Creative Ministry (thoughts on the first few chapters)

Today was a rare sunny day in San Francisco. Clearly this left me no choice but to sit in the sun and read (and nap). My dear friend's Chris and Christine loaned me Creative Ministry a few weeks ago and I am reading it slowly. I am reading it slowly because despite its simple and direct nature (as all thing by Nouwen are) it has a depth to it that I am hoping I can let sink in.

It is written with the assertion that all of us are ministers. I am just at the beginning and I feel challenged and encouraged. The first few chapters break down the way we teach and resist teaching/learning. It is my hope that I can learn how to trust learning. To trust what happens when I am vulnerable enough to face myself in the learning process and stop competing with others and start learning from them.

I feel that I was blessed in my seminary experience, in that it was often the case that I learned from my fellow students as much as from my teachers and I did not feel that it was a competition. Nonetheless, post academia I often let myself slip into competing to prove what I know and in that I fail to learn.

I am just at the beginning of the book. I am hopeful that this book, like much of Nouwen's work, will help shape me into the minister I hope to become.