It’s one thing to trust God. It’s another to trust how things are going to work out. I don’t equate the two. I would argue from all view points (theological, philosophical, biblical, etc.) and from experience that to trust one is to not trust the other. They are mutually exclusive.
Our community has recently paid off its mortgage. For the first time in years there’s no financial emergency. We have money. However, this does not necessarily mean that everything is going to be fine now. It doesn’t mean that God is now on our side and that we are necessarily going to succeed. Our community continues to shrink. Key supporters have left and others have stopped supporting. I have no explanation for it. I think we are doing everything we should do. I’m not sure we are doing everything we can do. We’re going to spend the month of March in reflection, gathering our thoughts and trying to discern what is going on with as much honesty as we can muster .
I’ve been having some disturbing dreams lately. I wake up crying sometimes. In my dreams I am asking the men who’ve left to come back. My friends. But they don’t answer. I beg them with tears. It is so tragic, and I wonder just how responsible I am for them leaving. On the one hand, it is an incredibly sad tale of rejection and grief. On the other hand it just seems pathetic of me to be begging. But I miss them all. I want them to come back. They know it. But they don’t return.
And more key people are getting picked off one by one. Some are telling me that they have to cut back in their giving or stop altogether. These are tough economic times and many people aren’t even able to pay their basic bills. Lisa and I included! I know intimately what they are going through! But aside from that: what does this all mean for our community? I cannot predict the future. I wish I could! That’s the concept behind the cartoon this morning. I don’t think it’s possible to know. Oh, I know some people might predict, prophesy and presume, but in my opinion it’s all guess work. Some would like me to believe that if I just trust then everything is going to work out in our favor. Don’t believe it. I trust him and submit to his hand, whatever it brings. And I have no idea what it’s bringing. I hope it is good. But there’s no guarantee. I’m stuck in Job’s proclamation: Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. I love our community. It is beautiful. But like Paul said: to some we are the fragrance of life. To others we are the fragrance of death. I realize how brutal this sounds, but although I hope in him, death always seems to be crouching at our door, and I can’t shake it.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Jorgen Klausen. It pictures the juxtaposition of beauty and the threat death.
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!
I value your hard honesty. It is a gift to your community.
not all would agree
“Some would like me to believe that if I just trust then everything is going to work out in our favor. Don’t believe it.”
But isn’t that what they teach us in church?
We are in tough times right now ourselves, partly due to the economy, but largely as a result of us selling our house a few years ago to do what we felt God wanted us to do. We went to help orphans on the other side of the world for 3 years. We don’t regret our decision back then – it was the right thing to do. But God has not magically solved our financial problems because we “submitted everything to Him”. If anything, it’s worse now.
Yet, people at church keep telling us “God will bless you for what you have done”. I’m sure He will – but it doesn’t seem that the blessing includes money!
sounds like “church” may be dying, but CHURCH is still alive. rejoice – you have no debt, you can meet as community, fellowship, grow in GRACE and in the knowledge of Christ. You can BE the church rather than do church…. way more freeing and many people may walk away from that -
“Whatever it brings” is so easy to agree to but oh so very hard to live out! I agree with you trust in God carries no guarantees about how the future will look or feel, or what we will have to go through. but when all is said and done He is all we have that we can trust in, and somehow that has to be enough.(Even when it doesn’t feel like it!)
Death is at the door. Sure is. But you either have faith that youre safe, or not. You will be having pain in this life regardless, to think otherwise is at best delusional. But to allow Fear to take away your faith that you are safe, well thats another story.
F-false
E-evidence
A-appearing
R-real
I have had those dreams and will always miss those who left me. I am not sure the dreams (nightmares) will ever leave. It is pain of another kind. I have loved these people more than they will ever know. But I could not go to places where they wanted me to go. I am sorry we could not travel that road together.
Don: Know that feeling.
titfortat: i agree with you to a point… but my safety is not guaranteed. we all know that.
NP
Youre talking about your “physical safety”. So my question is to you. Who are you? Are you just your physical body? Heres the thing, if you believe that you are spirit first and body second. Then you ultimately are safe. Unless of course you believe your loving God will send you to hell. Now thats cause for concern! I dont like pain and suffering in this life anymore than you do. Yet my faith tells me that in the grand scheme of things “I am safe”. It may be just bravado, but hey, I like that sense better than the one called fear. You know its interesting, but from what I saw, you are well fed, clothed nicely, pretty darn healthy. I am sure you struggle with whether you will maintain that, but it seems you have been doing relatively ok for about 50yrs(wouldnt you agree?) A little look around the world shows that most have better reason than us to have fear in their lives.
Okay, but we’ve moved from the church’s longevity to my personal health. Quite a leap. I still don’t think there are any guarantees.
Youre right, there are no guarantees. But life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you view it. I guess Im just trying to point out that there are other views other than ‘worry’. Denise said you need to get some more cheese and crackers to go with your “whine”. By the way, as your NHP she said you can cheat a little on this one.
