Looking For The Long Ride

Now that the dust has settled here in blog-land, or at least this little portion of it, let’s continue our ride into what will soon be tomorrow.

Truth is, I was a little overwhelmed with the response to “The Truth Is Out There” and have let it play itself for a time. It was an exciting ride and I am ready for some “regular” food after the exotic cuisine of the past few weeks. There was some deep stuff being touched upon and my hope is that we are all in a better place today that we were in yesterday.

What I have learned from all of this is that there is a big group of people, past and present in my life, who make up the body of Christ as I know it. And that we can organize ourselves to meet the needs of the moment and take care of some of the past’s oversights.

Also, I have learned that we are all in some sort of process of figuring out who we are and what part we play in the bigger scheme of things. We have all been hurt by authority and that most of us are longing for the truth of the gospel to be manifest in our lives.

I began an entry yesterday but it took a wrong turn and was really much to personal to post. The point I was trying to make was a good one and when I figure out how to make it more general, I will let it tell its story.

Several years ago I read a book entitled “Four Arguments For The Elimination of Television” by Gerry Mander. I don’t know why this info popped into my mind specifically, but some of the thoughts he presented seem to be relevant based on what we are all collectively trying to understand about the modern church and how it is supposed to look.

Since I no longer seem to have the book in my “library’ I went to the net to find some stuff about it to jog my memory a little bit. The following quote is rather long but describes the first argument put forth by the book’s author and will be a stepping stone for us to leap off of.

“To start, Mander keeps things simple.
Although he refers to various studies throughout the book, much of his
argumentation is based on good old solid common sense. For instance, he
notes early on that television can be used only for certain purposes,
most of which are detrimental. To drive this point home, he draws an
analogy to the existence of firearms in modern society. He notes that
guns have a very specific purpose and they actually predetermine their
use as well as the people who use them. Guns are for killing things,
plain and simple. And the majority of people who end up using guns are
people who kill.

The technology predetermines the outcome.
The same, argues Mander, can be said of television. It is simply a
matter of mapping TV’s form and function in order arrive at conclusions
concerning the detrimental nature of its influence.

Mander’s first argument centers on the
mediation of experience. Speaking not so much about television and more
so about how society has progressed, he explains that as humans have
moved more and more into controlled living and working environments, we
have lost touch with true direct experience. To his mind, this has led
to a crisis in knowledge. Everything is interpreted and processed and
packaged to the point that the true nature of things is completely
lost. This alienating experience narrows the field of vision on life.” Source Link

In other words, much of what we percieve to be “reality”on TV is actually someone else’s perception of it. And therein, as Holmes would say, lies the rub. I am not a deep thinker—yet I do have the ability to see patterns and then begin to tie things together in order to reach an understanding of what is going on around me.

And don’t get me wrong—I like TV. Maybe not the TV you like but what feels good to me. I was a “thirty something” guy and an “X-Files” and “Twilight Zone” fan. Most of the shows I have enjoyed (other than Sienfeld) have been taken off the air just after I have gotten attached to them. I liked “Joan of Arcadia” even though I was never really sure if the producers even had a clue as to who God really is.

The point being that what we have perceived as real is really something that we have been spoon fed in order for some production company to make money. And even to the degree that “reality” is presented to us, it is divorced from its roots and therefore not really “real” any more. We can’t really think that we understand the effect of AIDS in Africa just because we have seen a documentary on the subject. Mander would say just the opposite occurs. Because we have seen and processed the information about it, we think we have first hand knowledge about it—and the reality is that is furthest thing from the truth.

Most of us (present company excluded) have not been to Africa and will never be. So to say that we “understand” what is going on there is an understatement of large propoortions.

As I pondered this dynamic, I began to extrapolate this information into the local church and what we have all experienced within this construct the past several years.

And, having reached this point, I will end with a question: Is what we perceive to be the world-wide local church (the organization) something that is only a representation of the reality of a relationship with God and not the real thing. Is is something we have substituted for actualy having a first hand knowledge of the Living God. And if that is so, what can we expect to gain from it?

Last Wednesday I had dinner with a friend of mine and afterwards went to see the new Spiderman movie. During the course of the evening, we shared with each other some of our parallel experiences with church life.

If there is ever anybody who can understand you, it is someone who has been through much the same things.
Each of us reacts differently to life’s circumstances, but there is always a commonality to what we go through.

