I think the most important work a minister does is the work of prayer. Without the work of prayer everything else we do is devoid of power. I try to spend between three and five hours a day in prayer around the rest of my schedule. If you have read my blog before you know that much of that is restorative prayer. “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.” Isa. 40:31
But restorative prayer is needed corporately as well as privately. I believe that the prayer ministry is perhaps the most corporately neglected ministry in the church, and if the church is to have power in the days ahead then the people of the church not just the pastors must learn to pray deeply.
One of the ways I am encouraging that in my own church is by encouraging people to attend The Worship Room House of Prayer in our town.
According to its website. “TWR is a missional ministry where singers, musicians, and intercessors lead live prayer and worship meetings with a focus on growing in intimacy with the Father as well as doing the work of missions from the place of prayer. This Worship Room is open to the public providing a place to pray and be in the presence of God. We believe the Lord is strategically calling His Bride to walk out the prophetic promise of Isaiah 56:7 that declares, “Gods’ house shall be called a house of prayer”
I feel so strongly about this I spend two hours of my prayer time each week at the worship room. One of those hours is spent leading the devotional hour on Mondays from 5-6 P.M.
I went for coffee with my daughter the other day and we were talking about the forest garden at the Vicarage. Amanda said, “It’s like we live in Snowwhite’s Cottage, Dad.”
Today I was on a call with my sister and she commented, “You have let the gardens go for so long that what you have is a mature forest. You don’t need to make it into a forest garden you need to prune the forest and make it more usable.”
She is right, of course, Our little micro forest is severely overgrown. I do need to make it more productive as I practice permaculture.
I guess the questions I need to ask are “what do I really want my forest to do?” and “what do I want my forest to be?”
Honestly I love the gardening aspect. As I have turned back to it this year I have loved cultivating my own flowers and my own food. I want to do more of that next year.
Eggplant, tomatoes and green beans from the forest garden.African daisies in the front garden
But it is not just about the productivity of the gardens; I also love the wildlife and the domesticated life we have in the garden.
The chickens in their playpena red squirrel at our feedersOne of our wild rabbits at The Vicarage
I love the animals. As I prune the garden I want to make it a more usable habitat for us as a family but also for the little creatures that live in the forest around us. I can’t imagine not having cardinals and woodpeckers and bluejays and grackles and squirrels and rabbits and chickens. I love that I have to leave the clover long for the rabbits to eat and I love that I have to buy birdseed and suet for my winged critters. I even love it when the squirrels and chipmunks come to steal the food from the birds for their midwinter snacks.
I love being able to cook a meal straight from the garden and I love being able to eat that meal while watching God’s creatures from my dining room windows. I realize that everyone had goals in gardening. These are mine.
IF YOU HAVE A GARDEN, WHAT ARE YOUR GARDENING GOALS?
This week our town hosted its second (or third maybe) annual Winchenstock festival at the Winchendon Community Park. This is a classic rock event and fair hosted by our local COMMUNITY ACTION CENTER to raise money for the needs of the underserved in our community.
The crowds were just beginning to gather and the music was just beginning to play as I arrived and walked down the path of peace and love.
The Parks and Rec Committee of our town has planned an incredible year of events for us. The events are listed on the sign below
I have to say Winchendon is an amazing place to live and visit! I feel like our community is beginning to figure out who we really are now and what we want to be about.
I did what I do at so many of these amazing events: I listened to some great music; I ate a little bit of great food; I connected with a lot of wonderful local makers, and I spent more than a little money.
HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR WEEKEND?I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT IT.
As some know, we have spent a lot of time fixing up the interior of The Vicarage over the last several years. It is always a work in progress, and maintaining what was done remains a challenge. That said, this summer I wanted to turn my attention to the forest garden at The Vicarage, which has been neglected for seven long years.
