Rest is Resistance Week 6

For many of us clergy, overwork may be a sign of PRAGMATIC ATHEISM. We don’t trust God enough to rest, leaving what is undone in God’s care

“How do you make space to transcend the confines of a system that prays to the call of ‘profit over people’?” p. 56
1 King 19:4-7
Romans 8:22-26
Grief & Healing

Call to Worship
(Breathe in) I will give space
(Breathe out) I will let go

Prayer of the Day
God,
we have crammed
so much into our lives
we do not leave much
room.
What thousands of stories
are untold, because
we are not rested?
What work is the world
groaning towards
already?
What dreamwork
did Elijah do
under the fig tree?
Let us find more
space for all work
to be done
without us
we pray.
Amen.

Call to Confession: Let us turn towards God, and open our hearts to pour out any hurt and grief we might have, so that God can wipe away our tears and renew our hope.

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that we are tightly hanging onto so much–that it is hard to let the Holy Spirit in. We feel like we need the perfect words or actions. We feel like we need to always be co-creating with you to get things right. We are afraid to stop. Afraid of what we will see when we rest. Give us the courage to rest. Tell us it’s ok to stop, remind us that the Holy Spirit will fill in all of the gaps. Grant us the trust we need we pray. (Silent Confession) Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: The Holy Spirit is here, filling our hearts anew, granting us all the mercy we need, so let us assure one another of the Good News: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Suggested Rest Practices:
Make a Dream Journal
Make a Not To Do List, Rip it up or Burn it
Dismiss everyone to Take a walk/Quiet Sitting time for 10 minutes
Play with Playdo/Clay
Create a Grief Wall/Ribbon Weaving Symbolizing everything to let go of
Have everyone commit to one time they are going to rest that week
Share around the room/small groups/on paper a new rest practice they have started (Fit your needs to the extravert/introvert nature of your reality)
Go Outside and look at the Clouds

If you appreciate my work, please support my D. Min in Creative Writing. I am in my final year and raising money here: https://gofund.me/391febb1

Notes

“My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn’t look well. But my uncle says they was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn’t want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs any more. They’re too comfortable. Get people up and running around” -Ray Bradbury; Book Farenheit 451

Art a man in a white beard, snooze-like, sitting on a porch. Photograph by Sonny Lee

People miss small talk in the Pandemic (and how that might be feeding into the violence of today): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/coronavirus-small-talk.html, https://hbr.org/2021/03/remote-workers-need-small-talk-too, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/long-reads/the-big-power-of-small-talk, https://www.thestar.com/life/parent/opinion/2021/05/18/small-talk-is-the-glue-that-keeps-society-running-and-gossip-is-a-force-for-good-i-miss-both.html?rf (Google it, there are so MANY articles)

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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