Prevenience is a word that changed my life and ministry.Much of my early training centered around what I now call "make it happen ministry". See the need. Set a goal. Develop a plan. Implement the plan. Make it happen. Evaluate. Repeat.
Eugene Peterson in The Contemplative Pastor introduced me to a whole different way of thinking and living and ministering. Talk about a paradigm shift! Here's what he wrote...
In running the church, I seize the initiative. I take charge. I take responsibility for motivation and recruitment, for showing the way, for getting things started. If I don't, things drift. I am aware of the tendency to apathy, the human susceptibility to indolence, and I use my leadership position to counter it. (JW: Sounds like "make it happen ministry" to me!)
(The alternative) is a cultivated awareness that God has already seized the initiative. The traditional doctrine defining this truth is prevenience: God everywhere and always seizing the initiative. He gets things going. He had and continues to have the first word. Prevenience is the conviction that God has been working diligently, redemptively, and strategically before I appeared on the scene, before I was aware there was something here for me to do. (p. 69)
Prevenience. It changes everything.
And, it is the starting point for our discussion of coaching. More tomorrow about this.
John
PS Know any "make it happen ministry" people, who might be ready to hear about "prevenience"? Anyone you need to forward this post to?
I first encountered this change in focus on Luke10 some time ago. Didn't you invent the word, John? It was such an eye opening shift that my world has been changing ever since.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't only ministry that applies here. Try thinking about business with prevenience in mind. The concept rebels at every business concept being promoted today. If our faith is to pervade every part of our lives, then we desperately need people who understand the prevenience of God in the business world.
How can we dedicate our businesses to the Lord unless we cooperate with a prevenient God? Carolyn
Telling the story of God's prevenience is always fun... especially to people who tend to think they ARE the work of God rather than that they are PARTICIPATING in the pre-existing work of God.
ReplyDeletePrevenience says that we're all part of a bigger picture and that what we choose to do may or may not line up with what God is already doing. It also guarantees success if we aline ourselves with the Father in what He's already doing.
Prevenience is also terribly scary in that it subjects everything we're doing to the measure of "was God in this from the start or was this just my 'good idea'?" If you didn't look for God at work and join Him, then you're probably just building your own kingdom and calling it His for comfort.
Huge implications here.
Sorry I've been absent from these conversations so far.
ReplyDeleteAs I think about prevenience this morning again, I am drawn to the idea of story. Whose story is this? Whose story do I live in? When I see God as the protagonist and we humans as participants in God's story, it changes expectations and shifts responsibility to noticing God's moves first instead of hurrying to make my own.
God is so awesome...He began to speak to me several years ago that as His Bride we should be responsive to him not proactive. This was against everything I ever had been. Goals,strtatgies, Vision Statements. It has been amazing to me to see God orchestrate things in my life without my involvement. Prevenience is my new favorite word. By the way it is much easier in theory than practice for us choleric types.
ReplyDeleteWade - I agree with you! Prevenience is much easier in theory than in practice. I think I've been in detox ever since I first read Peterson on this close to 20 years ago. I'm making progress but I still relapse from time to time and try to make things happen.
ReplyDeleteTwo thoughts come to mind,
ReplyDelete1) The use of the word initiative draws me to a definition of worship--Worship is a response to what God initiates. If this is a good definition, then our lives are about responding rather than initiating. What does it mean for us to offer our lives as living sacrifices and for this to be a form of worship? I think it says we walk with attentiveness to the Lord rather than walking doing a lot of things we think would help the Lord.
I have worked with several coaches and coached several leaders. The heavy goal orientation may see a certain type of fruit with the right kinds of leaders. I'm not sure that is fruit from abiding in God. I appreciate a coaching model that revolves around spiritual direction. It may be scary to step in, because we wonder if we will stay as active as we want to. But, the fruit is God's here and it is a process full of amazement. And, so far, I have not lacked in activity :)
this is HUGE! this is truly a paradigm shift. i lived most of my life in the make it happen ministry mode even though it never felt right. it was the only mode of ministry i had ever seen.
ReplyDeletebut seeing ministry flow out of closeness to Jesus (John 15) knowing that as i am "making my home in Jesus, His love and His heart I will see real fruit flow out of being in and with Him. I won't be able to help it. My heart will be made more and more like His and I will see where He is at work and can simply join Him there.
How freeing. How God centered and glorifying when we actually agree with Him that apart from Him we can do nothing but if we abide in Him we WILL bear much fruit.
Carolyn, I can't take credit for "inventing" the word "prevenience". I learned it from Eugene Peterson in his book "The Contemplative Pastor".
ReplyDeleteI discovered that it's actually been used in the context of "prevenient grace" for quite some time. It's the idea that before I every thought of becoming a Christian, God initiated toward me. What Peterson did was apply the concept to all of the Christian life and not just our initial salvation.
I first heard about the word Prevenience from John, then later saw the word in AW Tozer's writings from 1948, referring to Grace. But now that God refreshes me with this concept in ministry and my entire life, I am set free to let Him do the work.... I follow in His steps. The challenge for me is to take my hands off the wheel and let Him drive! (Typical woman??)
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