be sent as a conduit of Christ’s encouragement. Though it is still hard at times to lay down my wants at the church’s feet, I hope that we can collectively continue to ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be the church?” Teddy Dickerson

The more we discuss our lives in the family of God, the more it seems ludicrous that we would find it an option to make decisions on our own. I do not live in a vacuum and, therefore, my individual decisions will inevitably affect another for better or for worse. Even those that do not submit to a community are affected by, or affect others by, these decisions. We have a tendency to look out for number one, however, if a decision is made to benefit the individual, in the end that is all it does. If a decision is made by the community for the community, the individuals who make up that community also share in the benefits and blessings and even more so than on their own because their celebration is more full as it is shared with the family. And thus, our opportunity to be filled and grow comes through emptying ourselves, being vulnerable to and investing in one another as the family of God. Christ is our ultimate example; he emptied himself not for himself but for his family and that the Father may be glorified. I recognize the need to humble myself to God’s family in the decisions of my life so that better resolutions can be made. Major decisions such as spouse, career, and location seem easy to recognize as those in need of input from the family. The difficult part for me is changing the way I flippantly make menial decisions so that the community, and myself as a part of it, has the opportunity to grow through even the small things. I am encouraged to know that in practicing this level of commitment to the family of God, “input from others [becomes] a way of life” (pg 170). And as I submit myself to the collective input and wisdom of the many members of the family of God, I can have confident expectation that my life will be an example to those who will follow with similar circumstances. Rachael Reill