As we talked, I began to realize the depth of the hurt I have been feeling since leaving the church I was a part of for 22 years. No doubt I have worked through a lot of these feelings through this blog and perhaps even a conversation or two with some of you reading this.

To mourn is to:

…feel or express grief or sorrow; lamentation.

So we can begin to see that leaving a church is much like losing a friend to an illness—some of the same patterns of behavior are manifested.

However, that is maybe a subject for another time.

During this process, a friend of mine visited the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. She participated in some of the worship times and brought back some of the worship music on a CD which she gave to me. I have uploaded the first session with Misty Edwards as the leader and must say that listening to this has helped ease my heart and given me some new hope as I persue my walk with the Lord.

It is located at my website:

lookingforthelongride

The  song she begins with is a Chris Tomlin song we are all familiar with. It’s about 24 minutes long and I downsampled it so you can listen without bandwidth issues.

Let me know what you think.

It is another Sunday morning and a time that I have found to be very relaxing since I don’t have to hurry around and prepare for a morning service at church. The new church I attend meets in the afternoon and so my getting ready is a little less stressful. And since it is a little less formal, it’s not to hard to find a decent shirt and a pair of jeans to wear.

As I have never been one to sleep in, it is also very interesting to just lay around in bed and process the many thoughts that cross my semi-conscious mind. It’s a time to reflect upon the week that has just passed and the week that lies ahead.

It’s a time to process dreams and a time for honest evaluation as to where you are in life—and sometimes it seems our thoughts flow a little easier in that pre-fully conscious state.

This morning I was a newspaper writer who it seemed hadn’t had a big piece in a long time—I had the feeling in this semi-awake state that I wasn’t really producing a lot of copy. It was one of those dry seasons we all go through on occasion. I didn’t really feel happy about this but it didn’t seem like there was a whole lot I could do about it either. I guess my real fear was that my editor would wake up and realize I hadn’t been pulling my weight and I would soon be out of a job.

I remember a Dylan song in which he sang, “At dawn my lover, comes to me, and tells me of her dreams; with never an attempt, to shovel a ditch, into what each one means.”

What I am thinking this mornings dream speaks to is the patterns in my life.

As I have mentioned, Sandi and I are products of what they now call the home church movement. I guess we were ahead of our time and didn’t know it—it just seemed right at the time—not like we were trying to be different—it’s just the way life was unfolding in front of us.

After a time that group split up and we moved on to a larger church—but still one that was different and so-called “non-demoninational” in its approach to service structure and government. It was a place for people looking for something different—and over the years we attracted a lot of people looking for something beyond the norm of what was being offered in the larger scheme of Christendom. Many were people who we refer to now as church hoppers who probably would never be happy in any church—life and people are just that way I have found.

Anyway, after many years, what is non-denominational becomes its own denomination and is not really that much different from all the rest. Its a pattern that has repeated itself time after time. Someone once said that the biggest threat to the next thing God is doing in the earth is from the people who were the last great thing God was doing.  In other words we move so far and then settle—its what most every pilgrim does.

Scripture speaks to the fact that to everything under heaven, there is a season—a time to plant and a time to harvest; a time to build and a time to tear down.

What I have seen is that seasons can end up becoming patterns—patterns of thought and patterns of behaviour. Pattern is defined partly as:

a combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, etc., forming a consistent or characteristic arrangement.

So we see that patterns are not intrinsically bad. But in the sense of an airplane being in a holding pattern above an airport and not being able to land—patterns don’t seem really good.

That’s where I find myself today—more in a holding pattern than a moving forward pattern. Like bike riding of recent, the thought of getting back on the bike knowing that vulnerability exists with every ride is a little unsettling.

That the very sensibilities that I was created with were trivialized by people I was caught in a pattern with for so many years is a big factor in my not putting myself “out there” as well, is disturbing to say the least.

New patterns are emerging—not as fast as I would like but in that I must also take courage. After years of not playing my guitar and singing praise and worship songs as an offering and meditation, I have begun to find my voice again.

I guess I have always had a tendancy to be a “jack of all trades” when it comes to life in general. Limitations are a frustration to me. But as I get older I am beginning to see that to do a few things well is perhaps a greater blessing that to be able to do a lot of things just because they are available or we have the inherent skils needed.

