August 04, 2008
No Experience Necessary...or Wanted
During the middle to late 1970’s over 200,000 people were killed in Cambodia. The ruling Khmer Rouge targeted the educated and the professionals for elimination. Those left alive in the country were young uneducated peasants with limited or no leadership skills. Spiritually speaking, I see a similar thing happening in the church today. One of my friends was recently church shopping and after four weeks of visiting a particular church he had the feeling they really weren’t interested in ‘mature Christians’ placing membership in the church. Inquiring of the leadership he was told the church wasn’t looking for adult teachers. “We don’t encourage adult Sunday School because when people get started [in a class] they won’t leave. We don’t want them getting comfortable in a class for a couple of years, we want them out evangelizing.” It appears that the educated and mature members are systematically being eliminated and stopped and from teaching and leading...and it’s all being done in the name of evangelism.
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----We’ve discussed before how the attitudes of these time limited (con-temporary) church leaders tend to drive away the well educated and mature Christians, but until I read your blog I didn’t think it was actually an intentional thing. Now that I’ve read plausible testimony to the possibility, just a tiny bit of thought is all it takes to make perfect sense of the idea. Like a dominant male will drive other males away from his harem in order to propagate his own genes, like a self-centered foreman will drive off underlings with better incites and skills than his own, and like Nancy Polosi refusing to allow the “drill here drill now” proposal to the House floor for a vote, these time limited leaders are absolutely crazed with sheltering every aspect of their own consuming preoccupation with their way of seeing life in the Lord.
-----Like a cat in an aviary, any aspect of Christianity that does not have a definite and close tie back to the Great Commission sets them into frantic flight. It is as if when the prodigal son came home, the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best coat, and put it on him, and send him back out to evangelize,” or as if Jesus said to His disciples, “And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind. Instead, just go evangelize,” or, “So whatever you wish that men would do to you forget, because it is not about you! Just go evangelize.” Or as if when Peter was asked on the day of Pentecost, “What should we do,” to this he replied, “Repent and go evangelize!”
-----It is no wonder so many having maturity in the knowledge of the Lord must be driven away from the time limited churches, there are so many other important aspects to the new life. The Spirit gives gifts to men that are several more than just the gift of evangelism. He has given also the gifts of prophecy, of service, of teaching, of exhortation, of contribution, of aid, of mercy, of wisdom, of knowledge, of faith, of healing, of miracles (ahem, if you will), of discernment, of tongues (ahem), of interpretation of tongues (ahem, ahem), and of preaching. All these are inspired by one in the same Spirit to be employed for one another. Also, they are all driven away by one in the same contemporary philosophy so everyone can disregard one another in a mad scurry to evangelize the unchurched, the seekers, and yea! Even the yuppies with money!
-----Well, I do exaggerate, now, some. Our contemporary brethren are our brethren, and they do the Lord service. As much as what they are not the examples of in the Lord, there is a bit in the Lord of which they are examples, if not of sound direction, then at least of zeal. Many are encouraged by them, and get their dopamine released by the snappy new music.
Love,
Steve Corey
Or do they get there dopamine released thru old church songs and Hymns from Hacklemans Sacred Quartets? Maybe the revised and enlarged GOSPEL BELL? A choice could be SACRED SONGS FOR SUNDAY SCHOOLS...Then again you may be to young to remember these wonderful hymnals.. I just keep wondering how small the voice of today's church is.
The Christian Ear is a forum for discussing and listening to the voice of today's church. The Lord spoke to churches,“He who has an ear, let him hear .....
After all that is what the title claims this site to be.. Best I can tell is Gail and Steve are that ear.. KEEP UP THE WORK.I HOPE THE CHURCH WILL GET BIGGER THAN 2 or 3..
Anonymous;
-----You make the right point! The church is greater than two or three. It is hundreds of millions. It is people of all cultures and colors coming together with their joys, skills, and tastes to worship their Lord, serve others, and celebrate in their new life. They all have hearts and minds. They are all familiar with many differing tunes and ways of doing things that have meaning to each one of them. And the Lord’s direction through Paul is that we welcome them all.
-----But among them are many factious ideas that seek to control as many as possible. If it is not doctrinal faction, then it is cultural faction and domineering ambitions about how and what to serve one another in serving the Lord. Church leaders forget that God has given each a life in the Lord to be led by His Spirit, and they try to be the Spirit themselves, even as Rick Warren felt it was his place to retrain all the ministers in the world.
-----Read Romans 14 carefully. This spirit of dominance is not what the Lord wants among His children. Gail and I have had a bellyful of domineering attitudes of some church leaders and have stepped forward with courage to discuss the individual freedom the Lord gave each of His children to have personal relationships with Him. That makes us of the church of hundreds of millions, because we recognize, appreciate, and welcome everything that God has among all His children. A church becomes a church of two when one thinks his relationship with the Lord is what everyone else’s should be. And it becomes a church of three when someone becomes so unimaginative as to agree. We are of the few who have the courage to speak this message in the presence of a very common mentality seeking to coagulate His body into Presbyterians here, Baptists there, Episcopalians over yonder, traditionalists in this corner, and contemporaries in that one.
-----I won’t speak for Gail, but since it has been the contemporaries who have most prominently stepped forward demanding the Lord’s body follow their ways specifically, treating like dust to be shaken off their feet any of His precious children who object, I direct criticism pointedly at them. But our message remains: each and every child of God is led by Christ through His Spirit, the Word of God, and the influences of Godly men and women all over. No one of them, nor any group of them, have been given into the hands of such as “Rick Warren” for retraining in what should or should not be meaningful. That is their business with the Lord. That is what makes His body His body. And that is why the church is hundreds of millions in numbers. It is something to celebrate.
Love,
Steve Corey
Anonymous,
Your observation of today’s church having a ‘small voice’ is right on target. I think one reason it’s small is because most of us have a fear of speaking up. I know there are times when Steve and I aren’t in total agreement, but that doesn’t mean that we quit listening to one another. Actually I think it has a lot to do with sword sharpening. Thanks for the encouragement and feel free to jump in with a comment anytime.
Gail
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