Jesus-Centered
3-C Contemplative Activism

Now it happened in those days that Jesus went onto the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came, He summoned His disciples and picked out twelve of them and called them apostles…He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of His disciples. There was a great crowd of people from all parts of Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear Him and be cured of their diseases. And people tormented by unclean spirits were also cured. Everyone in the crowd was trying to touch Him because power came out of Him that cured them all (Luke 6:12-19).

This is a beautiful story that moves from night to morning to afternoon. Jesus spent the night in solitude with God. In the morning, He gathered His apostles around Him and formed community. In the afternoon, with His apostles, He went out and preached the Word and healed the sick. Notice the order – from solitude to community to ministry. The night is for solitude; the morning for community; the afternoon for ministry.

So often in ministry, I have wanted to do it by myself. If it didn’t work, I went to others and said, ‘Please!’ searching for a community to help me. If that didn’t work, maybe I’d start praying. But the order that Jesus teaches us is the reverse. It begins by being with God in solitude; then it creates a fellowship, a community of people with whom the mission is being lived; and finally this community goes out together to heal and to proclaim good news.

I believe you can look at (these) three disciplines by which we create space for God. If we create space in which God can act and speak, something surprising will happen. You and I are called to these disciplines if we want to be disciples.