Wednesday, April 02, 2008
It's not about me, It's all about You...
One role we have as Future Pastors is to lead people to freedom. To do this we need to be able to reveal the hindrances in thinking.
Ask a churched person the question, “what’s your favorite book?” And nine times out of ten the really spiritual ones will answer with a condition, “Well, of course the Bible, but after that it’s…”
Why do we answer that way?
I think it has to do with the basic assumptions of the Church As We Know It. We assume that if we don’t say that indeed the Bible is of utmost importance, then we will somehow slip into mediocrity and eventually become an atheist, leave our wife, or worse yet, stop reading the Bible.
There are some things that should just be a given. Most normal people you and I know practice some form of hygiene on a regular basis, so it’s the unusual case that we would have to remind a guy to shave and shower. If I have to ask the majority of people I know if they took a bath today, at some point I would wonder what kind of upbringing they had.
In the same way it makes sense to me to just assume certain basic things about our faith and let those beliefs rest as the foundation and build from there.
But when the Church As We Know It needs songs to constantly remind itself that its not about me and its all about God, it shows that it is operating out of the basic assumption that we don’t know the difference. It’s as if the Church As We Know It is full of people who don’t routinely take a shower and must always be told to do so.
Future Pastor, people have been shackled too long with the belief that their greatest desire is to wander away from God. Lead them away from that assumption. Remind them they are a New Creation.
And encourage them to write better songs.
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4 comments:
Fight Club is my favorite book... but I'm not very spiritual.
Great Post!
God's Glory,
Lew A
The Pursuit Online Store
So well said! It reminds me of something that a guy I know always says. He talks about how he always relates to people based on their destiny, not on who they are in the here and now. I don't mean he ignores their fleshy behavior, but he recognizes that the "true" and "real" person is the one that has a deep, passionate desire for God, and that's the primary person he relates to.
It really does seem that church as we know it is geared around disciples who never mature (or aren't allowed to, or told they can't, etc.). There's a place for reminding people that we swim against the current of the culture around us (where it's all about me all the time), but perhaps modeling a lifestyle of serving others gets the point across better than singing that song over and over again.
The world is in that falling away stage that Paul talked about. Jesus said that all has been foretold but because so few people are reading the Bible with understanding "God has decided in these final days to speak unto man in terse sundry ways". There is a book of spiritually inspired poems titled, "Awaken The Watchman", which is basically a summary of the Gospel and Prophets and which is meant to be a blueprint for surviving the End-Times. Go to www.awakenthewatchman.com for a full description. Read the book!!!
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