Yeesh…

[in reference to the comments on the Newsvine Poll currently running: Is Evolution Theory True or False?]

And [Jesus] taught his disciples not to rule over each other, that they had one Father and they were all brothers and sisters. When someone has been given special abilities or wisdom from God, we naturally follow them as “authorities” because we see they have what is good, what is from God. There is no need of human force to make us obey.

…God backs up the authority of those whom he has chosen.

God’s design requires constant together-ness.  We are incomplete without each other.

How does someone that is trying to fill the role of a leader in one of these faith communities learn from this commentary?  Sometimes a guy has to know when he is at the edge of his gifting and when to hand the baton off to keep things going.

Its a brief recount of a moment of honesty from one of his leaders.  When asked to pray she confessed that she couldn’t and hasn’t been able to for some time.  Wow!  What an amazing thing to hear from one of your leaders.  A commenter referenced Mother Teresa and the struggles she had with her faith most of her life.  Time magazine takes a look at what they call her ‘crisis of faith’.  They quote from her own letters, letters where she confesses the silence that she experienced and even the questioning in her own mind and heart that God is even there.

What a great combination of stories that bring to mind what a lifetime of faith can look like.  Not many years of uninterupted spiritual bliss or confidence in the unseen.  Seasons of doubt and silence that must inevitably accompany the human condition as we seek a Holy God.

And so it is with our lives.

While the wind turned my family over but didn’t carry us far some dear friends of ours have got the wind rustling up beneath them and it just might carry them out of the back yard.

Vince and Tami are taking their first steps to planting a church.  They have some people and some places in mind but are keeping it to the inner circle for now.

What they know now is the wind is blowing and its about to get under them.  To see whats happening with them you can always check in on them HERE but if you want to help them get their start follow THIS LINK.

So, even though I have been resisting it I think that God is starting to uproot me again.  Not in a huge way but I find myself looking for a job.  Sure, money is tough right now for the church but its more than that.  I am ready to be a significant financial contributor to my family again and I think that God will provide something that will leave me available for ministry.  I have one in mind but I won’t bore you with the details, just pray with me that my desire to find meaninful income without burdening our church will be honored.

So I confess here publicly that the systems that I have put into place are holding this ministry back.  As I walk around breaking them I am praying that God will be moving in the lives of those that will be thrust into leadership.  It happened for me as result of a need, its time to allow the Holy Spirit to move through me and into the lives of the emerging leaders around me so they can experience the same empowerment.

Pray for me…its not going to be easy.

Once again, God demonstrates how he has every intention of speaking to me about ministry and my own spiritual life through my growing passion as a gardener.

I got the lion’s share of the details of this story from THIS ARTICLE but I had heard some of these things in the year or so after I graduated from younger students that I stayed in touch with. If you don’t know any of these people this story won’t mean much to you, but I felt compelled to share it here. This story is a reminder to me of how our pride, arrogance and unwillingness to always move toward peace can destroy something that is bigger than us. The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor. I know the people in this story, and many of them insisted on honor and never considered humility. They see things completely upside down from how God has made us to be. The result was a black eye on the face of a good institution and damage to some who I consider to be honorable.

It makes me sad.

If you are completely unfamiliar with the Star Wars universe, these are Jedi Knights and they are characters that seek after self discipline and they are the assigned keepers of peace and justice in the galaxy. Something struck me when watching their interaction here. Obi-Wan is troubled by something far away from where they are and expresses it to his elder, Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon tells him to be aware of the here and now. He reminds him to ‘…be mindful of the living force…’. When I watch this scene I can imagine a similar discussion between two believers of God who are trying to discern God’s intentions in an urgent moment. It might sound a little more like, ‘be mindful of the Holy Spirit…’ Wow, that is really cool. But is it just my sci fi loving imagination at work?

Consider Acts 8:26 when you watch this scene. In this part of Acts Philip is told by an angel of the Lord to ‘Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So Philip has a pretty clear order to do so and heads that way. But that isn’t the part that strikes me, more so the part where we read that ‘The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”‘ in verse 29. At this stage of the game Philip can’t afford to be out there wandering around worrying about what he is supposed to be doing. He can’t be concerned about whether he packed enough water or how much he is tired of walking. He must have an open ear because he knows that he is being led by God. He is being mindful of the Holy Spirit at that moment and not worrying about the rest of it. In his obedience to the urging of the Spirit he enters into a dialogue with the Ethiopian and from that point the Ethiopian’s life is forever changed.

This application has been rattling around in my head for a little over a week now. Last week we went to a multiplication conference with the National Office of the Christian & Missionary Alliance. There I sat in on a talk by Mike Phillips who was speaking about prayer. He stressed the importance of prayer in our lives as church planters and the need for people around us that are constantly in prayer. He talked about the need to seek how God would have us pray rather than just rattling off what we think we want to pray about. He told us about having small groups of people that pray together and will sit in silence waiting for the Spirit to guide how they pray. They are focused on being mindful of the Holy Spirit. Mike likes to emphasize the importance of being sensitive to how God would have us pray by the leading of the Spirit. I couldn’t agree more.

So how are you praying lately? How are you listening to God? Do you sit down and start the laundry list or do you start your prayer in silence waiting for God to give you direction? Are you being mindful of the Living Force? He is speaking to you, He is speaking to me. It is in listening to Him where we become effective in the words we speak, the actions we take and the decisions we make. So when you wake up tomorrow morning, be silent and see if the Creator of the universe has something to show you.

So, as we approach this time of pressure and squeezing I consider that the path of least resistance is not necessarily the path to take. Sometimes, and maybe often God will allow us to go through those harder doors. ‘ …but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.‘ (Romans 5:3-4). Its totally backward to our own wisdom. On the heals of that I am reminded that we should not be wise in our own minds (Proverbs 3:7). I find these ideas to be upside down when compared to our conventional common sense, or more accurately our conventional common sense is upside down compared to these ideas…but I digress. Consider this piece of common sense, ‘Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.’ (Yoda to Anakin Skywalker – Star Wars Episode I) Suffering here is the final, horrible end to a long path of misery and darkness. In God’s kingdom suffering is the refiner and the beginning to character, hope and wisdom.

So I have chosen to surrender and submit to God.  And if I am to believe that God is good, which I do, then I HAVE to believe that this pressure and heat is for the betterment of God’s kingdom and for my good.