June 07, 2006
Biggie Size It
A few years ago our denominational magazine requested readers send in articles on innovative activities and programs in their churches. The article demographics were specific to church attendance and ranked churches as small, mid-size, large and mega. My published article agitated the preacher. Don’t worry, he wasn’t unhappy about what I’d written, he was miffed that magazine’s criteria ranked our church as mid-size. More to his liking were polls and surveys that bestowed upon us the classification of ‘large church’. Hmmm… not only can you biggie size a church, you can biggie size an ego too!
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Gail;
----During the five years following August 27, 1977 I learned how important the ego is. On that August evening, I sat on the edge of my bed with my head hung over the barrel of a loaded rifle. Fortunately, I reflected enough on my mother's inability to handle my brother's death three years earlier to realize this would destroy her. And I could not do that. So I made a deal with myself: if I could discover the key to the depression that had been bleaching out my life and overcome it within five years I would then carry on. Otherwise...
----I relied on the fact that we have the Spirit within us and the Word of God before us. When those responsibilities of God are joined by our responsibility to be humble, He will be able to lead us into the truth about ourselves. So I trusted Him, and over the next five years I learned that ego is a creation of God and is very important. It is the assurance of who and what we are, especially in Jesus.
----Paul speaks of the need to increase our knowledge in Christ until we attain a full manhood to the maturity of His stature. He tells us that we are to work out our own salvation and that we are to be convinced in our own minds such that whether or not many things are a sin to any one of us dependes on how that one believes. The individual is obviously important to God because He tells us to please one another, take interest in one another's interests, sympathize with one another, acknowledge one another, etc. These are all things of importance which build up each other's assurance and strength. And that is about ego.
----But the diference between how God created ego to grow and your observation of the self grown ego is the good or evil of it. God made His economy of love to function in such a manner that your ego is grown by my godly treatment of you, and vice versa. We are to work on growing our neighbor's assurance, not our own ego. The fellowship of the church is to aid the growth in one another of knowledge, maturity, welcome, assurance, faith, hope, and love. These all in turn flow out to others from a healthy, godly ego. And that godly interaction does not begin its flow from a preacher's need for a bigger church.
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