I just wonder sometimes… *shrugs* oh well.  That’s just me.

How do you deal with ghosty things from your past?

These ghosty things for me almost always have to do with relationships.  With things I regret having said or done, or things I regret having been said or done to me.  In this case, it’s both, and is to do with a guy I was ‘involved’ with some years ago.

I’m at college with a couple of guys who were his close friends around the time that we got together.  I’ve got no idea if they remember who I am, but every time we make eye contact and I try to smile at them, they look right through me.  I’m choosing to think they don’t remember me, but in my more paranoid moments I wonder whether that’s an indication that they do remember me and don’t quite know how to talk to me.

And then, today when I came out of my lecture I could have sworn the guy himself was sitting on the college green.  I couldn’t see his face, just his back and occasionally his profile.  I realised I was staring and that would look very bad, so I went on into lunch.  When I came out he was still there, and I still couldn’t get a good look at his face. Rather than risk it actually being him and having to have a conversation with him, I grabbed my stuff and headed out for a coffee.

As I walked to Campos, I wondered what this whole thing says about me.  Have I not forgiven him?  Have I not ‘gotten over’ him?  He’s now married and presumably happy, and no threat to me.  So what am I scared of?  I have every reason to be at college, why should I be the one running away?

Yes, I do think I have gotten over him, well and truly. I can see what God was rescuing me from by shutting that relationship down, and I am glad it’s turned out the way it has.  We’re both better off where we are now.

Yes, I do think I’ve forgiven him.  God forgave me for the stupid things I did in that situation, and I presume this guy repented for it, so God’s forgiven him too.  Really the way we treated each other was not godly and was not wise in any way, and I would hope we had both learned valuable lessons about ourselves and how to treat other people from the whole situation.

I think what it is could be that seeing him or his friends opens up my memory to my own foolishness and tugs at the considerable scars left from that time.  It makes me worry about what people think of me, of my ‘reputation’.  It reminds me of my own fallibility, of my own weaknesses to loneliness and lust as a single woman, of the ways that I can deceive myself.  It reminds me of how close I came to destroying a lot of good things.  It makes scenes and conversations and moments flash into my brain in vivid technicolour and tempts me to relive those moments, tempting me to feel guilty, tempting me to feel that shame all over again.

But I have been forgiven!  That slate has been wiped clean, I don’t need to even think about any of that any more.  I don’t need to worry about what any man or woman thinks of me, I only need to worry about what God thinks of me, and he sees me as perfect through the sacrifice of his son.  Why is my memory so short on that point?  Pray that I would remember this truth every day!

So not sure if you know, but I’ve been employed by Wild Street one day a week this year to work on music ministry at the church.  It’s a bit of a fluid job description and really just an extension of what I was already doing with the other music leaders at the 5pm service.  But I’m starting to think more about how to lift the game of music across the entire church, both week to week and at the more ‘special event’ type things, like Easter, Christmas and the like.

Of course, throughout history many people have wrestled with the question of why we do music in church and everyone has a different idea about its place and even what style of music is worthwhile.  So in trying to approach the whole topic I’ve been trying to read all sorts of things from a variety of sources.

Tonight I re-read Mike Raiter’s brilliant article from the April 2008 Briefing called ’The slow death of congregational singing?‘ - I probably shouldn’t have read it just as I was going to bed, having pledged an early bedtime because now I’m all fired up and want to Do Things.  But basically what he says is where my thinking is heading.  I love this:

It’s time for congregations to sensitively but firmly rise up and reclaim congregational singing. We must remind song leaders (or, perhaps, teach them in the first place) the purpose of their ministry. Putting a microphone in the hands of someone who can sing no more makes her a song leader than, as the old proverb goes, sticking someone in a garage makes him a car. All the microphone does is make someone a very loud singer. The ministry of the song leader is, surely, to guide and lead the people of God in singing. The role of the song leader is to help us to sing, and they will know if they have fulfilled that ministry when they can hardly be heard because of the praises of the congregation filling the room.

The guiding principle for the 5-year plan at Wild Street (aka Vision500) is to be disciples making disciples.  And I believe that can and should overflow into how we do music ministry.  If we can somehow train and refocus all the music team into being passionate, praise-filled and excited about worshipping God through music, then that both gives the congregation ‘permission’ to respond in the same way but also models how we can biblically respond to the wonderful things God has done for us and the truths we learn from his word week by week.  If the musos are lacklustre, uninspired and sometimes even resentful of the time doing music at church takes, why should we expect the congregation to feel any differently about singing at church?  But if they are whole heartedly devoted to serving God and his people with their musical gifts, then surely that will start to bear fruit in the quality and vibrancy of the entire congregation’s singing?

