...and replacing it with one that may be more objectionable.
Back in the days of Brian Miller's blog, in discussing APEST, I made the claim,
"I don't have a shepherd bone in my body."
As I recall, I wrote that when I was railing against the church's pastor-dominated leadership culture. When I wrote that, I believed it without doubt.
As even the title of this blog suggests, I work in a, uh, secular, job in which I see myself functioning as an ambassador of the Kingdom of God, yada, yada, yada.
I've been doing this now for more than six years and I'm still learning what it means to live this life.
I've certainly never been mentored in this way of life. If anything, I've encountered opposition.
One way that my ministry is bearing fruit is that believers on the job come to me for biblical and theological knowledge (not surprising), advice (understandable) and comfort and encouragement (scary!!!!!).
When the comfort and encouragement part began to happen, I cringed. Up until recently, I believed what I'd said on Brian's blog, i.e., I don't have a shepherd bone in my body...
...but, when the need to be shepherdy arose in my ambassador role, I faked it with, as Paul says, with fear and trembling and, very cautiously, did my best. And, to my surprise, I seemed to be useful to the cause of the Kingdom even in offering comfort and encouragement...the stuff of shepherding.
Honestly, I was a tad flabbergasted...
...and, I began to question how I was wrong all those years ago on the Emerging Church blog.
Here's what I'm coming up with.
I can shepherd. I do have some shepherd in my spiritual DNA.
What I don't have in me, however, is parish priest.
It seems to me that people who are gifted to be shepherds can adapt to the parish priest role fairly well.
No doubt, the decline and decay of Christianity in the West is due, in large part, to what happens when shepherds are permitted to thrive in a way that diminishes other gifts and be elevated to positions of influence because,..
...when shepherds dominate, they create institutions and think of themselves as leaders, when apostles, as an example, I believe, envision themselves as servants.
If you doubt that, read the early verses of the New Testament Epistles. Nowhere do Paul or the others introduce themselves as leaders of the church. But, they do describe themselves as servants of Jesus Christ.
Anyway,...
...in the New Testament, there were people gifted to be shepherds but, there were no parish priests!
It has to be that being gifted to be a shepherd and functioning in the role of parish priest are not synonymous.
Based on my recent success in shepherding in a setting divorced from the institutionalized church, when the role of parish priest is not in play,...
...it strikes me that the institutional church has messed with the spiritual gift of shepherding as much as it has with all of the other gifts, so much so that, I, for one, avoided opportunities to use the shepherd gifting I have because I don't have the ability to function as a parish priest.
So, I do have a shepherd bone or two,
What I don't have is the inclination to do the parish priest thing.
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