Monday, January 06, 2014
Avoid The Personal
Ron Edmondson lists "10 Dangerous Church Paradigms":
Too often it is about what we want or desire when the question really is, "What is best for the church?" When we promote, or dismiss and idea for the church,t eh first thing we have to ask ourselves is how much of our promotion or dismissal is based in our personal desires as opposed to an analysis of the church and its needs, in combination with a vision for the church developed out of scripture and traditional teaching.
I have seen way too many church conflicts turn into ruptures because in the end they got personal, because group a wanted x and group b wanted y and it was, simply a test of wills. That is a formula for schism, not resolution.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ said "Not my will but Thine." How often do we seek our own will. We need to follow Christ's example and put our own comfort and desire aside for the sakes of God's will and we must work so hard we sweat blood to determine God's will, not our own.
church desire sacrifice
- This is more my church than yours
- We’ve never done it that way before
- The pastor needs to do it
- That’s for the big churches
- That’s for the small churches
- My comfort level for change is ______
- My people would never support that…
- I can’t
- This is the best we can do
- We have plateaued as a church
Too often it is about what we want or desire when the question really is, "What is best for the church?" When we promote, or dismiss and idea for the church,t eh first thing we have to ask ourselves is how much of our promotion or dismissal is based in our personal desires as opposed to an analysis of the church and its needs, in combination with a vision for the church developed out of scripture and traditional teaching.
I have seen way too many church conflicts turn into ruptures because in the end they got personal, because group a wanted x and group b wanted y and it was, simply a test of wills. That is a formula for schism, not resolution.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ said "Not my will but Thine." How often do we seek our own will. We need to follow Christ's example and put our own comfort and desire aside for the sakes of God's will and we must work so hard we sweat blood to determine God's will, not our own.
church desire sacrifice