Like I said, it’s another Sunday and the sun is once again shining outside. I need to trust in the fact that this season, though frustrating at the moment, will in turn produce something of value and substance.

Enjoy your ride.

I remember vividly the evening I was born again and filled with the Holy Spirit. It was during a little meeting in a living room at a friends house in Ashe County, North Carolina.

Sandi, my wife, was not with me that evening and I guess in retrospect, that was meant to be. Maybe I felt a little less vulnerable and was able to let go in a way that facilitated my entry into the rest of my life. The point being is that after that evening, what had been mere historical Bible reading became reality to me.

I am talking about the book of Acts.

Sandi and I had only been in North Carolina for 6 months when we were invited to a night of “music and stuff” at a neighbors house. The first time we went after being invited, no one was home and we didn’t know what to think. It turns out they met at a different home that night and forgot to tell us they were changing plans (maybe thinking we wouldn’t come anyway).

The music evening was in fact a small Bible study/home group that a few people had organized after being “kicked” out of some local churches due to the fact they were teaching about laying on of hands and being filled with the spirit—stuff that cut against the grain in this small rural area.

At that time we were attending an Espicopal Church that some friends had invited us to when we moved to North Carolina. We felt comfortable and really enjoyed the fellowship—the covered dish dinners were over the top and the group was a combination of  all ages.

One of the things the Episcopal Church does in its service is to have someone read from the Old Testatment and the New Testament during the course of the meeting. I was often invited to play a little flute music in between for color and a change of pace—the rector was a pretty charismatic guy and really looked for ways the congregation could be involved.

After my re-birth, when the Sunday morning Bible readings occured, I remember looking around the Church, heart pounding, to see if anyone else was being stirred like me. All I really noticed was a quiet, almost passive demeaner, as the congregation looked towards the front and waited for the service to continue. I couldn’t believe it—here I was being all excited about the reality of the Christian experience and not finding the same kind of excitement or understanding in the people around me.

Things really took off when I told my best friend, the guy who had invited me to the church and with whom I worked as a carpenter, that you could really have a dialogue with God—that it wasn’t all a monologue as he thought. He looked at me like I was a madman and later told me how frightened he became at my revelation.

It wasn’t long before I was working for someone else and received an invitation to a lunch meeting with the rector. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was to quit proselitizing and leave “his” charges alone. It was his belief that each person’s faith was personal and that it wasn’t to be meddled with and that the emphasis on “being born-again” was also an individual thing and not something he was comfortable with getting into as well.

Some parts of my memory of this time are a little cloudy. But I can tell you that I had never been kicked out of a church before.

However, Sandi and I landed on our feet and it wasn’t long before the little “come over for some music” home group became a small church—meeting in living rooms and basements every Sunday.

During this process, I guess I never really thought about what the church meetings were supposed to look like or the authority structure. Whatever we did was what it was and that was allright with me. I didn’t have a whole lot of alternative church models to base anything on—having grown up in a mainstream Congregational type church. We were meeting in a home (just like in Acts) and even though we had “elders” everyone had a voice. We’d sit around in a circle and though we had a couple of people playing guitars, people would often just start a song and everyone would soon join in. If we could figure out the key they were singing in, we played along and if not we sang without music. And the covered dish dinners were even better than at the Episcopal church.

It wasn’t long before I was teaching the Derrick Prince “Foundation Series” to the newest members of our little fellowship. We’d meet on Sunday afternoons and then all go out to the local salad bar and share a meal. It was simple, it was real and it felt like we were really “having church”!

Even though I had been baptised (sprinkled) after confirmation at 12 years old and again at the Episcopal church (sprinkled), I was challenged to look at the scripture and pray about whether I needed to be baptised again (dunked). I was stubborn and felt like if it hadn’t “taken” after two times, what was the point. But, as in many instances during those early years, the Spirit would gently nudge me and correct whatever hearing problem I was having. After several weeks I was re-baptised in the New River which was followed by—you guessed it—a covered dish supper.

This group lasted about two years or more and then some “end-time” teaching came into the fellowship and divided us into two groups that eventually split over doctrine. We hung on in the new “end time” group for a while, became Pharisees, got delivered from that and as soon as we were released, came to the church we would attend for the next 22 years.

From simple to complex to simple again and then more complex than I ever would have imagined.

