Last week I wrote about the tension I feel as I move in a TC world while holding simple church convictions, and more than one person was tweaked by my mentioning that tension. Doug even wrote a comment about it. So what am I doing here? Am I violating my conscience? Am I just a chameleon, an impostor, who changes to match whatever group I am with? What am I supposed to do when I see things that violate my own sense of what Jesus wants His church to be? These are the questions I wrestle with, and I know I am not alone in this. And so I share a few thoughts (mostly from one of my "daughters") and hope they resonate with you.
First, please note that I have wrestled with these questions for as long as I have been writing this blog (before that, actually, of course). If you want to see a good summary of this wrestling, search this blog for the word "traditional" to pull up several entries where I raise questions about TC while also noting my continual involvement in it. Please, dear ones, if you have time, do the search and read these entries if you want to understand this tension. If you do, one thing that will stand out to you all along, I trust, is my conviction that Jesus loves His people no matter what wineskin they are restricted by. :-) Some wineskins are more restrictive and less productive--that's a given, but my experience is that Jesus seems to change people not by going after the wineskin but by going after individual hearts. My experience also agrees with another statement from Wayne and Dave in So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore (pp. 104-105) "“They are not all frauds, Jake. Not all groups become as destructive as yours. Those who treat leaders as if they have some special anointing are the most susceptible to being deceived by them. It seems people who assume or who are given the most human authority forget how to say no to their own appetites and desires. It is so easy for any of us to end up serving ourselves when we think we’re serving others by keeping an institution functioning. But not all of those who do it end up so broken. Many are real servants who only want to help others and they’ve been led to believe this is the best way to do it. Always separate the failure of the system from the hearts of the people in it."
I, like Wayne and Dave, know that there are many in the TC who serve with pure and sincere hearts for good motives, and those I serve with now are such people. It's the heart of the leader, perhaps more than anything, that determines the health of those s/he serves.
But still I wrestle, and as I wrote last week, it's only by constant listening to Holy Spirit's voice that the tension remains constructive and formative. My dear friend Pam shared with me a great example of how this works that I received her permission to share with all of you, as she listened. I close with her beautiful and transparent reflection. I have put her words in a different font and edited them only slightly. (Thanks, Pam! You are blessing many with your transparent and tender walk with Papa!).
So, I was chatting with Papa about my current struggle, understanding people and their actions/lives and the whole traditional stuff that is in many of our lives that ekes out and defiles many...and I personally struggle with the question of what am I to do about what/who I encounter...how am I to respond..or not, and what am I to think about it all. The process can leave me dizzy and and wanting to be "snarky". The prophetic side of me can flare and like the sons of thunder I could enjoy a fire bolt zap on a person at times!
So as I'm asking Him if it makes him sad and what he does with all his sadness about it, he responds..."I'm just sad" (moment to contemplate..then) "Can you, Pam, just be sad"? The Ah ha light clicked on about "just being," this entered another level though, of my "doing/responsible" layer I know He's working on..lol..so then I say, "Ugh it feels so helpless though, to which He responds, "Ya, it's sad, huh?"
"It just is." I don't have any responsibility or need to "do" anything, is most of what I came away with in that...THEN He says;
"You know how you teach people not to use the 'shot-gun' approach to missions? (An approach a church sometimes takes when it knows it's 'supposed' to be doing mission work or sees the needs, but doesn't really have a direction or relationship with anyone or anyplace, so they scatter funds to different missionaries or organizations, they send a team to Mexico one year and Africa the next, then hear about some orphans in Russia and send gifts there, all the while losing steam/interest in the congregation for 'missions' and eventually drop the program for the most part as there was 'no fruit' or 'no real interest' or a lot of frustration)."
Anyhow...I of course, said yes. He then says, "So maybe you are taking a shotgun approach to life at times in this area...with people?"
(I see so many and so much sometimes and being prophetic I can often see beyond in some ways and feel that because I see then I should take some action too, in some way to address or redress it especially if I am directly involved with the person.) Then the light goes on...just as when we see the needs all over the world for outreach/mission that doesn't mean we are to throw "action or time" in all of those places. I may see the persecution in Pakistan and be moved in my heart for their plight, but I know I am called to the persecuted church in SE Asia, so I'm sad for those believers and I pray for them and then focus my hearing and participation with the Father where He has told me to be.
It's the same with people then and their actions/reactions/lives I see, even if they directly affect me...if I am not called to "THAT" place I can simply be sad for them, pray for them and release them.
I know it's one of those Duhh times when you look at it and want to say "I knew that"...but now I know it, at least to another level! Funny how that works, eh? We all see thru the glass dimly until He opens our eyes of understanding and lets us "see" in a little more, but we must also remember it is still just another level of "dimly".
Listening while living in the healthy tension that invites deepening trust...
Tom, one of Abba's children
1 comment:
many continue clinging to a church system or faction for one or more of a thousand unworthy causes. But, if you are still there for ideal cause (for Christ; for others, and not to your own interest), then you may already have taken opportunity to "count the cost" and note the risk:
The system reminds of a wife (or other family member) who misunderstands faithfulness in their regular pursuit of things contrary to the family's interest. Most often, the tension is survivable as heartache with a tether.
For as long as a person may be joined in undoing, big steps forward remain out of reach. This is in part how pulpit parishioners can remain for decades little-changed, turning in little circles, numbed with the passage of time & sermons.
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