Parish life sometimes feels like being stuck in traffic. Things aren’t moving forward, resources are limited, tempers flare, and it feels like there’s nothing we can do to move things along. But Jeff heard an interesting take on this from Fr. Josh Johnson. He said, “You’re not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.”
Without knowing it, we can contribute to parish gridlock. Jeff points out several areas where we aimlessly honk our horns instead of doing something to ease the tension.
- Gawking: We find ourselves looking at the problems of others, instead of being part of the solution.
- Taking a seperate car: We live in isolation instead of riding the same bus and cultivating a supportive community.
- Always taking the same route: We take the same roads again and again, just because they’re familiar, when sometimes we need to find a new way to get things done.
Jeff also digs into Scripture to help us avoid these tendencies and take up the call to get involved at a parish and get traffic moving again.
Do you have comments or questions for Jeff? Comment below, or email Jeff at thejeffcavinsshow@ascensionpress.com. You may hear your question or comment in an upcoming podcast episode!
Snippet from the Show
If you’re seeing a parish that’s moving and not stuck in traffic, you’re seeing a parish that’s sharing Christ with other people.
SHOWNOTES
Hosea 10:12 – Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
Hosea 8:7 – For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, foreigners would devour it.
Galatians 6:7-9 – Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
2 Kings 5 – Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”
Joel 2 – Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
Resources Mentioned in the Show:
- A Cup of KeurigMA – The Jeff Cavins Show episode 48
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