More ranting
I was thinking some more cynical thoughts about the church when I came across this post from Australia in which the writer puts it so well, I'd rather just quote him:
I can't count the number of times that I heard about revival and the miraculous and prayer warriors and such during the time I was in charismatic circles. I do believe that God is doing something in our world, in part because I feel him doing something in me and what I've seen him doing in the lives of others. Although crazy charismatic theology drives me crazy sometimes, I still see more of the character I am drawn to in crazy charismatic Christians than I do in the average secular atheist. However, I think it is through us, through our change of character, through our becoming more loving, more sacrificial, less selfish, that true change comes. It is hard work. And I honestly do wonder if the amount of time some people spend in prayer meetings could be better spent doing what God's already asked us to do.
I began pondering why we crave this revival experience and I wonder if it
because we are too lazy to get off our own butts and get involved with the
people in the communities we live in and do the hard yards of making
connections, knowing that many of them will never lead to a person coming to
faith? I wonder if we don’t just want God to do the ‘hard work’ of mission (we
will hold prayer meetings - until we get bored because nothing has happened) and
then when he has done his thing people will flock to our churches to join us…
and become like us… and we won’t have to change one bit… we won’t have to
experience any discomfort at all. Of course we only want ‘appropriate’ people to
join our churches so it would need to be a selective revival of the middle
classes.
In many churches the people pray and send God out on mission, when
in reality it is us he has commissioned to the task.
Revival as I hear it
depicted takes the responsibility off us to be salt and light. Its as if the
people pray and send God out on mission, and then complain when he doesn’t get
the job done.
I can't count the number of times that I heard about revival and the miraculous and prayer warriors and such during the time I was in charismatic circles. I do believe that God is doing something in our world, in part because I feel him doing something in me and what I've seen him doing in the lives of others. Although crazy charismatic theology drives me crazy sometimes, I still see more of the character I am drawn to in crazy charismatic Christians than I do in the average secular atheist. However, I think it is through us, through our change of character, through our becoming more loving, more sacrificial, less selfish, that true change comes. It is hard work. And I honestly do wonder if the amount of time some people spend in prayer meetings could be better spent doing what God's already asked us to do.
posted by Jude | 4:51 PM
10 Comments:
hey Jude,
I find your post very interesting and though I usually just lurk, I wanted to respond. As you know I have been in some of the circles you have, and also find myself at the House of Prayer (both in Kansas City and here in Winnipeg) as well as now working at Siloam. I try to live out both sides... doing and praying. I can't do one without the other. Prayer and the prayers of others opens the door for the doing. Prayer is the power behind the action. For me, I am much more willing to step out when I know that prayers are being lifted for each step I take. It's a balance and in some ways a balancing act. My prayers daily are for God to break in for the homeless and addicted in our city. My actions are going to work and feeding the homeless. Both are essential. I know you know all this, but I just wanted to throw my thoughts into the pot.
I totally agree with joyska on that, and frankly, Joyska, you are one of my prayer/action heroes. In fact, I think there should be a toy, the Joyska Prayer Action Figure. I would make my kids play with it. It would have this really big heart that would light up and make her hands and feet glow... alright, enough....
But I also agree a lot with the quote Jude's got up there, because a lot of the time it seems to me too, even here in Japan, that prayer can stop with us telling God that we are waiting for him to do what he's actually asking us to do. It's like we want the resurrection without the crucifixion, we want to participate in Christ's victory, but not his suffering.
So Hurrah! to the joyska's who are diligent in fighting for the balance... and I suppose a boo and a hiss to all the self-important usually men, who are satisfied to lead big meetings without getting their hands dirty! Vive le revolution!!! de Jesus Christus!!
I hope I didn't come across offensively, Joyska, as I have always seen you as someone who does walk it out. Generalizations do not do a good job of noting exceptions.
no, i wasn't offended at all Jude, I just wanted to comment, and I know that it is hard to find the balance. I just know, that anything I do is void of anything important, if I'm not praying.
AND JJ, if you ever create such an action figure, I WANT ONE! hahaha
you do love a good rant, don't you?
Hey Jude, I think about this alot. I've been part of churches that are on both end of the spectrum (all prayer, no action versus no (corporate) prayer, but trying to "act" out our faith on a more practical level.)
To be perfectly honest P and I have been I have been slightly disturbed by the lack of prayer and breaking of bread in our last community and this one, these are things we both grew up steeped in. I think corporate prayer is foundational to the church and the spirit empowered fulfillment of her purpose on earth.
It's always a delicate balancing act, isn't it?
ps, how can I subscribe to your feed???
I haven't a clue about my feed. What does it mean to subscribe to a feed?
Go to your dashboard, then click on settings, then on site feed, and after "allow blog feeds" select full or short then save settings.
This will put a link on your page for readers to subscribe to your feed and then whenever you have a new entry it will show up in the feed list by the favourites. If I'm not subscribed to feeds, I forget to check sites for too long!
It was already on full. Weird, hmmm?
hmmm, then I don't know. I don't see the "subscribe to posts" atom link anywhere on your page. Anyone?
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