I have done a lot of work rearranging garden beds and planting herbs and vegetables. The time of harvest has begun. Tonight in fact I am frying up our second egg plant from the garden and making a chopped salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and green bean garnished with nasturtiums.
This week The forest garden had two large projects that took place. The first project was…CHICKENS!
We got our first four chickens! They are named Squash, Partly Sunny, Eggplant and Spot.
Because their coop is a little smaller than we would, we have built them temporary exercise yard as well. My plan is to do some more brush cutting around the coop , buy some wood and fencing and set up a larger coop before the winter sets in. This will have to do for now.
The other project we had done was our Northern driveway. I got a good price from Art’s Paving, so we did this on Friday afternoon.
The Vicarage…. it is a never-ending work, but we keep moving forward.
Life is wonderful. Life is full of opportunity. Life is full of challenges. Life is full of set backs. Life gets hard sometimes. All of the wonder, opportunity, challenge, setback and hardness just wears me out. I find I constantly need to restore myself, or perhaps more accurately, I need to be restored.
For me this means I spend a lot of time is RESTORATIVE PRAYER.
Prayer is broken down into many different genres: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication, Petition and Waiting (what I call RESTORATIVE PRAYER) to name a few.
Isaiah 40:31 says, “But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.“
The word WAIT (QUAVA) is perhaps the most important word for me when it comes to prayer. WAIT in Isaiah 40:31 does not mean to sit and wait like you wait for a bus (although sometimes that is what it looks like when you are actually doing the work of waiting). It is waiting as in hoping. It is waiting as in expecting, but it is also an intentional twisting together as in braiding two or three chords together until the individual rope (that would be me) is strengthened by the addition of another rope or three ropes (those additional ropes would be God as in the Trinity).
As I said life wears me out until I am just too tired to keep going. RESTORATIVE PRAYER is that which makes me strong again.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.
I FIND A QUIET PLACE.
I TAKE MY BIBLE, MY PHONE, MY PEN, MY AGENDA AND A JOURNAL
I GET INTO A COMFORTABLE POSITION, FOR ME USUALLY SITTING IN A COMFORTABLE CHAIR OR LAYING DOWN
I SET A TIMER FOR AT LEAST 10 MINUTES BUT USUALLY 20 OR 30 MINUTES
I PUT ON EITHER SOFT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OR MY BIBLE APP IN AUDIBLE FORMAT.
I CLOSE MY EYES AND SETTLE BACK TO LISTEN.
I TRY TO COMPLETELY RELAX. SOMETIMES I HAVE TO PRACTICE “HANDS DOWN PALMS UP AS I BEGIN.
WHAT HAPPENS:
Sometime I come to the waiting with a thousand things on my mind. In time like this my racing thoughts jump from issue to issue that I have to deal with. This is what the agenda is for. I turn to my “TO DO LIST” and I begin to write down all the things my racing mind thinks are more important than seeking God and His strength. Sometimes I write down the time when I need to do the jobs alongside each item in my list. This step sometimes takes me five or ten minutes.
As my mind slows down I begin to feel the weariness of my spirit, soul and body move in. Now I can begin to focus in on the music I am playing or the Scripture.
Often at this point I fall asleep. I never feel guilty about this. It is part of the waiting, a necessary part of being restored. I trust that the Word of God or the worship music is getting into my subconscious. It is also why I set a timer.
Usually I will awaken before the timer and then I begin praising the Lord. As I do I spend a moment contemplating if there was anything I thought about or dreamt about during the beginning of my waiting period that may have been from God. Often there is. I write that down in my journal.
When the timer goes off I consider whether I need to go again. Many times I reset the timer. Sometimes if I am very weary or stressed I need to repeat the whole cycle, but if I have been mindful of my personal care, I can usually focus on items 3 and 5 the second time around (Usually the second time around I opt for the Bible app over music as I am ready now to receive deep truth).
RESTORATIVE PRAYER is one of the most essential spiritual disciplines I practice.
Notes From the Vicarage 