Of course I don’t quite know how I’m going to do this and am still thinking through it all, talking to people, trying to glean wisdom from others who’ve been doing this kind of ministry for a long time.  It’s going to take a major mind-shift for a lot of people I think, and we may even lose some musos in the process.  I hope not.  Just got to keep praying about it I suppose, because it’s all God’s work and for his glory!

To close with Mike’s words:

Finally, singing reminds us of our raison d’être. The reason God made us, redeemed us and sanctified us, and the reason he will glorify us is so that we might live to the praise of his glory. That’s something we express with our lives, our minds, our wills, our hearts and our voices. Singing is indispensable in expressing that. That’s why the New Testament’s picture of heaven is not a celestial Bible study or an eschatological morning tea, but a heavenly choir forever lost in wonder, love and praise. I long here and now for more glimpses and foretastes of that. Don’t you?

So had my first ‘week’ at college - I say ‘week’ because I’m only really there two days.  And honestly, how do people do this full time?  It’s intense!  Intense in a good way.

This is what my ‘week’ looks like:

On Tuesday we have joint chapel, which is when the entire college packs into the Knox Lecture Theatre (the KLT of infamously cold air conditioning, which at least gives you something to talk to the person beside you about) for, well, basically church.  We sing, and oh what singing!  Such strong, passionate, confident singing!  We say creeds and prayers from the Anglican prayerbook.  We hear a sermon - to start off with, we’re having Mark Thompson speak for a few weeks on the necessity of the cross, which is marvellous.  And it’s one of the opportunities for all the students from all stages of study to hang out together.  After a busy morning tea, we then go into Biblical Theology with Peter Bolt.  Then lunch.  And because I’m in a peer tutorial group with a bunch of other part time students who don’t have as flexible a schedule as me, we have our tutorial group straight after lunch.  And that’s Tuesday.

On Wednesday, we have first year groups.  Part timers aren’t expected to go to these, but if we do sign up we’re expected to commit to the group for the whole year, as it’s all about building relationships, supporting one another through first year, and growing together.  I’m so glad I’m able to be part of a group, as I think it’s a vital facet of the college experience (from what I’ve heard), and something that many of the other part time students won’t get to experience.  This means I’m also going to be part of a mission team, which all the first year groups/chaplaincy groups (from other years) go on in first term.  I chatted informally to Richard Gibson, one of the lecturers who organises the first year groups, about being a part timer, and the reasons why (health, depression, work, etc).  I was touched that he remembered me and my situation without having to be prompted and asked which mission I’d like to go on.  “Something close,” I said, “although I have a car so can travel.” “How’s South Coogee?” Win!  So I’m going on mission to...the next suburb.  It’ll be great.

Then I have morning tea, a break, Old Testament with Andrew Shead, lunch, another break, and Old Testament again.  The breaks will be good because I can do my reading in that time (though I didn’t have the books this week so wandered around and got coffee instead).  The full timers seem just a little envious of my breaks as they head off to Greek classes. 

After spending so much time on my own in the last year, it’s both great and a bit daunting being around people again.  And not just in the vicinity of other people, but plunged into a community full of lovely, friendly, chatty people who ask you lots of questions about yourself in an attempt to get to know you as quickly as possible.  It’s just kind of how it has to be, but it can be tiring!  I know I’m not the only one who feels that, which is comforting, and it’s completely unlike my experience of uni which felt hostile and dangerous.  At uni I felt like it was incredibly hard to strike up conversation with anybody and you had to break through all sorts of cliques and barriers before you could do that.  At Moore, thankfully, there isn’t any of that.  But my old shyness comes out...hopefully I don’t come across as cold, which is how I’ve been told I seem when I’m nervous or feeling anxious.  I’m trying to make eye contact and smile a lot.

[sorry this post is a bit lacklustre...I’m kind of sick at the moment, but just felt like I should write...something!]

Still feeling aimless and a bit useless, but had a good chat with my pastor Rod last night.  He’s a very encouraging man!  And this morning I got some more encouragement from JI Packer, reminding me that although I’m walking around in the darkness, I’m not completely lost.

Who among you fears the LORD
and obeys the word of his servant?
Let him who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on his God.
Isaiah 50:10

Holy Scripture is a source of illumination for those who have to take a journey in the dark.  Traveling in the dark across rough country, I am at risk.  The easiest thing in the world will be for me to stumble and fall over some obstacle I simply can’t see.  I’m likely to lose the way, miss the path, and get into big trouble.  I need a light, a light that will enable me to see the path in front of my feet.  God in his mercy has given me such a light.  But why, you ask, is the word a lamp and not a sun?  Walking by the light of Scripture is not the same as walking by daylight.  You can’t see everything; in fact, you’re often in the dark in every sense and can hardly understand anything of what goes on around you.  But Scripture enables you to see each next step you must take, so on you are able to go.

from ‘The Word of Life’, quoted in Knowing and doing the will of God, JI Packer, Testament Books, 2000, p51