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1. The driving force
Every minister within the Order of Jacob's Well is first and foremost a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. That discipleship is maintained throughout our lives through prayer, worship and the study of Scripture, the driving force being our need to deepen our own relationship with God.
As a result of that discipleship the Jacob's Well minister continues his or her own walk through life in the way of Christ.
The Order understands this to be a way of weakness. The great news of the Gospel is that God became small and vulnerable in the bodily form of Jesus Christ and hence bore fruit among his people.
As with Jesus, the Jacob's Well Minister does not cling to his divine gifting but brings new life to others through his or her ultimate vulnerability to the Father.
2. Finding the right seat.
Luke 14, 8 - 10
"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, `Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, `Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests."
God has prepared a place in ministry for each Licensed Minister that is for, and only for, him or her to fill.
First of all we come to his table, and ask that we might serve, looking even for the lowest tasks. When the work of service is done then we may look for our own place at the table. We do not seek the most important place in case it is reserved for someone else. The place that God has appointed is where we will be most content.
3. A submissive heart
Obedience to God is fundamental; without that everything else is superficial.
Obedience to those who are in proper, God-given oversight and authority over us is part of the Christian Faith.
To accept that our selfish ego is embedded in the guise of even our most spiritual dreams is the beginning of this wisdom.
God has so made us that, in order to reflect the mutual, joyous obedience which each member of the Trinity gives to the other, we have to give mutual, joyous obedience to one or more human beings.
A teachable spirit is to be cultivated. We voluntarily allow another to have the right to speak into our life, (or into some area of our life). We are prepared to listen to the wisdom and experience of that individual and of the Church.
4. A Jabbok people
Genesis 32:22 - 28
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered.
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."
As ministers in the field of Pastoral care we fully recognise that, in the wrong circumstances and with the wrong influences, each one of us is capable of committing any and every kind of sin.
We therefore need to know the peace and acceptance of being in a secure home of intimacy with God, holding our own darkness to his light, before we are ever truly able to encourage others to go that way.
Self knowledge opens the door to humility and grace. Humility, before God on our own private island in the Jabbok river, unlocks blessing, and blessing is the provision of abundance, just enough to fill our needs to fulfil God's will for us and a little left over for others.
5. An Emmaus people
The Holy Spirit fosters in the faithful a manner of acting characterized by sincerity and mutual trust.
Luke 24:13,15
Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.
They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.
As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them.
We are a people called to live on the Emmaus road. We may feel privately that others who come to us searching for the healing grace of Christ are in error, misguided or misdirected but we, like Jesus, walk with them until relationship grows acceptance and trust. It is only then that we allow the Holy Spirit space for loving correction, conviction, re-thinking and the recovery that follows.
Jesus was prepared to make friends with people who were marginalised in the society of his day, and to risk misunderstanding in the process.
The Order is called to do the same, covering one another in love as much as we are able.
We do not look for the Kingdom on the mountains because it is coming in the streets.
6. The Prayer Cycle
The voluntary Prayer Cycle is part of the collective expression of the Order's way of life.
It contains daily listings of subjects covering various groups of people and categories e.g. Education within the Order, administration, financial sufficiency etc together with a small number of member's names each day of people from the Order's central prayer basket. The Cycle also ensures the daily lifting up of secular support works in society such as Child Care and Social Work.
"The Cry to God as 'Father' in the New Testament is not a calm acknowledgement of a universal truth about God's abstract fatherhood.
It is the child's cry out of a nightmare. It is the cry of outrage fear, shrinking away, when faced with the horror of 'the world' - yet not simply or exclusively protest, but trust as well, Abba, Father' all things are possible to Thee."
Archbishop Rowan Williams, Patron
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