– He just wants to live his life this way hehey.
Following on a little from my last entry but a little bit more churchy (sorry), I read an article that interested me the other day concerning the calling of ministers. I think I may have touched on this before. I have increasingly felt that the men and women of the cloth that I have encounteried on my travels through the church were in the wrong job. They wanted to inspire and lead and excite and challenge and transform, to be, in their view, a minister. Meanwhile, their congregation wanted them to visit, to chair meetings, to talk to the ladies club to be, in their view, a minister.
How did this get this way? Well I think it is all in the calling. Ministers think they are called by God, the church thinks they are called by the church. There’s the rub, the ministers want to go around doing God’s work, the church wants them going round doing its work – not necessarily, or even very often, the same thing.
You see it is God who inspires, who transforms, who changes people and God doesn’t call minsters to do that for him. He calls prophets to do that, people with no allegience to an organisation, people who can see the truth and speak it.
Ministers meanwhile are called by the people of the church to do the work of the church, whatever that may entail.
This may be obvious to everyone else but it explains an awful lot to me.