Loop

I feel so out of the loop!

Our computer has been with the Geek Squad for a couple of days transferring files/pictures/Quicken financial software from Computer That’s About To Die to this one we bought last year.  It will be nice to pay bills without wondering if the computer will completely shut off in the middle of it.

Anyway, if you ever want to see frustrated, watch me try to type more than one sentence on an iPad.  What with all the auto-correcting that goes on.

So, I’ve been out of this. 

But you know what?  It’s been good.  My man and I had a really healthy talk about stuff.  Mostly expectations and priorities around here.  This will always be a point of contention with us.  Mostly because he has natural talents at seeing things that need to be done coupled with a desire to do them efficiently and immediately.  I do not have those natural talents.  But that’s okay.  We figure it out a little at a time and revisit when we need to.

(If you want, every time you think of us you can pray about this area of our lives.  Just please don’t ask for complete personality transplants; we rather like who we are.)

Anyway, you should buckle up.  Because I haven’t used all my words lately.  Grin.

(As a side note, ladies…have you ever thought about what a gift it is that God made many of us so verbal?  How if we take that tendency and strip it of gossip or complaining and turn it into intercession how much power our sanctified tongues could have?  I don’t mean withdraw from life and shut out the world and pray.  I mean a constant conversation with the King as we drive kids around town, talk with friends about struggles, share our days with co-workers.  We can use all that verbage for good!)

(If I know you in real life, please promise me you won’t wonder if you’ve ever gossiped or complained around me.  So not the point, and I probably don’t even remember!)

Anyway, Dan and I talked about my tendency to get really absorbed in something I’m working on.  He doesn’t want this blog to become my idol.  Ouch.  I don’t think it is, but it was stealing lots of my focus.  And if that starts affecting my family, that is never, ever okay with me. 

I’ve had about 48 hours to think through stuff like that.  I remember Beth Moore saying once that her greatest “accomplishment’ in ministry is that her two daughters willingly sit under her teaching.  How very different that could’ve gone!  How they could’ve resented her traveling and speaking and writing.  But she made sure they knew her family was her first priority to her.  Then lived that out.

That makes it sound like I think this silly blog is the same as what God has given Beth Moore to steward.  I don’t.  I just don’t want sharing lessons I’m learning with other people to take more space in my brain than sharing life with my family does.

Make sense?

That led to me thinking about the outreach our group does.  On outreach weeks, I am distracted/busy/unfocused on daily routines.  My family more than compensates for that because it is not every week.  It is just a season.  Dan expects less from me housework wise.  The boys know they’ll get drug all over town more to pick up stuff from others.  (Because honestly?  If people are kind enough to help and bake and make and donate stuff, I want to make it convenient for them to get it to us.) 

The boys also know they will get more bribes…I mean treats…on those weeks.  I don’t want them to resent the outreach.  (But it’s looking good so far.  My oldest doesn’t know all the details, just that we try to love on “girls that dance” who have not experienced God’s love the way we have.  My youngest just knows some of his good friends come over and pack gift bags once in a while and that’s just fine with him.)

But even with it going well, I regularly think of something from The Patriarchs I learned: In talking about Joseph’s position of influence, Bethie challenged us to think of our own callings.  And if we feel like we’d throw a fit if it seemed right that God would give our dream or vision to someone else and let them run with it…we’re getting close to idolatry.  If I’m holding too tightly to being the one in control of a vision, I need to open my hands. 

Good perspective. 

Then I thought of the following quote.  (Are you getting dizzy getting a glimpse inside my brain?)

“I answer that your calling is now to your family.  You are to fulfill the covenant you made with your spouse.  To jump into some kind of ministry that ultimately would be destructive to your marriage is sin.  Be content to invest your life in your spouse and your children.  If the ministry is important, God will either raise up others to do it, or in his time will arrange your situation so that this work is compatible with your family responsibilities.”  (Foster, pg. 164)

As much as possible, our goal is to make ministry a family affair.  It doesn’t always happen perfectly, but we always want to make sure our kids know they are not our idol.  And that giving to others is one of our family’s top priorities.  Takes so much wisdom, huh?  Good thing we get it when we ask for it (James 1:5).

Then I thought of this (it’s a long one, but meaty and worth it I think):

There is one more practical issue that believers must face when considering how to do justice.  Should believers act as individuals out in the world or through their local church?  What exactly is the role of the local church in the work of justice?

The church should help believers shape every area of their lives with the gospel…But that doesn’t mean that the church as an institution is itself to do everything it equips its members to doll.  For example, while the church should disciple its members who are filmmakers so that their cinematic art will be profoundly influenced by the gospel, that does not mean that the church should establish a company that produces feature films.  No institution or organization can do all things well – that goes for the Christian church as well.

At this point the concept of Abraham Kuyper’s ‘sphere sovereignty’ can be of some help. Kuyper was both a Christian minister and the prime minister of the Netherlands at the turn of the twentieth century.  As both a theologian and a politician, he was able to reflect on the respective roles of church, state, and voluntary associations.  Kuyper concluded that the institutional church’s mission is to evangelize and nurture believers in Christian community.

As it does this work, it produces people who engage in art, science, education, journalism, filmmaking, business, in distinctive ways as believers in Christ.  The church, in this view, produces individuals who change society, but the local congregation should not itself engage in these enterprises. 

Kuyper distinguished between the institutional church – the congregation meeting under its leaders – and the ‘organic’ church, which consists of all Christians, functioning in the world as individuals and through various agencies and voluntary organizations.

I believe Kuyper is generally right.  We have spoken of different ‘levels’ of ministry to the poor – relief, development, and reform.  As we have said, churches under their leaders should definitely carry out ministries of relief and some development among their own members and in their neighborhoods and cities, as the natural and crucial way to show the world God’s character, and to love the people that they are evangelizing and discipling. 

But if we apply Kuyper’s view, then when we get to the more ambitious work of social reform and the addressing of social structure, believers should work through associations and organizations rather than through the local church.  While the institutional church should do relief inside and around its community, the ‘organic’ church should be doing development and social reform.

This is not just a theological principle, it is also a very practical issue.  Many of the churches who practice John Perkins’ model of ministry form community development corporations, distinct from their congregations, to operate programs in the community.  This frees the pastor and leaders of the local church to build up the church through evangelism and discipleship, and it enables laypeople who are skilled in other fields to provide leadership over the various ministries that major in doing justice.

Churches that, against Kuyper’s advice, try to take on all the levels of doing justice often find that the work of community renewal and social justice overwhelms the work of preaching, teaching and nurturing the congregation.”

(Keller, pages 114 – 146)

Long, I know.  But a relief, right?  Churches do not have to do everything well.  But they enable their people to do many things well. 

That’s not to say the church does nothing.  Keller also warns:

“When a city perceives a church as existing strictly and only for itself and its own members, the preaching of that church will not resonate with outsiders.  But if neighbors see church members loving their city through astonishing, sacrificial deeds of compassion, they will be much more open to the church’s message.  Deeds of mercy and justice should be done out of love, not simply as a means to the end of evangelism.  And yet there is no better way for Christians to lay a foundation for evangelism than by doing justice.”  (pg. 142)

I think of things like the free oil changes our church does sometimes.  How people reach out to their neighbors, co-workers, family & friends.  How members gather around organizations doing justice and social reform.  How we have people in politics, public education, social work, counseling, business.  No one person expected to do it all.  But all together doing something. 

I wish you understood how much it helps me to type this all out. 

Hope it resonates with you, too.

See you when I see you on here!