I’m wondering why all this preoccupation with ‘reward’or ‘results’. Granted that our relationships with others mostly work toward an end,but I’ve noticed that the ‘faith-relationhip-with-God’ takes on the look of “if we do this,then God will do that”…of course,when our expectations are not met,we often turn on ourselves and think,”what did we do wrong”?This wd be perfectly reasonable to ask if the subject was a wife,child,friend,but is it reasonable to believe that the question has any meaning when asked of God. More to the point…if a community were to do everything right, and discovered the church building burnt to the ground by lightning one Sunday morning,I wd hope the response wd be,”Look at all the room we have for parking.” Or, in another sense, the religion doesn’t say,’Love yr neighbour as yrself’ and remember,’Keep yr numbers up”.
oo. that hurt!
Sorry David…forgive me, I shld add that I’m aware that I’m on the outside looking in,and on second thot, there cd be good reason for you and yr community to ask yrselves and God these kinds of questions…(I’m thinking of the Jewish practice of passionately arguing with God),but my point is shldn’t we avoid playing chess with that calibre of player,when His moves make absolutely no sense to us. If we only had that ‘game book’
….more seriously,what do we really need…the game plan(gnosis) or the skills(virtue) to play the game?
Greetings, my brother in pain!
I have struggled at times with the same issues and the same feelings. And I’ll tell you up front: I don’t have the answers. All I can do is share with you my thoughts and feelings and prayers.
As a bit of commentary, I have long thought that despite our protests, most Christians and churches have bought into “the prosperity gospel” to an extent. We have accepted as axiomatic that if we just believed right and enough, we would have enough ($$$$) for whatever needs we faced. The first church I served dated to the colonial era. They grew steadily, if slowly over many years. In 1861, they had something in excess of 150 members. In 1865 they looked around and realized they had 12 members. They ignored the fact that after emancipation, all the African-American members had left to found their own church, that many of the men had entered the Confederate Army never to return, and that the community at large had been disrupted by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Instead, they determined that they had made a theological error, having bought into the Primitive Baptist Movement, and that all they needed to do was to return to a more evangelical and evangelistic way of being Baptist, which they did by affiliating with the Southern Baptist Convention. They saw as confirmation of their analysis that they began to grow again and became financially healthy. What they ignored was the fact that they actually disbanded the old church and tore the building down–which had been out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere–and got a few acres near a railroad junction in a new and growing community, put up a new building, and reconstituted. Then, beginning in the early 1980s, the railroad literally removed its tracks, the community–except for the county school bus garage and three churches–was abandoned, and there was a flight to Richmond and Raleigh (the county population was literally cut in half, and many farms lay fallow to this day). And guess what? The church decided they had made some theological error, and that all they had to do to overcome their dwindling numbers and eroding finances was to believe right and enough, and everything would be hunky-dory.
My point is NOT that you have bought into name-it-and-claim-it theology, but rather than in many of our members, and perhaps we pastors also, have some vestage of it as an unarticulated expectation. I have seen it in some of the members of every church I have served; and when people with that expectation run into problems, they often abandon “their” church in the (false) hope that the church was the problem, and if they just find one that believes right and believes enough, God will dump $$$$ into their laps.
I would also ask if the church you serve (1) is spiritually healthy or dysfunctional, and (2) if the church has defined its specific mission (and I suspect you have)? Having served several dysfunctional churches, I can tell you (and this usually does not include the pastor) that the members who leave first are the more healthy ones. As for mission: it is relatively easy to rally a congregation around concrete goals, like a building program, or even paying off a note. But it is harder to organize around the church’s real purpose. Harder, and yet, if it is accomplished, it can be very effective. And often a congregation’s stated purpose is very different from their “operational purpose,” which is more concrete. It could be an opportunity for you and the congregation to get down to what God has for you to do.
But all this aside, I understand the pain you feel for members leaving without understanding why (despite the excuses they give), and how disrupted you feel. I am praying for you, brother.
John Fariss
Having served several dysfunctional churches, I can tell you (and this usually does not include the pastor) that the members who leave first are the more healthy ones.(John Fariss)
Well David, this should make you feel better, its just you and the dysfunctional ones left.
hehe. i don’t think anyone would question that either!
john fariss: thanks for your input. great story. gathered around “one purpose”… i’m not sure of that.
John….you said,”But it is harder to organize around the church’s real purpose.”
How wd you define this ‘real purpose’ and do you mean ‘specific’ communities or ‘The Church’?
All churches have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, all have the same Great Commission, and the same calling to minister “unto the least” (or THE church, if you prefer that). But local churches, or as you put it, “specific communities,” have, IMHO, specific callings based on the gifts and talents within them and the needs and problems of the greater community about them. I cannot give you any specific scripture references that verify that, but the alternative is to assume that every local church (or specific community of faith) has identical gifts and resources, and that every community has the same problems and needs. And the impossibility of that is apparent. As I see it, a specific local church’s mission is how it goes about fulfilling the Great Commission and calling in its circumstances. One church, because of the gifts, talents–and personalities–of its members (or attendees, adherents, etc.), has the ability to reach people that another church does not. When that church/congregation does so with intentionality, it is effectively (efficiently?) fulfilling its part in God’s plan.
John Fariss