Posted by Mike O on: 07.24.2008 /
This is the 5th and final installment in my series called “S.H.A.P.E Workshop.” I do hope you found it interesting. Even though there were some differences of opinion, I hope it helped you to gain some insight into the mentality of Christian teaching - Christians put God - or more specifically, Jesus - as both the motivator and benefactor of everything we do. Or at least we’re supposed to :)
Just to recap, the five basic components that make up a person’s “S.H.A.P.E.” are:
S - Spiritual Gifts
H - Heart/Passion
A - Abilities
P - Personality
E - Experiences
This week we covered the last piece - experiences - and how our past experiences factor in to who we are today. Here’s one illustration that was presented:
Two hunters flew deep into the remote backwoods of Alaska to hunt Elk. They bagged six elk. The pilot told them the plane could carry only four of the elk out. “But the plane that carried us out last year was exactly like this one,” the hunters protested. “The horsepower was the same, the weather was similar, and we had six elk then.” Hearing this, the pilot reluctantly agreed to try. They loaded up and took off, but sure enough, there was insufficient power to climb out of the valley with all that weight, and they crashed. As they stumbled from the wreckage, one hnter asked the other if he knew where they were. “Well, I’m not sure,” replied the second, “but I think we are about two miles from where we crashed last year.”
Experiences, whether good or bad, are meant to be learned from. And they will (should?) color how we handle similar situations in the future.
There were two main points. The first is that there is a purpose to all of our experiences. I suspect that atheists would generally agree that all experiences carry a potential benefit, but not a purpose, per se. Christians, however, believe that it’s more than that - that there is an actual divine purpose for every experience that comes our way.
Two Bible verses were used to support this idea. They are:
Romans 8:28 - And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
II Corinthians 1:4 - Who comfort us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
The second point was that our past experiences may have an impact on how we serve others. Take Alcoholics Anonymous, for example. Who better to help an alcoholic than a recovering alcoholic? Who better to help the parents of a drug addict than the parents of a former - or current, even! - drug addict? Who better to help an ex-con re-enter society than an ex-con who has re-entered society?
More positive examples are also out there - who better to teach financial principals than someone who has succeeded financially? Who better to tutor a freshman biology student than a former biology student? And the examples go on and on.
The idea is that our past experiences, if we can harness them for good, can be very powerful tools for ministry/service today and into the future. Even current experiences (you try something and fail - or succeed!) can be used later.
For the class, we filled out a questionairre that had experiences broken down into four general categories (Sorry, Jason!) - spiritual, educational, Ministry (or Service), and Difficult/Painful experiences. I’m sure there are more, but these are the four we talked about.
I’ll skip over spiritual experiences, as it doesn’t really apply here. They had to do more with a person’s conversion experience and relationship with God.
There were two questions under “educational experiences:”
1) Describe any seminars, training or classes that have influenced you.
2) Share any books or tapes that you have read or heard recently that have impacted you.
A couple of the pertinant quesitons under “Ministry (or service) experiences were:
1) My most rewarding ministry (or service) experience has been:
2) Current activities involved in? Hours per week?
And the two questions under “Difficult or Painful experiences” were
1) Problems/situations that I can relate to and help another:
2) Most difficult life experience
Once we wrapped up the questionairre on experiences, the series was ending so we recapped what we’ve learned over the past few weeks and talked about areas of ministry that people might be interested in pursuing, given the S.H.A.P.E. that God has provided us with. One-on-one meetings with the pastor (my wife) were scheduled with those who wanted to pursue their S.H.A.P.E and possible ministry/service areas further.
Comment by: Jason
1Mike said:
Fair but I prefer to think of it that we ascribe our own purposes to our experiences. Just as you may not know what the purpose was for a given experience neither do non-believers. We both give meaning to these experiences to make sense of events. In your example of the idiot hunters you might see God’s purpose in sparing them (or letting them die) so that they serve as a lesson for other hunters.
A purpose as opposed to a useful experience though implies that the experience was intended. if the hunters had decided to test flight tolerance by experimenting with loads for the aircraft this would be the case. If they had loaded up the place for other reasons but had been taught a lesson as a result of the crash then this could be called a “purpose” but it’s a stretch for me.
Part of being an atheist is accepting that some things happen for no intelligent reason: bridges collapse; cars crash; people get sick. If we can gain a purpose by making something of these then so much the better but alone they often have no purpose.
The second point you make is one of those common sense ideas. In general I’d say that it was true but that doesn’t preclude someone from serving others in an area that they have no direct experience. A drug counsellor may be very skilled but have no direct or second hand drug experience. In this instance they would be using their natural abilities or perhaps Gifts.
You skipped over spiritual experiences saying that they didn’t apply. I grant you that I’m not certain what is meant by “spirituality” in a religious sense but the awe and wonder at something like nature, the vastness of space or something as specialised as a mathematical formula is certainly there. Sharing a “spiritual experience” can bring people closer together and give them mutual respect for one another that may otherwise be missing.
Having said that the seminars do seem to relate in some way to how the twin influences of nature and nurture make us what we are. We are shaped by many things.
This has been very informative Mike. Thanks for all the effort that you’ve put into explaining how the workshops have influenced you.
Comment by: Mike O
2Yes. There’s considerable debate in the Christian world about that - whether God causes/intends bad things to happen, or merely allows them. That will proably be debated forever. To me, either way, God could have an intended purpose or outcome from bad experiences - even if he didn’t cause them.
True statement. The intent, however, is that many times people *don’t* engage in service because of their history, when in all actuality, their history may be the reason they *should* engage. To me, it’s about countering a feeling of worthlessness. I have a friend who is an ex-con - of a sexual nature. Society has very little use for a person like him. But one thing I’m hoping he can learn is that just because that was a HUGE failure on his part - and worse - now that it’s in his history he could help others avoid it or get through it themselves. It could become useful. Don’t get me wrong - that doesn’t justify what he did by any means. but now that it’s reality, he *could* make some positives out of it if he were so inclined. There’s always hope.
Agreed. The approach in class, however, had to do more with “describe your conversion experience,” and “describe your relationship with God.” So what you say is true, but that’s not where we were going with it. Good point, though. Those do qualify as “spiritual” experiences.