A primary concern of mine as a pastor, and always has been, is encouraging people who feel spiritually disqualified. There are a lot of them. Religious communities are often very specific on what their members are to believe and how they are to behave. Conformity is usually the strongest dynamic at work.
So when an individual finally realizes that her beliefs have been prescribed and her behavior censured, she has a choice. She either continues in her conformity or, usually at great cost, she examines, explores and expresses her own beliefs and exercises, experiments and embraces her own behavior.
What I see happen most of the time is this person is made to feel uncomfortable and eventually unwelcome in the community. But again, she has a choice. She can choose to boldly continue in her independence and with courage and joy nurture her own spiritual life. Or, as I see happen most of the time, she will continue to allow the condemnation of the community to darken the skies above her and dampen her spirit and cause her to feel spiritually disqualified.
This is what I’m about: to free people within communities whether it means they stay or have to detach; and, once they are individually free, encourage them in their new-found spiritual liberty.
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Amen! Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open. It’s not our job to prescribe what people need to believe. If they honestly seek Jesus he’ll take care of the rest.
My experience was that it wasn’t until I dared to seek on my own that I ever got to know God.
Dave – I’m finding that staying connected to the religious community that has rejected me and my new found freedom keeps me bound up. The more I break free of it and allow relationships with those outside of it to occur the more alive I feel and the less disqualified. Being around them, (for now at least), is not productive for me in any way. I am finding Jesus followers who aren’t part of the system, and those who haven’t chosen Him yet. I am seeing more of the kingdom of God than I ever saw within the system. But I have to constantly be on my guard for those in the system who would discourage and discredit me. At times I feel “safe” and convince myself that I can go to a gathering with them and I’ll be ok. I later regret it, and am having to draw strong boundaries with myself. I hope someday I can interact with them and not feel the condemnation, worthlessness, etc. but for now I need to do what it takes to nurture my soul.
This reminds me of the email conversation we just had.
That is an important role my friend. I think that is more pastoral than what I usually see parading around as the notion of pastor.
Yes that is good, but my experience as a pastor is that it works the other way too very often. The censuring and condemnation can come from those individuals powerfully back onto the church community or pastor, and it comes disguised as ‘poor me’ at times. Oh the wisdom we need daily.
I agree with Frank. Isn’t that what being a pastor is about? It isn’t about running a big business and finding answers to political issues in scripture. To find where a person is on his journey and give them the nurture and feedback they need to progress…to allow them the freedom to explore…to not condemn if they decide to investigate other belief systems…this is what a pastor does. In the exploration stages particularly, churches are apt to tell people they are in sin. They need people like you who will listen without judgement while they figure out what they believe rather than someone who will tell them what they must believe or they are doomed.
Spirituality?
What just is that, anyway?
The pastors job is to keep someone in (or bring them to) Christ.
Spirituality is way too vague a term and often ends up anywhere a person ‘feels’ they ought go. And quite often to very dangerous places where THEY are the center…and not Christ Jesus.
Word and Sacrament. That is the only sprituality that is worth anything. All else is just religion an eminates from us…not God.
Yeah, I often wonder why so many Christian leaders feel like it is their responsibility to do the work of an omnipotent God. They gotta keep us in line. I wonder how things would be different if we all truly believed that He who began a good work in us if able and faithful to complete it.
sorry that should read “is able and faithful to complete it”
Amen, Trey!
Yes, He will complete the work that ‘He starts’.
But He has certain means that He has prescribed to do that. He told us to baptize (and be baptized), He told us to preach and teach about Himself, and He told us to eat His body and drink His blood (His Supper). I believe He commanded us to do these things precisely to keep us in the faith that He has given us and keep us from a self-serving spirituality which can lead…anywhere (away from Him).
Steve, so we gotta baptize, gotta preach, gotta teach, gotta eat and drink his body…that’s a lot of gotta’s (and that’s only the beginning). The list of got to’s, have to’s, ought to’s, and should do’s never ends with Christian leaders. It’s worse than the old covenant sometimes. The truth is there’s only one gotta: love.
Those ‘got to’s’ are all His commands. he does the work in them…for us.
I believe that He told us to do those things preciselt to keep us anchored in Him. Those things are the ways He has chosen to complete the “good work in us that He has begun”.
Love is great. But it must be His love that is at the center. His work to save a lost people needs to be central. Otherwise “love” is anything we want it to be. Muslims consider blowing up people “love”. Many Christian religionists believe that putting people on a works/righteousness program is “love”.
No, I believe that the Lord was very specific when He commanded us to do these few things, and He did it out of love because he knew where we would end up if we left all this up to ourselves, and if we just made up our own “spirituality” as we went along.
Steve Martin – “He told us to baptize (and be baptized), He told us to preach and teach about Himself, and He told us to eat His body and drink His blood…”
I thought, if read “in context”, he was telling the apostles to do these things, not all the believers that would follow.
Am I incorrect?
If so, how?
My point is God made it very simple for us: love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. Later the entire of the law was summed up by Paul in “do no harm”. We men have added burden upon burden to God’s children and then call that “love”. There are men who beat their sons and say it is because they love them that they do it. In the same manner Christian leaders shame and condemn out of “love”. Freedom stealers, no doubt. If He started it then He will finish it. If it falls outside of God’s summary (love) given through Jesus then leave people alone…live and let live.
