A Paradigm Shift ~
Isaiah 61:8 "…and I will direct their work in truth …"
It's been a year of detours for us. Almost as soon as good weather hit last spring the construction workers were out in full force. Three of the main ways we went into town at some point or other ended up being a series of wrong turns and mazes of roads that led seemingly everywhere but where we needed to be. The most frustrating part was that there was rarely any indication of a roadblock or detour ahead when starting down any given unfamiliar road. In the fall of 2013, however, we had indications that a major detour of a spiritual kind would be in our very near future.
We fought it. Oh, how we fought it. We were comfortable with the familiar and were doing just fine in cruise. But God has a way of stirring up the nest, especially when we pray. He makes things so uncomfortable that staying in that comfort zone becomes an impossibility. He is the God of the impossible, after all.
It began with an unexpected visit from a friend who had a profound impact on my husband earlier in life. He called to say he was coming through our area and asked if he could stop in for the night. We were thrilled! He met us at the church we attended for an evening service, and came over for the night afterward.
The next morning over breakfast, the conversation suddenly turned serious. He said that he was most disappointed in the state in which he had found our church upon arrival the night before. He had gotten there a little early and was appalled when he walked into the men's bathroom. The toilet hadn't been flushed after the last use, there was a half-eaten chocolate bar smeared on a chair, and toilet paper and paper towels were all over the floor. Josh and I nodded our heads knowingly. He went on to point out several other things that would have turned off many visitors to our church. In our minds we went through the church looking at it from the perspective of a visitor and saw the half finished projects everywhere, piles of boxes, supplies, and left over clothes that looked more like piles of garbage, right next to entrance doors. We told him that we saw these things too, and were frustrated by them.
He looked at my husband and pointblank told him that as an active member of that church it was our responsibility to see to the problem areas that the Lord brought to our attention. It was wrong for us to wait for the pastor or anyone else to do what God had clearly, repeatedly shown us needed to be done. This was our church, it was God's church, therefore we had a vested interest in the running of it, and the buck stopped with us.
Despite the many arguments that came to our minds we really couldn't argue in good conscience. What he had said was true. He went on to share with tears, his burden for perishing souls in the ministry God has given him. He said we shouldn't allow our frustrations with the pastor to be an excuse for our inaction. What a shame it would be on us if someone who needed the Lord had walked in early the night before, had taken one look at that bathroom, and had turned around and walked right back out without ever having heard of God's saving grace. He couldn't have come up with a more powerful argument.
He left shortly thereafter, and for days my husband and I found ourselves on our faces before God. We renewed our surrender to Him, begging Him to send forth laborers into His harvest beginning with us. Even before this visit, the Lord had been working in us an overwhelming burden for the souls of the precious people of our community unlike anything we had ever known.
We were willing. Whatever it took. We had no idea what He was going to ask of us. None whatsoever. It ended up being the last thing we expected and seemed to go directly against everything we had ever been taught about the "work of God." Oh, the lessons we had (and no doubt have) yet to learn! We didn't know that He was about to ask us to forget everything we ever thought we knew about Him and His church. We were about to start from scratch and see the differences between the traditions of men and the commandments of God.
From that morning on, everything suddenly began to change. With the renewal of our commitment to God, things that had become burdensome became nearly effortless once again, even a joy. God’s grace enveloped us. My husband became more intentional to get up early and get to the church on Saturday mornings to finish up incomplete projects and clean. He also made the decision that we would drive separately to church so that he could get there early enough to do any last minute straightening up and cleaning that needed to be done, and to pray. What we didn’t know was that while we were busy trying to put things in order, God was busy unraveling bigger things in our wake…
During this time, my husband shared his renewed burden for souls with a good friend of his in the church. They agreed that they were also mutually burdened to encourage their pastor and relieve some of his load so they immediately scheduled to meet with him. My husband asked the pastor what he could do to free him up to concentrate on the ministry of preaching, praying, and counseling that God had given him. My husband offered several suggestions of responsibilities that could be delegated to able men in the church, such as building upkeep and other less significant but time-consuming areas of need. Another suggestion was to give the assistant pastor a raise to enable him to work less hours at his secular job, and devote more time to the ministry thereby also relieving the pastor. My husband’s friend told the pastor that he was concerned about him "burning the candle at both ends” and expressed his desire to see him comfortably focused on being our pastor instead of running around trying to manage everything himself. They both communicated to him their burden to see the church grow, and to do their part in being an effective witness to the community. Our church regularly had visitors and as the church grew, they knew the pastor wouldn’t be able to do everything. The men apologized for not stepping up earlier, and left the meeting thinking they had been an encouragement to their pastor.
Shortly after this meeting, the pastor asked to speak with my husband and me saying that there was something he had wanted to talk to us about for over a year. We agreed, thinking that maybe he wanted to know how Jr. Church was going. When we met with him, he was very hesitant, but started asking strange questions about my ministry of leading a Ladies Bible study. I had not been feeling well on and off for some time and so had not held the study for several months. The pastor appeared to be trying to ask me to step out of this ministry. Since I had not been able to do it for a while anyway, I said that wasn’t a problem, and agreed to let it go. The entire meeting was filled with awkward pauses, and hesitant questions which was highly unusual. He asked if there was anything else we wanted to talk about. We shared some concerns about visitors maybe being turned off by the presentation of the building and by how some other things in the church were being managed, but it didn’t seem to be of a whole lot of consequence, or very serious. He asked, we shared our thoughts with him, then we left. It was no big deal, we thought.
An annual meeting to discuss the calendar for the next year’s activities, promotions, and special meetings was held around this same time. The pastor handed out a schedule to everyone and asked for their input. Input was given by several different families - suggestions of changes here and there. The calendar had looked pretty much as it had since we started attending. Since my husband recently had a renewed vision to help grow the church and reach out into the community, he offered several suggestions of changes. He identified a few things that hadn’t gone very smoothly the year before, offered some solutions and volunteered to do whatever he could to help. Several other families offered suggestions for things to change as well. Although we had not agreed together to propose these changes beforehand, the pastor later said he was sure we had.
He perceived all of the above as some sort of coordinated attack on him.
No comments:
Post a Comment