The prophet Jeremiah's calling is recorded in Jeremiah 1:10, which says,
See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
And, what Jeremiah did for the remaining years of his life, fit that pattern.
He did a lot of uprooting and tearing down and destroying and overthrowing.
Certainly, he was not effective in bringing the people of Judah to repentance and, as a result, the bulk of the building and planting he did was to pass on the promise, from the Lord, to restore the nation after 70 years and to provide a sketch of a New Covenant.
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Shortly after I discovered APEST, I began to believe that I am gifted to be a prophet.
The APEST thing was new to me and I didn't have a lot of human help in exploring its implications, apart from reading a few books.
In fact, people I knew at the time, were coming to ME with questions when I had questions myself.
In those first years, I revisited the question, What is my gift, if I have one?, virtually daily. And, in time, I became comfortable with the conviction that I am a prophet.
As I was in the midst of that search, I was also praying about and reflecting on my calling.
As I did that, I found Jeremiah's calling compelling for me and became convinced that it was the pattern that the Lord wanted me to follow.
As I recall, all of this was taking place when Wayne Boyer was still the CGGC ED. Certainly, it was when Brian Miller's blog was still functioning.
That has been, by now, quite a number of years.
And, as much as ever, I'm comfortable in my belief that I'm gifted to be a prophet and the understanding of my calling has remained essentially the same.
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I've blogged about my calling several times over the years.
There are three biblical verses/passages that are at its root:
Romans 1:1
Jeremiah 1:10
Ephesians 4:11-13.
I know precisely in exact repeatable words what I believe my calling to be...
...because, back in those days, I formed it into a prayer which has become my single most repeated item of prayer in my prayers and in my meditation.
I don't think I've ever blogged the prayer itself.
Normally, I meditate on it, as I pray it.
Here's the prayer...(this is so intimate a thing, I'm uncomfortable even typing it out):
Help me to be bill Sloat, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be a prophet, and set apart to uproot and tear down and to destroy and overthrow the church's pastor dominated leadership culture and to build and to plant a servant community in which apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers are all empowered to live within their callings and, therefore, to prepare the saints for works of ministry.
I can't imagine how many times I've repeated those words and mulled them over and meditated on them.
My guess is that, less than half of the times I start it, I don't make it to the end. I get caught up, in the Spirit, over one part of it or another.
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Lately, I've gotten caught on the uproot, tear down, destroy, overthrow part.
When I began to believe this was my calling, I understood the implications fairly well.
Biblical prophets were not people who were invited to parties.
They inspired some. They fascinated many. And, during their lives, they were the topic, it seems to me, of speculation and gossip and rumor. Normally, they were marginalized. They weren't people you'd invite to your house for a friendly chat over tea and crumpets.
I got that from the beginning.
I didn't look forward to it but John the Baptist had his head chopped off. So, losing a few friends in the CGGC?,...all that was likely to happen to me I thought, I can take that...and I can. I have.
Being defrocked...if that actually happened?...(no one from the ERC has asked me to return my Ordination Certificate) and what's it been now, three?, four years? I didn't expect that. But, still, prophets often deal with much worse.
(One of my heroes from the history of the Kingdom is Jan Hus. I admire him and identify with him. He was burned at the stake by the people of the institutional church in his day.)
How bad can it be for a prophet in the ultra-tolerant, warm-fuzzy, shepherd-obsessed, talk-but-don't-walk CGGC?
Anyway, by now, I've lost all the friends I'm likely to lose and paid all the consequence I'll probably pay, and that's all fine. The human, relational part is good.
For me, living my calling is, truly, about loving the Lord more than any person, and serving Him.
Here's the problem for me, as I've been praying my calling prayer lately.
I'm tiring of the emotional and spiritual violence of it. I don't enjoy it. I never have.
Jesus went into the temple with a whip He'd made with His own hands. He physically threw people out of the temple. Now, that is violence!
But, He did that only once, some think twice.
I've been seeking to be faithful to the uproot, tear down...thing for well more than a decade, and, it gets old.
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Every brilliant new scheme the CGGC holders of institutional authority have attempted in those years has nosedived. Scheme by scheme, I've uprooted, etc.
What the institutional authorities are planning now comes from the same spiritual place as the other non-blessed plans...and it will end in the same place as the others, without repentance on our part.
Still, when I pray my calling prayer, the "to uproot and tear down and to destroy and overthrow" part makes me just...weary.
I have never expected to be heeded. I don't now. That's not part of it.
I'll still do it.
But, spiritually, it makes me feel old...and worn...
... and so sad for the people unable to turn from fallen ways...and for the people experiencing the numerical decline and spiritual decay our institutional authorities are leading.
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