Employed For You or Set Aside For You...

So, I re-read my latest post. I spoke about the pain that will accompany transformation in many churches. This pain will come as they focus less on maintaining themselves and more on the great commission to go to all peoples and to make them disciples of Jesus. Readiness to face pain is fine...in theory. Any of us can be motivated to endure pain in order for growth to happen. That motivation usually lasts right up to the point at which the pain becomes our own, personally.

What pains might be ahead for me, having worked as a church pastor for the last three decades? For example, I have come to rely on a particular style of communication in my ministry. Essentially, it's known as narrative preaching. Each week I tell a story, and the story is the delivery system for the proclamation of Jesus the Christ. My method depends on audio input and word pictures. By today's sound byte standards it is time-consuming, as any good story requires plot development, character development, and verbal description. New methods of communicating Jesus do not depend on audio content only. They are visual and experiential. As best I can tell, such methods are multi-dimensional as well; able to convey the message through a multiplicity of media, all at the same time.

Preaching as I have learned it and refined it may be in its waning days. And I may be past the point where I am able to learn a totally different methodology brought on by the need to offer Christ in ways that are effective for a new era in human history. For those of us in the Methodist branches of the Jesus-following movement, we're familiar with the words of an annual covenant renewal ceremony. One line in that service reads something like, "Let me be employed for you or set aside for you," depending on the version used. Do I really mean that? If I could most help the Body of Christ to reach the lost on the hurting by just stepping aside, am I willing to accept that kind of pain? Hopefully my pathway of painful adjustment would lead to some other way that I can contribute to the movement. Am I ready and willing to take a path that may be totally different than the one I'm following now?

This is a scary set of rapids. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.