A lot seems to have happened in this past week since I last posted something. I'm sure it would be very tedious for anyone reading if I tell you all the things that are going on. So I'll share two things stand out in my mind.
The first is when I went with a friend to meet her young 5 year old from school. On the way out I noticed that none of the children were carrying their bags. The parents had automatically taken their lunch boxes, books, jackets or whatever else they had and carried them for the children while they ran off to play. Thinking of what a lot of people have been considering lately about church and leadership (check especially my link to Sarah's blog) and discussions I had with friends yesterday, I think that sometimes we do that to our spiritual children. Instead of allowing them to take responsibility for things we say in effect 'Here I'll take that for you, don't worry'. It's not that we shouldn't be sharing their load but we do them no favours when we just take over what is really their responsibility and what God has asked them to carry. We should be there to support but not to do everything for them. When we do that we make sure they remain children and dependant on us - not God's will at all, rather fulfilling our sense of being needed.
The other thing that has had an impression on me is the time I had yesterday with friends at the South West Emerge gathering with Heidi and Gaz. It is some time since we met and it was really good to realize how much our friendships had deepened. A few of us communicate regularly by email or blogspots but again we were aware of the danger of just becoming another group of people meeting to plan and organise what we are doing for God - another 'holy huddle'. We did have some time of very deep thinking about where we are going with the whole SouthWest Emerge thing, not wanting to make it a movement with a leader while we just follow what she says we should do. That would be so easy but not right. May God keep us from just repeating the mistakes of history and falling into the same trap again and again. Saying 'NO' to the system we now call church leaves a space that needs to be filled. We need to ask God where He wants to take us, what He wants to put in that space so that we don't just start organising another form of the same thing that we have just said 'NO' to. That's where I'm at, along with a number of others - on an exciting adventure with God to somewhere I've never been before. He's so much bigger than the system we've tried to build around Him and I'm discovering more each day.
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