needing and reading

A few preliminary thoughts on a subject I've been pondering:

When I was in ministry (the other sort) we ran a course on small groups that began by asking the very important question: what are small groups for? The 'correct' answer was that small groups are for spiritual growth and that such growth is achieved primarily through the study of Scripture (with prayer, the formation of community, the support of each other growing out of that study). It was one version of the reformed evangelical concern to 'let the Bible set the agenda'. Biblical small groups were specifically contrasted with groups that start with 'human' agendas, with our problems or our ideas about what we need. Thus studies of books of the bible were inherently superior to topical studies, sharing times were inherently less important than bible study times, etc.

I don't want to dismiss that model of small group - I think it is wise to continually submit ourselves to lengthy swathes of the narrative and reasoning that make up Scripture as a way of training our minds to look beyond our own obsessions. Somebody wisely said that we shouldn't read the Bible passages that say what we want to hear; we should read the Bible passages that are addressed to people in our situation. That takes wide reading. And I'm sure it is right that groups can become focused on personal problems in ways that are selfish and self-desctructive. Even leaving aside, however, the postmodern question of whether 'our agendas' can so easily be dismissed, my experience leads me to question some of the assumptions behind this approach.

Here's what I've found: The times when I have really listened and learned from Scripture in life-transforming ways have been the times when great need or disaster has made me desperate to hear God say something. That's when I come to God's word hungry, searching, serious. I don't think my need necessarily distorts my reading any more than my indifference at other times might. I think it sharpens my spiritual senses.

How odd, then, that in our small groups and our church services we often explicitly try to remove that sense of need. I've heard so many prayers at the beginning of such meetings that say 'Please help us to clear our minds of our worries, our concerns, the things that press in on us... and help us to focus on what you have to say to us today.'

I think it would be great if we prayed differently - if we prayed in ways that recognise those needs and fears, recognise that they matter to God, recognise that if he has something important to say about our lives at all, it's something that impacts on those needs and fears. We don't need our minds 'cleared' so we can hear, we need to hear so our minds can be transformed. And the transformation will almost certainly be a matter of those very needs and fears that are part of us.