Friday, September 28, 2007

Roles in family and ministry - thoughts in process...

I am working on some things in my head and heart about “order in the home” and it carried over to order in the ministry and this community. I thought about people stepping out of their God-defined roles. The thought occurred to me that, “Just because you can, does not mean you should.” There may not be a father/husband to act as the spiritual leader, but that does not mean you should step into that role in the family. You could probably “do” the job, but it does not mean you should. We are simply required to walk in the authority and role that God has called us to, and let Him (God) handle the empty places. It’s like this, if something happened to Holly, then I could be tempted to be both mom and dad to my boys. The fact is that things would never operate properly if I attempted that. All I would need to concentrate on is being the best dad that I could be (my God-given role), and pray that God would fill the other needs. If I operated outside of my role then I will never be truly effective within my role.

The phrase, “just because you can, does not mean you should,” moved my thoughts into ministry. I am the new president of the ministerial association here, and I am attempting to take the ministers into new relationships and thought processes. There have been those in the community who have had the ability to “take over” within the confines of “church” growth and success. The problem is that when they start trying to build their church, the kingdom church gets lost in the process. I could imagine them thinking, “Man, we can build this (their church/ministry)!” rather than thinking, “How can our church/ministry help build THIS (the Kingdom)?” Even our ministerial association should have the thought process not of building the association, but how can the association build the Kingdom? Our denomination should not be wondering how we can build the machine, but how can we find our place and work with others to build the Kingdom?

What is my place, and how can I plug in for the Kingdom’s sake?

1 comment:

Joe said...

I like this. Sort of an ecclesiological round-robin story (where one person starts telling the first part and then stops for the next person to continue it, and so on around a circle or campfire, etc.)

Each consecutive storyteller has an opportunity to move the tale forward and/or add depth, but must above all remain faithful to what is already in place and to the organic process from which it evolves.

verification: ftnkr