The question (and somewhat personal crisis) that I have been facing is what is my role in the Body of Christ. If you had asked me that six months ago, I would have known exactly what I was. I was a pastor. My calling and job was to pastor God's people, to lead them to follow Him, and my future goal was to pastor my own church. But, as my heart began to follow the path of organic church and then organic faith, I found myself diverging from my intended destination. I found my heart and passion at odds with my head knowledge and what I thought I was supposed to be doing. It is in this haze that I have been aimlessly groping around in for the past week.
At this point I would love to tell you that I have emerged from the haze, the better man, with a clear vision and understanding from God as to what the future of my life, my family, and our ministry holds... but that's not the case...
I have made a few smaller discoveries that I believe are helping me map my way out of the dark:
1. I am a prideful, arrogant, selfish man who's dreams of ministerial grandeur were rooted in as much self-service as self-sacrifice.
I realize that this is mostly my problem, but pride is not so exclusive in it's enticements. We all are tempted by the things that appeal to us. In our search and desire to see Christ's church and one day His Kingdom come to reality, we must be sure that we are not wondering who or where we will be in it. However, there does exist a 'false-humility' in many Christians today that is just as dangerous, if not more, than pride itself. There are those who deny themselves certain things or abstain from certain activities so that other will see it and think that they are more 'holy'. This is also very dangerous. At the point which we begin to do any type of ministry from a "self" driven standpoint, we have lost the true message of the gospel and will be held accountable for our actions.
2. In order for Christ to fully operate in and through His people, they must all stand on equal ground.
This issue has two faces. For those of us who are used to leading, speaking, preaching, etc in the church, we are naturally going to want to speak out more. This is an injustice to the rest of the body. Likewise, the people who just simply go to church and are not accustomed to speaking out are robbing the rest of the body of their knowledge and input. But either way you look at it, it's the same problem with the same solution. John the Baptist said it best in the gospel of John, "I must decrease, so that He may increase."
3. The mission must always be more important that the messenger.
All to often we get distracted by the messenger. Either we don't like him or her, so we refuse to listen to the message at all... or the reverse... we are so enamored with the messenger that it doesn't matter what the message is, we receive it without hesitation. You can clearly see the danger with both of these mindsets. The early church in the book of Acts must have sounded like a broken record to the people of their day. They had one message. And they wore it out! They focused not on who was carrying the message, but who was receiving the message. Somewhere along the line we have gotten these lines crossed and they desperately need to be righted.
As I said in the beginning, I have not fully emerged from the fog of questions that I have about my faith, but what I do have is a new found passion and excitement that I can not hide from. Being a follower of Christ can no longer be relegated to going to church twice a week for me. It has become a day to day, passionate reality to both reflect Christ into my world and to watch Him work through me to accomplish His mission.
" If you don't know where you are,
how will you know where you're growing? "
how will you know where you're growing? "
- Just a thought.
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