Current blog programming on pause.
I need to pause and seek some balance about these topics.
In hindsight we are thankful for the work of the reformers from 500 years ago. It is an understatement to say it wasn't easy in those days to ask questions either.
However I need to seek God for peace to see if he wants me involved in further reform, or if I should leave the dirty work to others. How can I balance building others up to be more like Christ, while I am also focusing on deconstructing. Can I learn any lessons from past reformers?
In the real world, I desire fellowship with others with the goal of building each other up to be more like Christ.
Is this blog helping, or harming that desire?
Maybe now is not the right timing, or I am not the right messenger (or have the wrong message).
Is this really the path God has planned for me? My family and I need to spend some time seeking God on this. Your prayers are welcome.
4 comments:
Jon,
I think I am at a similar cross road. A few brothers I've been discussing this with, and I are getting together tomorrow to discuss this very issue.
What do we do with what we've found? Do we persuade others, or do we make application to ourselves, or both? And how tough of a stance do we take, where are our lines in the sand?
And like you, I am now turning more toward prayer.
-Sol
Thanks Sol. Praying for wisdom for you as well. That God could speak through our lives (in small simple ways) more than just our blogs.
Jon.
Please be encouraged. I truly believe God called you out and into the place you are now at, despite the disquiet and struggle it may bring.
As far as the big question is concerned, it is nigh on impossible to theologise about what a true church should look like. That is just like learning to swim from a book. You have to walk it (get wet) and discover it on the journey.
God first started to teach me on these very issues over 30 years ago.
Since then, I have steadily followed God as he drew me into deeper and deeper understanding. At the beginning I wept because of the burden it put me under. I knew the trouble it would bring me (and it certainly did), and tried to back out, but the word was too much of a fire within to ignore.
I set out to simply walk the walk as far as I knew how, rather than talk it. Much of it happened in all the home groups I was leading or just a part of over the years. That was a remarkable journey. The church leaders could not comprehend why, when all the others home groups had attendance problems, our groups kept flourishing. Meetings were as lively as can be, because everyone there functioned freely and noisily. However it bred an independence of spirit amongst the saints, as they grew in spirit and truth. This greatly disturbed the elders, who wanted compliance. They kept closing our groups down, and sending the members to other groups. I got proscribed and silenced repeatedly.
Eventually they could stand me and my thoughts no more. At the beginning of the 90s I was denounced by the leadership and cast out of the church. They even "rendered me unto Satan" because of my rebellion! I had been part of that church for about 18 years, and it was devastating because we lost all of our friends at the same time, such was the power of the leadership.
I passed thereafter through the doors of several other churches, but always had difficulty because I was a free man and not church material in their eyes, no matter how much I built up the saints. In addition the original elders sent bad report ahead of me, which meant I was always under a cloud of suspicion, and frequently isolated.
For several years now I have been meeting with a tiny group of fellow wilderness dwellers. It has been an amazing time. Without the umbrella of hierarchical control over our heads, there is a freedom to hear the voice of God in a much clearer way. Scripture comes alive without tradition polluting it.
We are collectively the body. Although I frequently contribute teachings within the group, I am definitely not the head, nor the pastor, nor the leader of it. Jesus is. We all desire the leading of the Spirit, and He does so every week in a remarkable way.
Jon you must be free to discuss what you are discovering, and to blog about it prayerfully, just as you have been doing. Yes some will be violently opposed to you, and it may be very painful at times.
Do not be like Esau, be like Jacob. The start of Jacob's journey was nothing to boast about, but he made himself available for God to use, and was humbled on the way.
Thanks Frank for the encouragement and for sharing your story. I appreciate it.
I do feel a peace about pausing for awhile. I have been doing more talk than walk. It's fair to say I've said enough for now.
I need to live and breath for awhile, and see where God leads.
Thanks!
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