Monday, May 18, 2009

Ministry in exile

My article 'The Half-Life of Exiles:Reflections on ministry from the margins' published in Ministry Today is on-line here. I think it reads OK, but I'd be interested to know what others think. So feel free to comment.

2 comments:

Ben said...

Great read, but one which presents (and doesn't resolve) the question I will admit I have been trying to work out for some time. Not to get personal, but which camp are you in? Can we identify with- and attempt to embody- both tribal tendencies; or is that just more hankering after a vanished world?

It would be great to hear you preach on this, and bring the debate out into the open... Surely it's time to take the dialogue (the brainstorming, the creativity) off the screen and into action?

Van knows the score:

Too Long in Exile

Craig Gardiner said...

Just back from a week on Iona and catching up on blogs ... when I was away i finished reading Michael Frost 'Exiles', heard a great sermon from John Bell on fishing out of the wrong side of the boat and listened on the way home to a CD OF the late John ODonohue where he spoke eloquently of the sadness of how many people live in exile from their true selves. It all adds up to some pretty major refletion for me which I am only just beginning but I think O'Donohue gets to the heart of it ... do not live in exile form yourslef ... albeit that I firmly believe that God calls people into liminal environments often to act as bridges between tribes etc ... painful a place as that can be ... and God alone knows when the time has come for anyone to move ... i guess that only think worth saying here is that you and others do not exile alone.