Practicing The Presence of the Church

Early in my life as a Christian, a friend gave me the gift of a small volume entitled “Practicing the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence. 

Lawrence had been a 17th century Carmelite in France.  The book is a collection of letters and conversations based around the thought of Lawrence and compiled by Father Joseph de Beaufort. 

It is an extraordinary book which, if you have not read it, I would whole heartedly recommend. 

It is extraordinary for a number of reasons.  First of all, Lawrence was not a theologian.  Born of a poor family, he had joined the army and fought in the Thirty Years War, after which he became a lowly valet… that is, a servant, at the beck and call of a master. Finally he joined the Carmelites as a lay brother.  He lacked the formal education needed to become an ordained member of the Order.  As a lay brother, he was set to menial tasks.  For a number of years he worked in the kitchen, mainly washing dishes.  Later he was the person who repaired the sandals and shoes of his “betters”.  What was extraordinary, however, was that Lawrence made a profound discovery.  He discovered that one could experience God’s presence in any and all aspects of life.  Moreover, it was the continual experience of God’s presence that constituted what we might call today, “a personal relationship with God”.

You see, Lawrence did not separate his life into neatly defined categories such as, “this is the time to wash dishes”, or “this is the time for private prayer”, or “this is the place for worship”.  He indeed did all these things in a variety of places within his community, but regardless of where he was, or what he was doing, he found he could experience the presence of God, no matter how menial the task at hand or the humble nature of the place in which the task was being done.  As Lawrence said, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed”.  For Lawrence, life was to be “a continual conversation with God”, and with God always present, “I desire only Him”.

Now, Lawrence is very clear that the reason one can continually practice the presence of God is simply because God offers himself to be with us in all that we are doing.  He is there in the great tasks of life and the mundane.  He is there in the joy and the suffering. It is merely for us to recognize that presence and to engage.

May I suggest that if, as the Church, we truly wish to imitate Christ we must do the same.

That is, we must be present.  Too often, I believe, we bifurcate our life as the Church.  All too often, we present Church as “other”… it is a place we go to, it is an assembly we belong to,  it is a denomination, it is a theological construct and on it goes… What I think we sometimes miss, is that in reality, the Church is “us”, corporately and individually.  As Christians, we carry the Church with us (or at least, I believe, we should) into every area of our lives, private, professional, familial and social.  For many who will never enter a church building, or attend a Bible study, or enroll in an enquirers’ class, we are the Church.  That presents a dilemma because each of us carry our own ideas, prejudices, points of view and many of us have a tendency to be pretty dogmatic about what we think – what we think about politics… what we think about societal changes… what we think about fellow employees… and so much more.  Just as often, we are willing to “hold forth” on our personal views at length.  I’m not sure how we get around being the people that we are, but I would suggest it is something we need to explore.

I realize that some may take issue with what I’ve suggested in the above paragraph.  Yet, I think many of us have experienced the unexpected person approaching us in a time of crisis asking us for advice, help, prayers or just support because they know, or have heard, that we’re “religious”, or that we “read the Bible”, or that we “go to Church”. For that person, we are the “presence of the Church”.  They’re really not interested in whether we voted for Trump or Clinton.  They really don’t care about our politics, unless we’ve been so vocal that they can’t get around what they’ve heard us say. They could care less if we’re a dispensationalist, post-tribulation, pre-tribulation, Calvinist, Confessional, High Church or Low Church… What they want is for us to be present in their lives, even if only for a moment, as the Church, the embodiment of Christ’s love and compassion.

We should be clear, the fall-out from the recent election will be with us for some time.  Owing to media reports, even the term “evangelical” is considered partisan and almost toxic by a large segment of the population.  This, in my opinion, is not merely unfortunate, but tragic.  We can, however, retain evangelical values of love, compassion and outreach simply by being who we are as the Church and being present in people’s lives… not just on Sunday, or the mid-week Bible study… but every day and in every place where we are present.  We may hope that those around us will also recognize that presence and engage.

Duane Arnold

The Project