pat loughery

Part of the learning model in the Doctor of Ministry program at Bakke Graduate University has us writing daily journals for each in-class day. These journals describe what we saw, how we interpreted it and what we’ll do with it.

THURSDAY 6/12

Jack Mboya and I led worship. Jack led us to sing a song and read Scripture about the name of the Lord being a strong tower. I led us through an abbreviated version of the morning office from Northumbria Community’s website which complements their excellent prayer book, Celtic Daily Prayer. I don’t think that my piece went as well as I would hope – the slide deck I put together displayed fonts oddly, so we missed the end of a few prayers. But I wanted to provide a different prayer experience for my peers than what we had experienced so far, to complement what we had done before.

Peter van Breda spoke to us about his experience at Bellevue Foursquare hosting space for several ethnic churches, and also blending their youth groups together. It is interesting to me to hear from people who are doing ethnically targeted ministry (one of my new friends from class does this was well), while I am specifically involved in a multiethnic church so that my family can experience ethnic and cultural differences.

Peter then spoke about the church in China. His discussion was amazing and overwhelming. He had statistic after statistic to describe the rapid transformation occurring in China now, some of which were told in story. Here are two of my favorites: First, in describing his passion as a South African living in America interested in China, he quoted the population of China as 25% of the planet, and said, “With that many people in the country, why wouldn’t God be interested in the Chinese?” The second, which I’ve heard before at BGU but caught my attention again, was the story of the migration between rural and urban areas in China. The number of people moving annually from rural areas in to the cities is the same as the entire population of Canada. The most moving portion of Peter’s talk was seeing my friend Thomas be emotionally impacted and express his love for the Chinese people and nation.

Winn Griffin then told his story and gave us an overview of the dissertation process and the research bridge. His explanation of the dissertation was particularly helpful and cleared up a lot of my questions. I still need to decide if I’m going to take my bridge course this September, which would mean that it happens in parallel with my Orthodox Trail trip, or if I should push it out to January, which would make it more difficult to plan my rapidly approaching dissertation process.

After lunch with the others who are specializing in spiritual formation, Nancy Murphy led us in a circle talk using a tradition from the Red Elk family of the Spokane nation, a Native American nation. She gave us three rules for the circle – that we listen to the person who is speaking, that only the person who could talk is the one who has the focus object (which can be anything that the Creator God made, in our case a smooth stone), and that we share something from the heart and not the head. This was a powerful experience for me as I heard each of my fellow students’ stories. When my turn came, I spoke of feeling that I am in a coracle, not able to direct myself but simply to respond to God, and seeing the fog of transition around me. I spoke of the bittersweet feeling of being in a BGU class with so many people from so many places, all of whom are doing deeply important and transformational ministries, while I struggled to know what my next task would be. It was very emotional for me to describe this state that I’m in, and that even though I trust that God is leading me through, there still is grief to process from the closing of our church plant and not knowing what is next for us in ministry.

After the students had all shared in the circle, we had communion and a simple supper together. I confirmed plans with Jack Mboya who will be staying with my family this upcoming week before he begins the journey back home to Kigali in Nairobi, Kenya.

As an introvert, this entire week for me has been very difficult. I am emotionally and physically drained, and I feel very much on edge. It is difficult to continue to engage in conversations with staff and students, and it is difficult to be patient with my young children when I return home. I look forward to this weekend and taking some time to rest and to process these experiences, but I also know that my family needs me as well. I pray that both can happen.