I’ve had a bit of a journey this week. From what felt like a personal breakdown to amazing liberty in the Spirit. 

What made the difference: 

Religion 

And

Tradition. 

For reasons of tradition our church has a weekend away every 18-24 months. We’d had a covid induced delay, but for reasons of religion I could not get out of going on it (partly because my wife is the minister and I had the task of herding our teenagers to get to it, cancelling 8+ activities between them to get there!). 

For reasons of religion while we were there we worshipped, prayed and listened to God’s word and for reasons of tradition adopted the style of ‘worship, teaching, ministry’ and reintroduced the tradition of giving people space to share their testimonies, and even gave space in ministry time to listen to confessions. 

This led me to binge watch the Chosen Series 3 on my return, replacing my more usual diet of Netflix drama with a portrayal of Jesus by Jonathan Remie I find meets the ‘gentle and lowly’ bar Dale Ortmund’s book inspires. 

Then on Monday in my garden prayer shed, for very definite reasons of religion I attended my 4-6 weekly ‘spiritual direction’ session, where Mark Aldridge drawing on some of the greatest resources of tradition, led me through self-examen, contemplation, and application of prophetic revelation. 

All this helped rebirth the tradition of daily quiet, and the religious practices of solitude, silence and self-control, and even turned the dog chore/walk into a type of mini pilgrimage. 

Correspondingly I am finding an overflow in conversations and communication, as I helped administer the religious practice which is our tradition of weekly communion, fulfilled the tradition of teaching from God’s word and found space and capacity to mentor one to one again. I’ve also been the beneficiary of other people’s grace, kindness and religious practice of alms giving and charity at a time when I needed care most.

Religion and Tradition… two of the things William Law was trying to reawaken in a ‘moribund’ Church of England around the time John Wesley and George Whitefield were Oxford students. His book had the snappy title ‘A serious call to the devout and holy life’ and was as unlikely to be well received in his era as it was in ours, but Wesley later called him ‘Our John the Baptist’. Read here: http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Law%20A%20Serious%20Call%20to%20a%20Devout%20and%20Holy%20Life.pdf

Why share this? A few weeks ago I felt the LORD say ‘you need to be weaker yet’. Since then I’ve experienced lack of health as my ‘couch to 5k’ exacerbated a knee weakness, lack wealth as the charity I lead continues in a deficit, and a brokenness as I realised that there are many things in life as a man, parent, minister, employer, worker I simply can’t get right, and a tendency to cover over the pain of these imperfections was not helping me or anyone.

And I found myself reflecting on our inspiring worship slots at the weekend away. One that resonated deeply was ‘Make Room’ (beautifully explained and sung here) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqlTyUY_i0

But as I sat with our worship pastor Aaron this week I had this overwhelming sense of a need to rewrite the lyrics to the bridge. 

After a pietist heart cry:

Here is where I lay it down

Every burden, every crown

This is my surrender this is my surrender

Here is where I lay it down

Every lie and every doubt

This is my surrender…

And I will make room for You

To do whatever You want to…

It has the radical Reformation cry of 

‘Shake up the ground of all my tradition

Break down the walls of all my religion

Your way is better (repeat)

But in England at least, those who had religion that might need breaking down or tradition that needs shaking up are to a large extent pushing up daisies or cheering us on from glory. It may be an issue but it’s certainly not the issue.

The lyrics that came to mind were: 

Shake up the ground of my vain ambitions

Break down the walls of selfish decisions

Your way is better, your way is better…

Build up in me godly traditions,

create in me Christ pleasing religion,

your way is better, your way is better… and I will make room for you…

In a cultural moment in the contemporary charismatic church where religion is an option when we feel like it and tradition is almost non-existent, my/our problem is not over routinisation but spiritual indiscipline. An indiscipline that allows ambition and self to flourish while ‘the devout and holy life’ withers on the vine, separated too far from the branch it is supposed ‘abide’ in Jn 15.

What if God is calling us back to a whole lot more religion and tradition than we individualists run with…?

(and maybe to a theological audit of song writing in an era where other great songs can have us singing lines like ‘I will build my life upon your love it is a firm foundation – when any Sunday school kid knows the wise man builds his house upon the rock which is the ‘words of Jesus’).