Great series of posts at House Church Chronicles: Programs vs. Prevenience (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4). In the final entry in the series, John drops this bit of briliance:

…there is a disciplined, determined conviction that everything (and I mean, precisely everything) we do is a response to God’s first work, his initiating act. We learn to be attentive to the divine action already in process so that the previously unheard word of God is heard, the previously unattended act of God is noticed? (The questions we should be asking are: …) What has God been doing here? What traces of grace can I discern in this life? What history of love can I read in this group? What has God set in motion that I can get in on?“

I call these ”the prevenience questions.“ Learning to ask/answer these questions is the starting place for the church each time she meets. This is the ”prevenience model“ of church.

With apologies to Steven Covey, we Christians were never called to be ”proactive.“ We are called to be ”reactive“ to God. (Or, perhaps ”responsive“ to God, is better.)

The full series is worth reading and considering more deeply.