NoelHeikkinen.com

Connecting with God

Jul 31, 2008 Print This Post

Imagine my surprise when I surf over to the Leadership Network Advance and see this pretty picture:

I was quoted in their most recent paper on the devotional life of a leader and they must have thought I was a pretty model as well.
You can download the whole paper here or just read the snippet where they quote me (the most important part, of course):

Though the fundamental ingredients of Bible reading, reflection, and prayer are common in virtually every model of devotional life, they take widely varied forms. To create a meaningful devotional life, wise leaders recognize the link between personality and particular models.

Noel Heikkinen, pastor of Riverview Church in Holt, MI (http://www.rivchurch.com) explains that some of the spiritual disciplines used for centuries simply don’t fit his personality: “I’m such an extrovert that solitude can actually become a destructive discipline for me if I’m not careful. When I’m alone with my thoughts and pray too long, my mental process gets tied into a knot and I get stuck. I’m a verbal processor, so any time of solitude must be accompanied immediately by interaction and verbal processing.”

Noel’s perspective about his devotional life corresponds with his theology about the way God leads his people. He explains, “I’m convinced that God gives direction in community, and I’m convinced that he seldom gives it to someone apart from community.” Western culture, and particularly American culture, is fiercely individualistic, and in many churches, the pastor is perceived as the channel who uniquely hears the voice of God, receives direction, and communicates it to the people. Noel reacts to such a view: “This perspective distorts our devotional lives so that we expect God to give us direction apart from the Word and input or feedback from others. If we’re perceived as the sole the arbiters of God’s voice to our people, we get defensive if they question us. And as pastors model this individualistic approach to spiritual life and leadership, other believers follow us and claim, ‘God told me’ to do this or that, and they defy anyone to disagree.” At the Jerusalem council, church leaders wrestled with some of the most important issues of the early church. They didn’t look to one leader to tell them what God wanted them to do. Instead, God led them as they collaborated: “So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul” (Acts 15:25). Noel asserts, “That’s the model of spiritual life and wisdom we need to follow.”