Deep Listening

We have just finished a three month break in which we have been able to relax, talk, listen, read, think, pray, travel, work on our home, spend quality time with family and friends, and dream future plans. Its been amazing. 

Let me rewind a bit.

Some while ago I sensed God saying it was time to plan a 3 month sabbatical. (for a quick overview on what a sabbatical is see my earlier blog). When the idea first landed two years ago neither the church nor Julie and I were ready, but as we started 2018 I sensed that for Julie and myself this year was to be a season of rest and listening. So we set aside May through July as season of DEEP LISTENING. 

Before we started our sabbatical we attended an Emotionally Healthy Spirituality conference in New York. Julie and I have been on a journey to build a better rhythm of silence, solitude and listening. This is for the sake not only of our own spiritual health, but for the sake of our ministry and long term mission to build a discipling culture - one in which discipleship and mission are both sustainable and multipliable.  This was a great conference to get us in the right frame of mind and prepare us for an extended sabbath. 

We have an amazing team at The Well who were able to to carry the church forward. At the end of April they sent us off by totally blessing us at a service where everyone was invited to say nice things to us and write them on preprinted bespoke postcards! It was so crazy that as one friend commented: “Now you know what it like to be at your own funeral”. 

Thanks and Blessings postcards - a sample

So what do you do when you have twelve appointment free weeks ahead of you? My personality is such that if I have any space and time I start making big picture plans for the future, which can be exhausting for Julie, who needs to get there by degrees and with plenty of details and explanation. So the first thing we did was to agree some structure in order to pace ourselves.

What Is? What Could Be? What Will Be?

We suggested a loose structure for the three months centred around three questions: ‘What Is’ ‘What Could Be’ and ‘What Will Be’. 

May would be ‘What Is?’ month, a winding down month during which we would generally take stock of where we were at and do a sort of 360º SWOT of our marriage, family, ministry, rhythms, health, and finances.  This sounds more intense than it was but because of the amazing weather (well done God) We were generally able to relax in the sun and tackle conversations around each aspect of life. We rediscovered the joy of having in depth and lengthy conversations that could actually finish rather that have to be cut short or put on hold while we rush off to the next meeting! We did a full MOT on our health with lots of check ups. We tidied up our finance records and we agreed what repairs and tasks we would prioritise around the house. It might sound boring but I assure you it was anything but.

One of the ways we have found that God comes to us over the years is through the books that we are each led to read. Julie has always prayed about what book to read next and we have both found that God has led us to the most amazing and relevant reading matter. I realised early on in May that I had an insatiable hunger to read and to learn and engage with what is going on in culture and philosophy; to explore what ideas are dominating the intellectual world and the culture wars, and in particular what millennials are talking about and hungry for. I  satisfied this hunger by listening to audio books, podcasts and youtube clips from all sort of authors and commentators whilst up a ladder painting and repairing windows. I discovered that this is one arena in which I can multitask! 

I was reading on Philosophy, Mythology, Neurobiology, Evolution, Politics, Culture and Psychology. At one point I was wondered whether I should be reading more devotional or theological material. That week I received an email from a prophetic friend whom Ive not seen in awhile. He related a dream that had that featured me in which I was in a place “where the light might be of the type present in a very old library or reading room. It was also a place of calmness. Everything then honed in on a very old, large, thick book. The book appeared to have clearly defined sections and my eyes were drawn to the last two sections. There was an attempt to open the last section which was full of words and I sensed was very important. In trying to open the pages I got a glimpse of the section which preceded it. This contained old maps”.   The book I was reading was a large thick book called ‘Maps Of Meaning’!  I just so love prophets and I am amazed that God knows and cares about what we are reading - enough to share it with a friend in a dream. How amazing is that!? 

Anyhow, the second month (June) was  generally earmarked as a mix of holiday and dreaming about ‘What could Be?’, and so we booked a holiday and travelled to Montenegro for a week. There was a delay in departure by Ryan Air which turned our to be fortunate on our part as when we applied for compensation they refunded the cost of the flights, plus some extra, and so this holiday turned out almost cost free! We are just so amazed at how God has provided for us each step of the way. 

One of the things we did pretty much throughout the sabbatical was ‘do church’ in our local park on Sunday mornings. There is a small farmers market there and so each week we would sit outside the little park cafe and see who the Lord would lead to us. We spent quality time with our neighbours, with local acquaintances and with total strangers and discovered that when we didn’t rush away that they would start to ask the deepest of questions. They picked up that we were on a Sabbath and would plough us with questions. Why doing this? Who is looking after your church? Where are you going to church? ‘This is our church’ we would tell them.  They loved this and would start sharing their questions and burdens. We’ve spent more time with non-Christians in this season than we have for a long time and have loved every minute. 

Our dreams of what could be have been filled with an increased passion for mission. We are convinced of the openness of this generation and the spiritual hunger that is present and growing among them. There is an intellectual and spiritual thirst for meaning that is above and beyond anything that the world can offer, and if we are willing to seek the Holy Spirit and trust in His impetus and His empowerment I know we will see a harvest.

Finally, in July our thoughts started to turn to ‘What Will Be?’. We reviewed the many prophetic words that people have shared with us in recent times. We looked at both the promises and the challenges that they contained and affirmed that we have to take more risks with the gospel and trust that God is for us. Through our conversations and through our personal reading and praying we have both been hearing an inner prompting to shift our focus. To seek not be the hero’s but to make hero’s. To be far more invested in mentoring and supporting those who will take discipleship and mission forward in this generation, and to practice growing our fruit on other people’s trees. God is doing amazing things around the world in raising up leaders to become spiritual parents. We believe we are called to ‘parent the parents’, to support the nurturers and to mentor those who are taking the Lord at his word for the sake of the harvest. We don’t know what that will look like, but we know it will be an adventure with God!

Julie has never been to Amsterdam, and so late July we decided to drive there and take a weekend break. 39 years ago I was a clumsy teenager who asked a stunning teacher (slightly older than me) to marry me. Despite my complete lack of romance in the act - I made a throwaway remark at the end of a rant by Julie about her job, suggesting she would move back to Liverpool - she thankfully saw past my immaturity and said yes.

In July I did a rather better ‘on one knee’ version on a bridge in Amsterdam (with earrings) to much cheering and applause by onlookers.

This sabbatical has been an amazing time of deepening the intimacy of our marriage and the intimacy of our connection to our Lord and the adventure of grace he has seen fit to give us. It has taken several weeks for enough slowing down of our internal engines to take place to actually enable us to listen to the ‘deeper magic’ (Unapologetic Narnia reference). 

I will reflect more on this in a subsequent blog. 

We ended our sabbatical in Harrogate at the European Leaders Conference led by the Bethel team, who once again drove home a message of ‘parenting the parents’ and championing a new wave of pioneers. As we spent time there with four marvellous friends, together with whom we have pioneered church planting and experienced a deep and enduring friendship over many years, we reflected on how the formation of a 'family on mission' is always the key to success. We are an extended family with a deep meaning and a profound purpose.

Our sabbatical may be over but our sabbath year of listening is not. There is much the Lord still has to say to us and we will retain a posture of listening. Deep listening always precedes more effective mission and purpose. I invite you into a season of deep listening and discerning of the Lords will for your life and for the mission of God through you. 

What a blessing and a privilege it is to be a family on mission together. 

Id love to hear your reflections and experiences around sabbath, sabbaticals and deep listening.