If you love God you will love others as you love yourself. Of course, there are plenty of folks out there that don’t really love themselves…they despise themselves and therefore show others only the same love that they do themselves. But why do they despise themselves? Because that’s what they’re taught. They are told by the religious that they got to, have to, ought to, and should do…and if they can’t then they are “less than.” These leaders make it so very, very hard for people to do the most important commandment. Why do you think that Jesus came to bring freedom? Because it is only when we are set free from the law of sin and death…from condemnation…that we are free to love ourselves which leads to a love for our neighbor and ultimately for Him.
Steve you and a few others on here are always saying “yeah, but.” God loves, but…we are free, but. Why? How about this but: “but the greatest of these is love.” Baptize, but love is more important. Teach and preach, but love is more important. Take communion, but love is more important. Jesus was not about telling sinners what was wrong with them…that is not how HE showed love. However, He *was* about telling religious folks to back off. He was about sticking up for the weak and the outcast. I guess I just don’t understand why more people don’t take His cue.
When Jesus tells the disciples to do something, He is speaking to us.
Are we (believers) not all disciples, or would be disciples of His?
These things are add on’s or suggestions. Jesus said that “if you do not eat my body and drink my blood then you have no life in you.”
He held the bread and the wine and said “this IS my body, this IS my blood.”
He is there (somehow) in the Supper for us. Same thing with Baptism. He is there…in it…for us.
He wouldn’t command us to perform religious rituals for the heck of it.
Jesus said::”Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you….”
———-teach them to obey everything I have commanded you———Well, Jesus just commanded them to go…, therefore it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that that command to “go” and…now falls upon those the apostles were teaching. And on and on it goes.
Stewart – You say, “Yes that is good, but my experience as a pastor is that it works the other way too very often. The censuring and condemnation can come from those individuals powerfully back onto the church community or pastor, and it comes disguised as ‘poor me’ at times.” Your attitude is one of the main reasons I left the IC. How is it that you are allowed to condemn and censure those below you, yet the minute they call you into accountability they have a “poor me” complex. It should be a two way street, but it isn’t. We become those out of line, rebellious, bitter, etc. while you are the ones holding all of the cards. It is this double standard and pastoral immunity that I find so pharisitical. Shouldn’t you judge others the way you want to be judged? Did it ever occur to you that maybe these people you speak of have been deeply hurt and are acting out of that hurt, not a “poor me” complex as you assume? You can’t imagine what it’s like to be the one in the pew with no power, authority, voice, etc. You have the backing of your leadership, church board, etc. There is no way you could ever understand us unless you stepped down from the pastorate and walked in our shoes for a while. Just a few points to ponder…
fishon – “…Well, Jesus just commanded them to go…, therefore it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that that command to “go” and…now falls upon those the apostles were teaching. And on and on it goes.”
Congrats! You just added to the word of God and we all know where that leads in the end.
I don’t think fishon added to the word of God…he just underlined it in bold highlight.
You are right, Steve. I do believe I quoted Matt. 28:19-20 word for word out of the NIV.
April, A few brief thoughts on ‘hurt people’, from the context I was commenting from. (Acknowledgement to Paul Blease). Many high achievers (whether in church or never been in church), are intense, sometimes volatile. Confidence for tasks is high, but what about self-esteem? If there is a disconnect between confidence and self esteem, volatility will emerge. Volatility is about a lack of maturity – at some point the person has stopped growing emotionally in childhood. Problem is, such volatile people come at you with confidence bordering on arrogance, so people think you can take it, and come back at you head on. Then you blow up (the surprise ‘poor me’ may result). No one sees the that low self-esteem beneath the facade unless they really know the person and really love them. Hurt people result. Grace & love will heal, if allowed in.
thnx Dave! I have read a quote somewhere that says (can’t remember the author?) “true religion comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” Often times, as in my case, the religious community is a substitue for our broken families of origin.Idolized leave it to beaver believers…what results, ineviable, is people do what people do…display their confusion and pathological leanings to miss the mark…Finally, after a slow painful death to my/our illusions, we can give up being perfect in favoure of a peace that passes all understanding and give a big jucicy kiss to the abusuridy of our naccasistic culture while finding ways to celebrate our ONENESS….or something like that! lol
Stewart – So how do you know these people have stopped growing emotionally in childhood? You’re a pastor AND a psychologist? Again, one of the myriad of reasons I left the IC: Pastors who “know” who I am and judged me, analyzed me, and ultimately labeled me incorrectly. Only God knows what makes us all tick and why. You can’t go around playing Holy Spirit in people’s lives. I’m not excusing bad behavior or sin mind you. It seems that whenever someone in the flock has issues with the pastor, the way the church is run, etc. and voices their opinion they’re immediately labeled rebellious, bitter, “stunted emotionally”, etc. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, their anger and frustration is valid, and you or your church could be the ones in the wrong?? Maybe it isn’t their past or present issues at all. Each person is an individual, and what is true for one isn’t for the other. The kind of “grace and love” you speak of is what nearly destroyed my life. In the end the pastor played God, telling me who I should be, what I should do and why, always knowing better because they’re the pastor and I’m a measly pew sitter.