Wayne Jacobsen made a comment on his last pod cast with Brad Cummings over on The God Journey (www.thegodjourney.com) that got me thinking. They were talking about how some people who step out of religious organizations still have that drive in them from the institution to build something for God. For example, some people run out and try to put together an organizational network of house churches or to plant several “relational” type home groups. Then in passing he said, “or they build a website.” Well, when he said that I felt a little tap in my spirit. It got me thinking and really checking my motives for having a website. Now David, Bob and I really feel that God wants us to have this website up to encourage those who are questioning religious organizations as well as to encourage those who already have stepped out. But Wayne’s comment had me doing a check before God. How many things do I do that are still motivated by the compulsion to build something for God?
Then what crossed my mind was kind of interesting. Most of the New Testament epistles and the book of Acts focus on Paul and the other Apostles who traveled all over the world preaching the gospel and instructing the early church how to live in Christ. But I started pondering, “What about the other folks?” See, I think Paul was more the exception than the rule. But we’ve made him the rule. So many people feel that if they are called to live for God then they must be like Paul. So we live with this compulsion to build and live an unusual lifestyle. But I wonder what was going on with the other believers? All those nameless (or briefly mentioned), faceless believers spread through out the Roman Empire, what were they doing? How were they living? They can’t all be Paul. I found myself wishing many of them had written letters that were included in the New Testament. We know that they weren’t just sitting in pews on Sunday mornings and listening to sermons. I found myself wanting to know about the “regular Joes.” I guess that’s because I believe Jesus came to bring His life into our daily lives, into our reality. I’d like to know how the Christian slaves continued to work for their masters as they lived in Christ. How did the business owners show Christ through all their conduct? How did the older women teach the younger? I don’t mean I want formulas, I just wish I could go back in time and see this in action.
Then I started thinking about leadership. We so often focus on Paul and the apostles as being leaders in the early church, and that they were. But we also talk about how NT leaders lead by example more than anything else. Well, I’m beginning to see that Jesus wants us entrenched in the real world. So wouldn’t true leadership simply be an example of a life lived by God in the real world? It would be more in action than words. In other words, a person would inspire others to live for Christ as an employee by being a good example of one himself. Or a woman would inspire others to pursue Christ as a wife by doing that herself. I mean, we so often point to the unusual life of Paul and the apostles as the example of leadership. But how does that unusual life really help me when the rubber meets the road to see how to walk this thing out in the real world? I personally would find it far more helpful to see a more mature brother in Christ engaging God in the daily grind. Or for myself involved in the video business, I’d love to see the example of Godly businessmen and women living this thing out. I’ve been finding Daniel and Joseph to be men that I can relate to more than Paul. These guys conducted business while they were entrenched in godless cultures. And they weren’t sitting on the fringes of society. They were smack in the middle of it all. And yet they showed God to the people around them. Just like Jesus went to the tax gatherers, prostitutes and drunks. But these guys did it through their careers.
So I’m pondering, is all that energy and compulsion to “build something for God” pointed in the wrong direction? What if we took that same energy and put it towards knowing Him and engaging Him in being the best employee at our companies we could be? Or put our energies towards being the parents that Father would have us be? Or having a relationship with Jesus as students? Or what if we engaged God in building and conducting our businesses so that we shine for Christ in the market place? What if we sought to immerse ourselves in our culture rather than be removed from it? What if we stripped away what ever it is that lays guilt on God’s people for desiring to “go for it” and keeps them feeling like they have to do “Christian stuff?” Anybody can draw attention to himself by doing stuff that is big or odd. But I think the real miracle is when God draws attention to Himself when we are doing stuff that is “normal.” That’s when this walk with God becomes real.
Loren
