Tuesday, March 31, 2015
About What Are We Enthusiastic?
Chaplain Mike:
But back to the original point, when I was on Young Life staff I had an inside joke with a friend and we would constantly tell each other our "testimony." It went something like, "I used to be a wretched drunkard until I accepted Young Life into my life." It was a way for us to blow off the pressure that would build in us between our need to build the ministry and our desire to build fellow Christians. Sometimes, even ofttimes, these things would compete with each other.
If I could sum up my objection to the mega church, this is where it would be - that it places the ministry in front of what the ministry is supposed to be doing.
Therefore, if we are to be serious about our faith we much constantly ask ourselves the question that is the title of this post.
enthusiasms life ministry
Wow. Talk about hitting the nail on the head — “If you were really spiritual, you were going for a total life commitment.”I agree with that wholeheartedly, but to it add a caution - there is the reverse danger that full Christian commitment is entirely contemplative and never results in action. The real fact is that genuine action can only occur when we are right in our contemplative and personal lives. This is yet another both/and, not either/or situation.
Danielle’s insight is to recognize that the “total life commitment” in the culture of evangelicalism is not necessarily to the person of Jesus Christ but rather to the mission and program and expectations of the culture itself. Though it would claim to represent Christ’s calling, in fact it is the culture itself that often defines the “lifestyle,” the honored vocations, the meaning of total commitment. She rightly describes it as a “pressure cooker” that appeals to “activists” who will not feel that they are “taking God seriously” unless they are “getting with the program” wholeheartedly and without question.
But back to the original point, when I was on Young Life staff I had an inside joke with a friend and we would constantly tell each other our "testimony." It went something like, "I used to be a wretched drunkard until I accepted Young Life into my life." It was a way for us to blow off the pressure that would build in us between our need to build the ministry and our desire to build fellow Christians. Sometimes, even ofttimes, these things would compete with each other.
If I could sum up my objection to the mega church, this is where it would be - that it places the ministry in front of what the ministry is supposed to be doing.
Therefore, if we are to be serious about our faith we much constantly ask ourselves the question that is the title of this post.
enthusiasms life ministry
