Last month, I was part of a team working on a short-term project promoting gender equality; our collaborative efforts managed to fit to a multitude of schedules, skillsets, and energies. The outcome was a product of much higher quality than anything any of us could have created alone.
It reminded me of a justice-based worship team I am blessed to participate in. Coming from a variety of denominations, demographics, and experiences, our collective sharing and encouragement serves to invite us to make an offering of how we have heard God’s voice, and to receive the gift of others in the same arena. The Spirit of God blows enthusiastically when we come together!
I was pleased to share one such collaborative effort for worship at the recent clergy retreat (where our focus was on prayer). The particular worship had, as its scriptural focus, the story of Shiphrah and Puah – midwives to the Hebrews in Exodus 1.15-21. Through the worship, we learned more about the midwives as people and as professionals, as members of a persecuting majority serving a persecuted nation.
After we had heard a narrative account of these women, we were invited to ponder what the story meant for us in our lives and ministries, and to spend time discerning how we were being called to bring forth new life. We were also invited to hold in prayer the names of the people whose stories and wisdom we carry with us, as we continue in our own journey.
For, in the kin-dom of God, we are constant collaborators with all who journey alongside us, and those who came before us, and those who will come after us. Our collaboration in the family of God transcends time and space, and serves within all of creation to make the world a better place, to assist in the bringing of new life, to seek new ways to come together.
So this month, I encourage us to reflect on how we collaborate: who do we work with? Whose gifts inspire us? Whose faith has supported us? Whose paths have we crossed for our mutual benefit? What passions burn within us that can increase when joined with the passions of other Gospel-living peoples? And how can we be more intentional about coming together, collaboratively and cooperatively, in the beautiful variety that God made us, to bring about a greater glory of God? Let us collaborate for the sake of Christ.
