January 19, 2007
Flock Talk
I once knew a woman who was so absorbed with her family that every conversation included their activities, accomplishments and plans. I’m discovering that where the family of God is concerned, I’m guilty of the same charge. As I let go of volunteer service in the church and look for areas of service in the community, I’m struggling to carry on conversations without relating everything to church. It’s as though I have to change vocabularies and learn a new language. I’d share my frustration with my new civic minded friends, but I don’t think they can relate to the Tower of Babel.
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1 comment:
Gail;
----Sometimes I feel the same way; I like to talk about things that are most important to me. Although my family nears the top of the list, I am very careful with my conversation about it, because people just don't need to know most things there. The church is different, not in its priority (still at the top of the list), but in that people do need to know most things of it.
----God made the church to be seen in its true condition, so by effect it will be more pressed to clean up than it will be to hide away. He also made it with many purposes, including comfort, spiritual support, physical support, and encouragement. Its mission reaches far beyond merely presenting the gospel to the world, and much deeper into the heart of each member than the common surface charade will accomodate. But having been left for man to organize and run, the first appearance of the church does not exhibit either the truth about how it is actually run, nor the shallowness with which it treats comfort and support.
----This is then everyone's business, because the church is commissioned with being the place of support for anyone who comes to the Lord. And although individual identities need to be guarded, I am as willing to talk the truth about the condition of the church with those in it as I am with those outside it. Hopefully the first will help lead to repentance and growth. Hopefully the second will help lead to some understanding of the violent, turbulent, selfish picture the church has painted of itself throughout history.
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