I have taken you through this little history lesson to say this: I don’t remember when I started depending on the “Church” to take care of me and mediate my relationship with Christ.

Though many people have had similar experiences with the organized Church and authority structures therein, mine was and is unique. That I and many others out there are still in some sort of recovery mode, speaks volumes.

So…I guess I will close for now and try to pick up this thread later. There is more to say—more to digest—but it is getting late in the day and tomorrow will be soon enough.

PS: I took a bike ride tonight before it poured…It took me a week to get back in the saddle after falling over. I am not totally comfortable yet, but each day will bring a little more release. Enjoy your ride.

As an old X-Filer I certainly beleive that there are many different views of reality floating around. I also tend to think it is ironic that the Eagles would sing on “Hotel California” that “You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.”

In other words, how you deal with the time you have on earth is up to you, but you are here for the duration—no matter how long that is or what is looks and feels like.

I also find it fascinating what passes for news these days. With cell phone cameras we see celebrities caught doing stuff that heretofore we would never have seen—a drunk Mel Gibson, an angry-at-blacks Kramer and David Hasselhoff falling hard off the wagon. To top it off, forget about running for public office unless you have been a saint—there is always a skeleton or two hanging around for the media to find and flash in front of us during prime-time.

I guess that as a Christian, it has always been this way. Even though I don’t know many who live with this in mind, scripture tells us that the Lord sees what is done in secret.

Why am I going on like this on a cloudy Wednesday in May in the mountains of North Carolina.

The point is that what I have discussed in this public forum are my memories of people and places and things that have happened to me over the past several years. As it pertains to church stuff, my goal was to put into words my impressions before time had a chance to erode these memories and morph them into something they weren’t. I am not talking 1984 here where history was re-written every time the governmental climate changed.

As many writers do, I generalize and take what I call the big brush approach to tell my story—although sometimes I will hone in on the minutia of life from time to time. I am not a “strict constructionist”  in my thought processes but more surreal or “stream-of-consciousness” in my approach to writting.

So, when I write, I really write from a sense of “this is my reality” knowing full well that if you ask around you will no doubt get many different points of view about what happened and why during any given time period or event.

I have talked more about the systems created by men than the men who have created them—and for good purpose. My goal has always been to understand and not assign blame to any given individual for what I have been through. I have also not tried to cover up what I am refering to but have been less than specific when it comes to names associated with my meanderings. People that know me and read my blog have no doubt formed their own opinions about the events mentioned and don’t need specific details in order to know what I am talking about. So in a sense, things are hidden even though they are out in the open and being discussed.

That is until some recent comments mentioned by name one of the persons involved in a few of my entries surrounding the authority structures in church. I left them as they were because I feel it is important to allow people a forum within which to discuss their process. At the very same time I realize that things could go astray and that the enemy could try and distort what has been shared.

I am conflicted because there is a big part of me that recognizes the fact that as church leaders we have erred in keeping things that should be out in the open under wraps. That much of what is wrong with us today might have been prevented had we allowed the greater council of the church body access to what was going on behind closed doors.

Graham Cooke talks about the “Suddenlies of Life”—the moments when everything changes. We can’t go back and pretend it didn’t happen—even though the movie you thought you were watching during that time is a lot different from the one I thought I was seeing.

I do enjoy writting and thinking about life but need imput on this next stage of our ride together. Is it hilly with a few straight-a-ways, or mostly flat and following a river that eventually empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

I began this blog, after thinking about it for a couple of years, following my departure from the church I had attended for 22 years. I felt like my creativity had been given back to me and it was time to dig in. Well, dig in I did and here we are 5 or 6 months later at a point where many people from all over are visiting the neighborhood and leaving comments which in turn has brought about a sense of the collective that in my mind only a small church group or a personal friendship can provide.

Much of what has been written lately has been reflections on my experience as an elder in the aforementioned church and in turn trying to understand what went wrong in order to move forward in a Godly way. In addressing these things I have avoided names and have stated many times that it is not flesh and blood (the people invovled) that we wrestle against but the principalities and powers of darkness who sometimes use these same people (myself included) to do their bidding. For practical purposes, these powers manipulate “systems” which have been created by men to regulate what they feel God is doing this week or this month.

