What do I mean by a funnel? Well this is an analogy that just came to me so please bear with me. But if you think of Church as pulling in from all types of people in all sorts of situations (the wide part of the funnel) and we work to help disciple people and, probably unfortunately, force them all out of the same small end of the funnel. It is almost like a twelve step program. You follow the pattern and you come out the other end of the funnel a nice perfect church goer right?
But what do you do when people don’t fit into your funnel?
Mike Yaconelli wrote a pretty cool book years ago called Messy Spirituality and in it he talked about a young couple in the church who had gotten pregnant before getting married which normally results in quietly getting married while everyone ignores the issue or the couple completely disappearing from the church. This couple however was welcomed back with a wedding reception after their elopement. Shortly after reading this I was faced with just this situation. A young couple in our church found them selves “in trouble” as my parents’ generation put it. They got married and we as a church threw a reception for them to let them know we loved them. They are still together to this day and I am so happy they are still in a Godly loving community.
I have found however that even though I hate the idea of the funnel I am so used to it that I don’t know how to function without it. If there isn’t a program where you take this class and join that ministry I really am not sure what to do with myself. “Be a Christian”, “Live out the Gospel” you may say but I am still doing a lot of de-toxing when it comes to these things so that isn’t as easy as it looks.
I have recently found myself again in a situation where people didn’t fit in the funnel. They did things out of order and I am struggling to know how exactly to deal with it because it is messy. There isn’t one right answer and I want there to be one right answer.
What I have found is grace is messy. It finds us in the strangest places and brings us along providing all that it demands. You really begin to see the power of God’s grace when you live outside the funnel. When you are involved with people who don’t follow the “right” paths, you see God all the brighter.
I love to see what people are meditating on when they are putting things on their facebook status but I can’t help but notice every one is always putting such positive little blurbs. As I have been reading the scriptures this year I keep coming across passages and I think to myself “Now there is one you will never read on facebook” and now to amuse myself I have started a new tradition. “Scripture you will never see on a facebook Friday’s”
Starting with my favorite of the spectrum texts:
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.
(Isaiah 45:6-7 ESV)
This type of scripture called a spectrum text shows God’s sovereignty over all things. Of course today God is only sovereign over good and Satan is Soverein over the evil things that happen. But back in the days of Isaiah they didn’t see it that way.
Just some quick thoughts…I know I am not the only one. I have talked to tons of others but how to deal with it?
I am a father, a husband, an employee, a student and a Christian, in many areas these things overlap but often they do not. Where do you find time for it all? To be successful I need to read a lot for my job. I need to study and continually improve myself. I am sure there are many jobs where this isn’t required but mine is not one of them. How am I supposed to balance my time?
When you feel a call to ministry on your life (as I do) you seem to place a higher priority on study of the Bible and theology than “normal Christians.” I wonder if that has hindered my career. God has not yet called me into full time ministry, I don’t know that he ever will but I have tried to walk a line between being prepared for both full time ministry and my full time IT career, so I have not been able to give full attention to either.
How do you balance learning about God and career?
Just some quick thoughts…I know I am not the only one. I have talked to tons of others but how to deal with it?
I am a father, a husband, an employee, a student and a Christian, in many areas these things overlap but often they do not. Where do you find time for it all? To be successful I need to read a lot for my job. I need to study and continually improve myself. I am sure there are many jobs where this isn’t required but mine is not one of them. How am I supposed to balance my time?
When you feel a call to ministry on your life (as I do) you seem to place a higher priority on study of the Bible and theology than “normal Christians.” I wonder if that has hindered my career. God has not yet called me into full time ministry, I don’t know that he ever will but I have tried to walk a line between being prepared for both full time ministry and my full time IT career, so I have not been able to give full attention to either.
How do you balance learning about God and career?
