For as long as I can remember I was told that I could be whatever I wanted to be. I was told that as long as I worked hard, became educated and had drive I could accomplish anything. I am slowly learning that the world is not fair, hardwork is often taken for granted and sometimes we are treated unjustly based on gender, race, religion etc.
I have lived my life as a faithful person. Even during the darkest nights, I always saw that glimmer of light in the distance. As the years roll by I find that I am more disillusioned, not by my faith but instead by this great being we call “The Church”
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_Cathedral)
It doesn’t matter to which denomination we belong, many of the same issues rattle around in our big old buildings or our bright new buildings. We worship God for an hour on Sunday but we forget the creator is around come 11:45am Sunday morning. Human beings are creation gone awray.
As Agent Smith said in the Matrix “I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague …”
Once we were gifted with freewill we have taken that will to move away from God. The Christian Church from the very beginning has been plagued with problems, one only needs to read any of Paul’s letter to the Early Church to get a sense of the conflict. Where two or three are gathered we will be sure to fight.
So what causes all this conflict? Are we destined to always be in conflict?
Currently much of our conflict is around the sense of crisis those in mainline churches are feeling. We have less people in the pews, less money in the accounts, and older, large buildings to upkeep. What happens when people are feeling a sense of crisis? We panic, we make rash decisions, we move from the gospel of reaching out and only think of ourselves.
So there is a lack of money and a lot of buildings to maintain. We also have a lack of candidates going into ministry, we have a lack of people staying in ministry. Ministry is a job where you do it for the love of furthering the gospel truth right?
We yes, I think we go into Ministry with a wanting to serve God and God’s people. Unfortunately serving God’s people can be challenging. Have you ever read scripture and said “Wow, those prophets had such an easy job”? No, of course not. Prophets were the people who often felt most alone and were most vulnerable to attack by others in the community who perhaps did not want to hear what the prophet wanted to say, and did not want the message out there the prophet was speaking.
Ministers are called to be many things to many people, but their first calling is to serve. We are called to do God’s work, to be God’s people. Sounds great doesn’t it?
But what happens when the church we are serving has a different image of a minister? What if we fit into God’s mold of being a minister but we don’t fit into the church’s mold? What happens then?
As a young girl, I was always told I could be anything. I however had this calling I could not ignore. I kept pushing that still small voice away, but God kept coming back, louder and louder. There came a point where I could no longer ignore my calling, I had to follow.
In the words of Shane Clairbourne “I met Jesus and he turned my life upside down.”
…..to be continued
nbsmalltown 