Christianity is not a spectator sport.
The great irony is that people who push paper and attend meetings, but who do not evangelize or visit the sick and jails, have become the jury against those who actively live their faith.
My ministry career was not eliminated by active Christians practising careful discernment that God wanted me to be stopped, but by armchair Christians, bureaucrats and administrators.
They thought by throwing me off the team that I would become like them, a spectator, Jesus being a spectacle to admire with colour commentary from the broadcast booth.
Well, I am playing in a different arena, and I am more in a sport of personal endeavour than a team sport, but I am still playing (“I will show you my faith by the good things I do” James 2:18b God’s Word ©)!
And now I am in a different league and they can’t cut me from the team again.
I realize I still grieve for the people God had sent me to minister to and with. That makes me even more determined not to become a couch potato Christian.
So I will just keep sowing seeds, fomenting faith and living love in any way God can.
And I’m going to cry over spilled ministry…
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This Lent I am being led on a pilgrimage. I do not yet know if it is from persecution or to suffering or through both. Nevertheless the journey has begun.
2 responses to “Cut from the Team But Not Out of the Game”
nopew
March 19th, 2014 at 11:21
Yes, over many years I have been part of a support network for abused clergy, and I always emphasized that persecution comes when you are doing something right! I didn’t know I would be on the receiving end at that time. Better to do right than do nothing.
Peace
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GraceandTruth
March 19th, 2014 at 04:49
They did the same to Wesley, to William J Seymour, to Jesus… My husband and I have also experienced the same type of thing – always the most severe persecution we have experienced has been from other Christians. That’s what hurts the most I think, because you don’t expect it from your brothers and sisters. If you are alive spiritually you make them uncomfortable. At least you must be doing something right….:/
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