Friday, February 5, 2010
Obedience or Transformation?
I love an article that makes me think. Articles that I completely agree with simply allow me to continue cruising only half-conscious down the intellectual highway. In other words, I enjoy intellectual potholes.
Long Live Organic Church! | Christianity Today
Our God appears not to be particularly taken with efficiency, effectiveness, or our changing his world. He is mostly interested in our obedience. What he longs for is not people who make a difference in the world, but people who listen for his call and lovingly respond—no matter how absurd or impossible the command...Nothing really that shocking here, so why would this be an intellectual pothole for me? Because I assume God is just like me - that He values what I value. I value efficiency and effectiveness, plus I want our church to change the world. So I just assume that God wants what I want, and that He wants it the same way that I want it.
In his providence, God has raised up in our day men and women who rail against church-as-usual, church-as-program, church-as-institutional-management. They are telling us something true and vital about the church. They are disturbing the religious establishment, upsetting our pious social order, causing a holy chaos! These are prophets in our midst whom we should honor, and for whom we should have ears to hear.
And for whom we should pray—that they would keep their eyes not on the prize of transformation, but that their ears may continue to hear and obey that still small voice that called them into ministry in the first place. Only then will they be among us, challenging and energizing us, even when things look as disappointing as ever.
But this article is right, God desires obedience above all - whether or not there is change / it is efficient / it is effective / etc.
Consider God's call to Ezekiel: God tells him right from the beginning that he is going to fail (Ezekiel 3:4-9). Go and preach. The people won't listen. Have fun Ezekiel.
I would have looked and said, "Ezekiel this is not an efficient use of your time and talents. You could better spend yourself elsewhere. If you're not being effective, do something differently or just go somewhere else. If you're not making a positive change in the lives of those stubborn Israelites, find another group of people to whom you might minister."
But no, God calls us to obedience to Him and not to our ideas of efficiency, effectiveness, or transformation. The problem is that it feels far more rewarding to obey the latter rather than the former.






No comments yet