No Dogs Allowed!
Is it just me or is there an immense amount of spiritual gluttony among Christians.
Tonight I was privy to a wonderful conversation with friends at my dining room table and in that conversation some wonderful points were brought before us.
The conversation caused me to think more about this situation of spiritual gluttony.
The root of the problem appears to be grounded in selfishness. There appears to be a sense that Christianity is a calling to go to church, rather than be the church. Over and over I hear this phrase, “We need to be fed!” There is no more a sickening phrase on the planet. But, that’s just my opinion. If it’s not yours, please allow me to be loved by you anyway.
Jesus calls us to feed sheep. It appears that everybody thinks they are all sheep. My question is, “If everyone is a sheep, who does the feeding?” I don’t think God intended for one or two to be shepherds and the rest of the millions of Christians on earth to be "Get-fed-only" sheep. Again, this is my opinion. Please continue to love me.
Eternal sheep have a habit of taking up so much time and energy from the shepherds that shepherds never have time to look for lost sheep.
I think we need to be intellectually fed by the Word of God and spiritually fed by the Spirit of God and physically fed by the servants of God, but then it’s time to do some feeding ourselves.
No sheep eats all day, every day, with no concern for becoming a shepherd.
That is what shepherds do. Shepherds train sheep to be shepherds. Not all shepherds are shepherds of a lot of sheep. Some shepherds merely feed their family and maybe a friend. Some shepherds don’t have the capacity to feed, but they help those who do.
Wouldn’t a sheep that only eats be a glutton of a lamb?
I like sheep and I don’t think they’re as stupid as most preachers try to portray them to be. I believe that any animal that can convince its master that it only exists to eat and is never responsible to feed is pretty darn smart.
In fact, I think these sheep are not sheep at all…they are dogs. They show up, eat, sleep, get a few pats on the head and wait for the next feeding.
Let’s all be sheep that become shepherds and shepherds who don’t allow dogs to pose as sheep.
Forever learning,
Johnny
1 comment:
Leadership is a difficult place to be sometimes. The truth is a church full of spiritually immature Christians is leadership issue. That’s not aimed at you. You’re just reaping the harvest of every leader before you.
The discipleship training we discussed at officer’s councils, I believe, might just be the answer. I conducted my first membership class (since being in this church) last night. In my lesson, we discussed the mission of the church and said that we would like every member to complete at least two levels of discipleship training. We will begin the training in a few weeks. Eventually every leader and member will either have gone through or be going through the training.
I believe we will see visible results in the attitude and effectiveness of our church. Have you considered this?
Since our divisional staff are so supportive and want to see this implemented in our Corps, maybe a few of them would be willing to participate and/or lead some of the courses. Since they are such advocates of Sunday school, maybe one of them could offer a course during the Sunday school hour.
Keep up the God work! It’s hard sometimes.
Blessings,
Bret
Post a Comment