I have been reading a book called Out Of Church Christians and one part
of it refers to the “Wilderness Experience” and how it is biblical and how
people believe that they have been called out of church structures to unlearn
stuff and come back with a “new revelation” and it seems to me to be more of
the same old same old. God did reveal himself to people in Jesus. He doesn’t
need us to get any new revelations until we get the old revelation. All this
stuff about revelations is more Gnostic stuff (spiritualising practical stuff
because it is believed that spiritual is somehow better than physical) that is
deflecting the true message of Jesus that was reflected so graphically in the
story in the New Testament about the rich young ruler (Matt 19.21). This man
asked what he must do to inherit the kingdom and he knew the answer taught in
the Bible. He kept those. But additionally Jesus added that he had to give away
all he had and follow Jesus. He couldn’t. Jesus shows us a radical way and
though many are called, few are chosen, because until you can you are not a
true disciple. We find al sorts of ways to justify not being faithful to him.
Our possessions prove where our hearts lie. If we could all live like this then
we would change the world in a heartbeat. But we can’t so we won’t.

I am not saying I have the faith for this.
I do know that churches spend a lot of time teaching ways to get around this.
One of the ways is that we are taught it is all about eternal life. We are saved
for heaven by believing in Jesus. But believing in Jesus means believing what
he said is true and he said we shouldn’t worry too much about possessions but
have faith in him and his saying that we should first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, which is
countercultural, transforming our culture by being different. We aren’t. Our
culture and the culture of the world thus far, have been about “taking care of
number one”. So we make it about heaven and instead of transforming the world
one person at a time as he did, we get them to say a little prayer that will
“save” them and leave them to die in their poverty because he blesses the poor.

We ignore scriptures like the one about the
sheep and the goats or spiritualise them somehow to make sure they don’t refer
to us. But it is clear that Jesus said “if you love me you will obey my
commands”. Which ones? His most important bit of teaching is the Sermon on the
Mount which is almost entirely about people other than the average Christian.
What does this say to us? Am I being overboard? I suppose I am according to the
definition of most churches.

The wilderness experience also seems to be
about getting closer to God and experiencing his presence, worshipping him more
fully and so on and so on. Jesus spoke about a generation that would worship
him in spirit and in truth. I am sure he had had enough of people who danced
around the altar and then went away and treated others badly and lived in
luxury while others starved. He spoke out against those people: us. We mouth
cute Christian platitudes and disobey him by hoarding against our old age while
others starve.

God help me. I am speaking like a lunatic.

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This morning while I was thinking about stuff and reading…the Bible
(Hey even Muslims read it now and then!) I was thinking that, if one is
in leadership and one observes behaviour that is potentially harmful in
one of your leaders that you are trusting to go out and do some more of
the same work, then it is not enough to just tell the person that they
have a “potentially fatal flaw” and to watch out for it. One has the
responsibility to help that person get behind what the cause is of this
flaw, and help them to sort it out. And if it is serious enough, stop
them from doing what is bound to expose others to this flaw, or at
least monitor them until you are sure that it is not going to be
destructive.

Am I right? Anything less would not only be irresponsible.

I have made the same mistake. I released somebody to preach and
invited them to be part of a leadership team when all I really wanted
was to win them over and to maximise their potential. Eventually I had
to uninvite them because it turned out that they were not suitable for
the job, because of 2 things, one was they had too much baggage at that
time, and the other was a clash in values. Both of them serious. It
caused a lot of hurt in them just loaded more hurt onto their already
fragile psyche.

It is not enough to just take a ce la vie attitude with that
because although the Lord uses the Romans 8.28 principle when we mess
up, and this inevitably srfaces a lot of stuff in us that needs to be
dealt with, and should be dealt with, people get hurt.

I think that is why the Bible says that we shouldn’t lay hands on
somebody too soon. We hurt them and no matter how gifted they are, it
can only end in tears.

…..This is what makes me so distrustful of the principle of leadership per se. There is just too much that can go wrong.

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I think we have to forget about the obsession with organised efforts to
conform Christians. That CAN often be less about discipleship and more
about money, power, spiritual laziness, and the effort to be part of a
Hegemony where we are not challenged. Our efforts would be better spend
with personal transformation which will hopefully lead to
transformation of society. If groups of people who are dedicated to
becoming like Christ, meet and infiltrate society with grace and
compassion, being counter-cultural as we reflect an alternative of
caring and sacrifice, we will be closer to Jesus and his disciples,
whom he laid hands on to spread the word and the deed.

It is a challenge for me. Everything is in the Bible abut how to
be. If we started only with the sermon on the mount and applied that
consistently, we would find that the church (as Jesus defined it=
something against which the gates of hell would not prevail) would be
what it was supposed to be, a personal manifestation of a spiritual
transformation that would establish the reign of Christ on the earth!

But that would mean that I would have to take seriously my
availability to Christ’s internal transformation process and leave
behind my laziness and give up my excuses and become yeast, salt, light!

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