In an attempt to be a better blogger, I’m going to try to post more without fleshing things out. I hate leaving things unsaid or not answering objections, which means I’m left with 25 unposted blogs over the last couple months (seriously). So here goes.
The idea of a specific calling to church planting is insulting to the Holy Spirit. Every Christian has God in them. Try to wrap your mind around that idea. So now God’s not powerful enough to help someone plant a church? Yeah, I want my biggest, baddest dudes out there on the front lines. Some people, because they are unwilling to change and equip themselves, are just obviously not ready to put the necessary work into planting a church. But I don’t believe for one second it’s due to some kind of supernatural deficiency in Holy Spirit power – I think it’s due to human laziness. We need to be really careful when we start attributing human diligence to God because we make our own work irreproducible, which is inherently anti-missional. We think we’re doing God a favor, but really we just have a weak view of the Holy Spirit if we think he can’t work through anyone the way he works through us – on top of the fact that we’re letting a lot of Christians off the hook.
Thoughts?
Posted on July 8th, 2008 by nateschlomann
Filed under: Church
i think something else thats interesting is when does a call become an obligation or a duty? do we serve Christ out of the love we have for him and the praise he is due because of who he is?
i guess i’m getting into Piper land here but it just seems that this call thing gets a little stale sometimes too.
we are all called! but lets respond with passion and excitement that we have this privilege!
(perhaps this might be followed with a blog on gifting?)
so, the excuse I get is “it’s just not the right season of life” like God allows us to take large breaks from being missional because we’ve got better things to do. You can be missional and raise a family; you interact and seek out ways to show Jesus in your present world, whether it’s preschool moms or PTA or at your teens’ soccer or baseball games. God calls us to a lifestyle, a new life. Why does anyone think that the call to leave (the old way of my independent-of-God life) comes and goes? It’s absurd to me, but that’s just me I guess. . .