January 10, 2007
We is Me
I’ve recently participated in two separate groups that are designed to promote leadership skills in individuals. In one meeting I was given the role of leader, but when leading the proceedings in a specific area the president gently said, “No, we don’t do that.” I really wanted to ask, ‘Who are we, and why can’t we do that?’ In the other session, our group of five was told to brainstorm and write down ideas. I offered a suggestion to which one of the organizers said, “Oh, they won’t go for that.” Again I’d like to ask, ‘So, who are they and why won’t they go for it?’ Very often we in the church put similar stumbling blocks in one another’s way. Whether servant or leader, zeal and enthusiasm can easily be stifled by hearing, ‘No, we don’t do it that way’. Or ‘Oh, they won’t go for it.’ Someone needs to remind us that in the church, they and we…are me.
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Gail;
----Man is caught up in his propensity to organizationally structure everything. The church has suffered great character and reputation damage by this. Amid a New Testament full of admonitions, prescriptions, and definitions of leaders concerning their position of servitude, humility, and role modelling, man has elevated to supremacy one passage concerning obedience to the leaders. They could have remembered all the messages Paul gave about allowing each individual his personal faith, ways, and purposes within the Spirit's direction of the priesthood of the believer. They could have just as easily elevated the one message John, the beloved of Christ, wrote concerning the teaching each of us receive from the Holy Spirit. They could have remembered that Christ said to call no man on earth "father". They could have realized that He meant to give no man your ultimate obedience, because this obedience is to your Father in heaven.
----But in order to stuff the church into a structured organization, they hold up high Hebrews 13:17, and from it, they insist upon their authority. (Read closely and think carefully about every line of the proposed new bylaws at your church. You will see what I mean.) With lips they run around saying that God is leading the church. Yet, with their minds beyond what is written, they run around telling all the priests in the church what to do, what to be, what to sing, what to say, when to come, and how to look when approaching God. And all of this directing is done with more regard to their own personal plans and goals than with regard to the hearts and minds of the people of the church.
----Certainly, it is they who expect to be looked at as the "we", and the "they". And on that Great Day, when God is searching the hearts for who made His church wee, they will still be the "we".
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