Yesterday, I found a comment posted by Ben Cotton who was intimately involved in some of what I have alluded to in entries about authority and my experiences with that system. What he wrote is very close to him and very personal and in the overall sense of blogdom for me, a little scary. Since he mentioned names I took a brief pause and even considered not posting it until I had something to say in return. I even talked with DED about it and felt a release to proceed. You can find his comment in the “Showcase” What People Are Saying, section.

In this process I had two thoughts:

The first is that we are on this journey together and obviously we are beginning to understand more of what we have been through—for better or worse. I have been priviledged to hear from a lot of people from my past recently and this has re-ignited my resolve to continue the race.

The second is that after coming to some conclusions and understandings, what is there left—or in other words, does this blog thing have some underlying purpose I have not yet seen. I would have to say that what I saw this morning as I ironed my shirt before going to work, is that as a community of believers, after understanding comes reconciliation. In some respects I feel that Ben’s comments are meant to be read and in this context taken. Is it a little scary—Yes! But as I mentioned yesterday, even getting on my bike these days is a little more dangerous than I thought.

Reconcile is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as:

1. To reestablish a close relationship between.

2. To settle or resolve.

I truly believe that the Spirit is, and has been, at work to heal the body that many of us felt was fractured and almost beyond repair. If this blog is a part of that process, that’s really as creative as it gets.

Enjoy your ride on this beautiful day.

Since I have been riding my road bike for almost a year, and enjoying it immensly I might add, I did what most bikers do and upgraded my pedals from the cage to the clip-in type. And what a whirlwind ride it has been.

Since that time, I have literally fallen over with my bike a couple of times. It is not like falling off a cliff, but when stopped not getting your feet out of the pedals fast enough to keep from tiping over. As with pedal cages, clip-ins can be adjusted tight or loose and I think mine were to tight. Also, the outward heel motion needed to un-clip, as I found out today, was hindered by my left knee feeling a little numb from a back injury several years ago. It is a rookie mistake and one that I was told upfront that I would make—every biker does. I thought I could surely beat the odds—instead I got a beat up leg and a thumb that I think took a beating as well.

It is the wierdest sensation knowing that you are going to fall and can’t do anything about it. It is like a two second slow motion movie and then you hit the asphalt and hurt at the same time. Of course your feet come out at this point and the bike is on top of you.

After I fell, Glenn and I finished our ride (another 14 miles) and when we quit my leg was beginning to feel a little stiff around the knee. It was a little bloody and the scrapes were filled with little rocks, but I made it home and put some ice on it and some Arnica gel and this morning it was still stiff but not damaged beyond a few days repair.

I took my bike to the shop and had them look it over and tighten a few things and adjust the tension of the clips and I am ready to get back on and ride.

Am I a little apprehensive—you bet! I have gone from no accidents to two almost over night. I feel a little more vulnerable that I did before and maybe that is the more realistic approach to riding or anything with a measure of danger attached to it. Had I become complacent. Maybe so. But as in life, I can’t let the fear of maybe falling keep me from doing what has come to be such a blessing.

I sure didn’t want to get back in the saddle right after my last tip over. Knowing in your mind what is theoretically possible and feeling the results first hand are really two different things. When the riding is easy, it is all about the theory—when it gets tough—it is all about the fear of future pain.

As Graham Cooke would say, we often experience “Suddenlies” in life. After a suddenly occurs, nothing is ever the same—nor can it be. Whether it is a car wreak, a gunshot or a small bike injury, the way we look at the world changes. What we do with how it now looks determines the success and enjoyment of our ride.

You pray for mine and I will pray for yours. It is all I have to give at this point.

Authority is a word that seems to have many meanings in today’s language. As I was thinking about this I wondered what came first, the chicken or the egg. In other words, was authority the word concevied and then defined or was a concept of authority taken and given a word to describe it.

Authority seems to be best described as something given—as in Christ was given authority by the Father to give us eternal life. He then gave us authority to overcome the wiles of the enemy.

Authority is vested in a person—it is a power or right delegated or given. It is permission to “authorize” someone or something.

Authority is not neccessarliy synonymous with control but in common usage is often associated with a person controlling a situation or a group of people.

I guess the tendancy of human nature is that when some people are given a little authority, they want more. And as I said before, not always for the right reasons.

