Keep Stumbling and Don't Confom - 27 Jan 2005
'Stay Childish'- we were urged at a recent gathering of 24-7 activists in the U.K. Brian Heasley talked about being childlike, and told a couple of stories about his children. Although there is need for 24-7 to 'grow up', he urges us to remain childlike as a movement.
When children go to school, perhaps the first thing they learn is how to conform. Brian urged 24-7 prayer, and us as individuals, not to conform, and 'specially not to 'allow people to live out their dreams through your courage'. He warned us that as 24-7 prayer becomes more 'known', people would try to adjust it and alter it and make it conform ('that's great, but how about if you do it *this* way?'), for their own sake. He urged us to be open to advice and to prophetic words (etc.) but to keep open ears for discernment (or was it 'to keep our noses open' to smell what's really going on?).
He said he loves the 'stumbling' journey of 24-7 prayer, and urged us to 'keep stumbling'. He warned that as our experience grows, it is easy to summarise our stumbling, to reduce it to a set of principles, and then, the danger is that people can try to simply apply the principles, rather than stumble along themselves (*with* others?). He encouraged 24-7 prayer to remain 'wonderfully drunk, wild and impulsive' (although it did occur to me that maybe Brian was subtley trying to justify some of his behaviour with this? [grin]).
His final 'point' was about wonder. He reminded us that children approach the world with a sense of wonder, appreciating the beauty in small things. He read a fantastic quote from Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel, which emphasised the point - at school, things *can* get all too functional, too explained. He urged us all to have fun, to enjoy ourselves and the world we're in, and to seek out the wonderful things in every day.
Phil Togwell (24-7 UK Base Leader)