Deconstruction and Reconstruction
Many of us, during our life time will go through periods of deconstruction and reconstruction around areas of our faith. For some this can be caused by a time of suffering when it seems that the God is absent or not acting in the way we have expected; for some our childhood faith and family were pretty dysfunctional and we need to explore faith without the toxicity; for some faith or faith rules don’t fit how we experience life anymore and we need to find a new way to integrate faith and our lives; for some it involves seeing if the faith we grew up with is one that we want to continue following; and any number of other reasons. It has been interesting to explore with Missionscope over the last few years as they have helped us to consider what mission means for us at Ilam Baptist today. What do we want to let go of (and repent) from our understanding of mission that is so entwined with colonialism, what does mission mean going forward? It was fantastic to hear from Ray Totorewa on Sunday about mission in ways that honour the indigenous cultures, languages and understandings of God.
For some of us this deconstruction/reconstruction process evolves seamlessly in our lives but for others it involves a lot of fighting and angsting within ourselves. I’m a fighter and find these processes very challenging. I know where I come to is a more authentic expression of faith for me but I have lots of anger and angst on the way! Maybe you relate to this?
We have spoken as a staff team about maybe having an opportunity for those in this space to journey together through some of our angsting; to listen to and support each other; to find fellow travellers and share the road together. To do this we wondered about having a group meet together from the start of 2025 to do this, what do you think? Is it something you would like to be part of? Do let me know – I’d love to hear from you.
Take care
Helen