As it seems to be in kingdom terms, authority may have the opposite meaning than what it has come to represent in the secular sense. In the book of Mark, chapter 10 verse 42 Jesus says:

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority
over them. 43/Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44/and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45/For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Several years ago, the church I was a part of began a process of changing its governmental style. We were to go from a “pastor centered” structure to a team of elders with a team leader setup. It really seemed more biblical. Yet even though we thought we took all the necessary relational steps to facilitate the change, the former pastor, now a team member, left and in his leaving a hole was created that would never be filled. Many members left, not to follow him per se, but because they now had a reason or at least an excuse to try something else.

I mention this only to try and relate how hard it is to make a change—even one that everyone agrees needs to be made. It’s an imperfect world, etc. But before the atom bomb of him leaving hit, I remember walking up to a deacon in the hallway of the church one day and letting him know just how excited I was that we were being given a chance (I thought) to make things right with our fellowship. It was now our job to help fashion a place where people would be valued and each part of the body would be rasied up to take their individual places in the furthering of the kingdom of God. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that he looked at me like I was crazy—maybe he knew something I didn’t about the inherent nature of people to not do what you think they will.

Actually, I remember looking past the fear and bewilderment in his eyes and as he walked away, not really answering or understanding what had just been offered to him, I thought that he would finally come around and see what he was being extended and the chance to have imput into something he had served by rote for so long.

That wasn’t to be the case—he and his wife left the group several months later—only to be followed by more down the road.

I said that to say this: what began in my mind as an opportunity to release the members of the body of believers into their own destinies with God, turned into us serving a system and being manipulated into serving something else entirely. As the authority became more centralized, it became our job to serve this rather than to be released and in turn release others. It is sort of like going into the woods for what at the time seems like a simple camping trip, only to find yourself hopelessly lost in the forest and taking months or years to finally find yourself back to the point where you began.

Not that you don’t learn a lot during your time in the forest—but basic survival skills can only fill your belly so much. Your stomach begins to cry out for a “real meal” after you have consumed so many roots and berries that you think there will never be another item on the menu.

I am not complaining mind you—just making some observations.

However, I have come to the point where I believe that the way we have done ministry has wounded a lot of people and sidetracked many more. I see people in leadership roles worn out and tired of the grind that has become all to common.

I certainly can’t say with certainty what this thing called church is supposed to look like—but I am beginning to realize what it shouldn’t resemble.

Lets hope our ride today brings us to a clearer understanding and a place of release.

Enjoy your ride and enjoy the rain.

On March 2nd of this year I wrote an entry about church authority in which I revealed some of the issues I had lived through during my tenure at a local church I had attended for 22 years and recently left. The original article can be found at:

https://blog.lookingforthelongride.com/2007/03/02/authority.aspx

After I posted this entry I received a comment from a dear friend (DED) and in the moment of reading it forgot to click on the “approve comment” button and thereby broke the flow of interaction a blog lives to realize. I am new to this whole thing and want to allow you the opportunity to experience what was intended to be.

So, read the original post, and then the comment which is copied below.

Terry,

You stayed longer than us both overall, and well beyond
our stay. When my wife and I had left, she had been there 20 years and
I, 18. It was the only real church home I had known; though I had
attended a denominational church a few years in high school, I had
never belonged anywhere but in the organization you mention. The issue
of authority you describe is exactly the issue that separated our
family from the group. Since then I have thought over the role and
function of authority for nearly ten years. I have come to a position
which enjoys little favor in the hearts of folks who expect systems to
work for them.

1. In modern America we know very little of the authority God intended.

2.
It is never an office. Though someone who walks in Godly authority may
in fact dwell within an identified position of oversight for some group
of persons, no one has authority of an office conferred upon them by a
group of people which is the authority of God. Conferrence or
recognized authority standing on the aproval of men is not part of
God’s plan.

3. Even just accepting one man to be the core
speaker and thus the basis of a group’s collective teaching,
understanding, journey…fails God’s plan.

I recently visited a
very sweet fellowship of believers. Though the man speaking is
intensely sincere and full of integrity, the fact that he controls a
pulpit fails the needs of that group. This man would be more of a
support to this group, if he left for two-three weeks at a time and let
the group discover its identity in Christ without him. He could return
often and lend a listening ear and support. This would be good. But as
long as he speaks, the polite and gentle people listening to him will
never expect it of themselves to hear God to the depths that they
might.

At least, so I think, which may mean very little.

Love in Jesus,
ded