For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21
“We are connected . . . not only as District Superintendents, not only as clergy, not only as United Methodists, not only as Christians. We are connected because we are all made in the image of God. That is the most basic element of our connection. As human beings, we are all—every family in heaven and on earth—connected to one another because we are connected, each one, to God.” This is how Vicki Brendler began her sermon at the National DS Event, Scarritt-Bennett Center, July 1997. Quoting the Ephesians passage (above), she then expounded on the three petitions offered in the prayer.
“The first petition, found in verses 16 and 17, is a prayer for spiritual growth; a plea that those who believe in the Lord Jesus would be open to the power of his Spirit moving in and through their hearts and lives. It is a plea that Christ might dwell in them and empower them for witness and ministry; and a plea that they might be rooted and grounded and strengthened to face a world that did not know Christ; that did not know of the amazing love of God, and that did not know of their connectedness to God. The prayer is for God’s gift of strength and, as such, it is a prayer that is as appropriate for today’s world as it was then.
“I think that it’s also a prayer that is very appropriate for a superintendent to pray for her/ his pastors. It is a prayer that I have lifted more than once during this last year as I have worked very hard to fulfill the new number one role of our task of ministry: that of being a spiritual leader for the clergy and laity of the district.
“The second petition we find in this passage is for the knowledge to be able to begin to comprehend the absolutely, positively, unbelievable wideness and immensity of Christ’s love. It’s so great that it goes way, way beyond human knowing. Now this sounds like a prayer that Jesus could have prayed. It is a prayer full of paradoxes. It is a prayer for the ability to know what we can in no way ever fully comprehend. It also is a prayer that we should pray for one another. I’ve found over the past year that I’ve had to be a listener, a leader, a mediator, a judge, a friend, a challenger, an encourager, a scholar, and much more. Countless times I have prayed for the knowledge to handle situations with integrity, care, justice, and love for all. I have prayed to be a reflection of God’s love and grace wherever I go. Just as often, I have been humbled by how God has been present, bringing hope and healing into the midst of congregational distress and hurting pastors and families. The writer of Ephesians is wise to pray for the knowledge of the love of God that will help us to understand the incomprehensible love of our Lord! May this always be our prayer, for without it we are lost.
“The third petition found in this passage, the prayer for the fullness of God, is the desire and purpose of all prayer. It is a summary of all that has gone before. How can you and I be filled with the fullness of God? How can we experience God so intimately? Know God so fully and deeply? Even though we have been pastors for many years, it has been my experience that we (maybe even more than those we superintend) need to work at keeping an ongoing relationship with our God. If, as pastors, the only time we take time to read the scriptures is when we need to write a sermon or teach a Bible study, we may find that superintending is a time of spiritual crisis in our lives. I have a colleague, a former superintendent in New Jersey, who said that the time in his life and ministry that he felt the most alienated from God was when he was a superintendent.
“My friends, we need to be intentional about paying attention to the inner life of the Holy Spirit if we are going to maintain our friendship with our Lord Jesus Christ and if we are going to be able to help direct the spiritual health of those in the lives of the churches in our districts—lay and clergy. A cabinet can be the kind of covenant community in which spiritual accountability happens, or it can be the opposite, a place of strife and conflict. I am blessed with a small but lively cabinet with whom to wrestle through our spiritual journeys. I encourage you to use a covenant model for your own cabinet’s lives and spiritual wholeness; for spiritual growth is a life-long process. And it is something that we cannot do alone, but only with the support and love and encouragement of other believers. Jesus didn’t say ‘wherever one is gathered’, but rather ‘wherever two or three are gathered’. For when we are connected, we can help each other figure out just how God is working in our lives.
“And now to the God, who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to this God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Vicki M. Brendler is Superintendent, Northern New Jersey Conference, Raritan District, UMC. In Vol. 13, #2 issue of Covenant Discipleship Quarterly, she describes how she organized the pastors into CD Groups. For further information on this or for copies of her two Lesson Plans for Covenant Discipleship Group Training Sessions, contact Vicki Brendler, 18 Park Place, North Plainfield, NJ 07060, 908/755-7970, vmbrendler@att.net.
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| My Story | Means of Grace |
| Council for Accountable Discipleship: Annual Meeting 1999 |
| Book Review- Worship & Daily Life: A Resource for Worship Planners |
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