One of the most memorable characters J K Rowling has left us with are the dementors. Creatures that suck all joy out of the world as they feast on your soul. These creatures are mood hoovers, everything feels bleak, everything joyful and happy is hoovered away. Tragically we sometimes meet people like that, even more tragically sometimes we meet professing Christians who are like that.
As you talk to them the world is only full of problems, when you try to suggest a positive in a situation you are met by a "yes, but..." and the conversation continues on its mood hoovering way. This simple should not be. Joy, we are continually told in the scriptures is a mark of the believer. Thankfulness and gratefulness similarly are to mark out the believer. That's not to say we aren't realistic, we do not live with our head in the clouds pretending everything is great. Christians know the broken reality of our cursed and fallen world better than anyone, we lament over it, we pray for Christ to come. But Christians are not to be the real world's dementors.
Rather we live full of the deep rooted settled joy that comes from being a loved child of God, loved, redeemed, reconciled at the cost of Jesus death for us. We live life in the world secure in our Father's care and love, grateful for the good things he has given us. We need to learn to practice this gratefulness. How? Let me ask a question; can you instantly name 5 things you are thankful for this morning? What were 5 things you were grateful for from the day as you lay your head down to go to sleep. Looking at our days like this helps us see how much we have been given every day, how good God is, how there are scattered beams of his glory and goodness shot through our world.
Its a small beginning in learning to live every day grateful to God. It's something that we can do even as we face suffering, because brokenness never totally defines us nor must we let it. We are children of a God good who is generous and gracious. And when you find yourself being a dementor, look for those 5 things in your day for which you can and should give God thanks.
I am so grateful to God that I didn't only wake up today with the things I thanked him for yesterday.
Showing posts with label grumbling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grumbling. Show all posts
Monday, 13 July 2015
Monday, 25 January 2010
How to wreck your church in 3 weeks
Reading a blog this was posted, its from Christ is deeper still - Ray Ortland Jr Blog. I thought it was very powerful and challenging:
"How to wreck your church in three weeks
Week One: Walk into church today and think about how long you’ve been a member, how much you’ve sacrificed, how under-appreciated you are. Take note of every way you’re dissatisfied with your church now. Take note of every person who displeases you. Meet for coffee this week with another member and “share your heart.” Discuss how your church is changing, how you are being left out. Ask your friend who else in the church has “concerns.” Agree together that you must “pray about it.”
Week Two: Send an email to a few other “concerned” members. Inform them that a groundswell of grievance is surfacing in your church. Problems have gone unaddressed for too long. Ask them to keep the matter to themselves “for the sake of the body.”
As complaints come in, form them into a petition to demand an accounting from the leaders of the church. Circulate the petition quietly. Gathering support will be easy. Even happy members can be used if you appeal to their sense of fairness – that your side deserves a hearing. Be sure to proceed in a way that conforms to your church constitution, so that your petition is procedurally correct.
Week Three: When the growing moral fervor, ill-defined but powerful, reaches critical mass, confront the elders with your demands. Inform them of all the woundedness in the church, which leaves you with no choice but to put your petition forward. Inform them that, for the sake of reconciliation, the concerns of the body must be satisfied.
Whatever happens from this point on, you have won. You have changed the subject in your church from gospel advance to your own grievances. To some degree, you will get your way. Your church will need three or four years for recovery. But at any future time, you can do it all again. It only takes three weeks.
Just one question. Even if you are being wronged, “Why not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Corinthians 6:7)
"How to wreck your church in three weeks
Week One: Walk into church today and think about how long you’ve been a member, how much you’ve sacrificed, how under-appreciated you are. Take note of every way you’re dissatisfied with your church now. Take note of every person who displeases you. Meet for coffee this week with another member and “share your heart.” Discuss how your church is changing, how you are being left out. Ask your friend who else in the church has “concerns.” Agree together that you must “pray about it.”
Week Two: Send an email to a few other “concerned” members. Inform them that a groundswell of grievance is surfacing in your church. Problems have gone unaddressed for too long. Ask them to keep the matter to themselves “for the sake of the body.”
As complaints come in, form them into a petition to demand an accounting from the leaders of the church. Circulate the petition quietly. Gathering support will be easy. Even happy members can be used if you appeal to their sense of fairness – that your side deserves a hearing. Be sure to proceed in a way that conforms to your church constitution, so that your petition is procedurally correct.
Week Three: When the growing moral fervor, ill-defined but powerful, reaches critical mass, confront the elders with your demands. Inform them of all the woundedness in the church, which leaves you with no choice but to put your petition forward. Inform them that, for the sake of reconciliation, the concerns of the body must be satisfied.
Whatever happens from this point on, you have won. You have changed the subject in your church from gospel advance to your own grievances. To some degree, you will get your way. Your church will need three or four years for recovery. But at any future time, you can do it all again. It only takes three weeks.
Just one question. Even if you are being wronged, “Why not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Corinthians 6:7)
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