I have one message and that is: Do something with your life and don't expect to enjoy it. Your ministry does not need to fulfill you. You need to fulfill your ministry and be prepared for rejection and be prepared for people not to understand� why you want to minister sacrificially. -Larry Norman, at last American Concert, Assist News June 27th, 2005.
Where are the Fathers? I mean where are those that have a fathers heart for the emerging generations? Why are a few workers left to fight the rising tide and pull in the harvest while many qualified and strong hands are available for the work? Where are you? What are you doing?
I fear that a generation of harvest is being wasted because the workers are more concerned with making money, entertaining their flesh to death, primping their bodies and sucking from the bile filled breasts of this world system.
It is a critical problem in the church�an absence, actually a complete disregard of owning a fathering dream and life ethos for this emerging generation. We are called to disciple the emerging church. We are called to walk with them, nurture them, listen to them, teach them, train them, laugh with them, eat with them, pray, love and care for them.
Some in the rising generation will fill the hole or gap of lack of fathers, but many are living with the gap and passing it on as normal. It is like the kid who was raised in a home with an abusive father or mother and ends up becoming abusive himself.
It is scary the amount of vacancy I see in the emerging generation. I fear for the types of relationships that will become normal in this generations sphere. Some will become happy opposites of the unhealthy relationships they knew but many will also be brutally void of nurture, generational vision and ability to connect, mentor and break the cycle.
It's nice to talk about God being able to Father orphans and help them heal and become fathers themselves but the church is still suffering from the hands and hearts of men...who are supposed to be healed, redeemed and new, but...are still sowing and reaping death.
It is a real challenge, worth fighting but not with idealized eyes but with perseverance, faith and tougher skin.
1 comment:
This exhortation makes me reflect on the emotional charge one gets when we see a friend, knowing just by there presence that smiles and laughter will follow. Along with an open heart, willing to listen to our petty or serious complaints.
Moving into ministry and developing, one by one, new friendships, acquaintences with someone young or old, adding another person that we can sense the feeling of joy with is how I see fathering the homeless. How enriching our life becomes as we add people to our "inner circle".
My relationship with Raleigh, one of my grandsons, is just now budding. Now instead of me courting him, he asks when I'm coming over and tells me he loves me when I leave. Simple things money can't buy. It is not a lot different from the feelings I had when years back we took in Foster Children. The feeling of expectancy when we met for the first time, romantic in a way, and some of those relationships continue today, some thirty years later. It is a great loss to limit the amount of love into our lives by not reaching out. Who would not want an Alicia?
Who does not want a new friend they can mentor and watch bloom.
Struggles you say, sacrifice, energy? Some more than others, but God will not be a debtor to any one, and when we give these tokens of love to him.... well, just wait to see his appreciation revealed.
So thanks for the exhortation Eric, makes me want to add another person soon.
Dad
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