Here I am send me
I hate the bible sometimes. So often it can leave me feeling empty and lost and at the same time it can give me hope in the love and movement of God in the world.
Its no secret to the people who know me that lately I have been feeling pretty sad about the church and my calling to the God has really taken a knock. I wonder if minister are ever called by God or are they called by the church?
Anyway so I have been thinking about my calling. I am tired..... Tired of many things but the thing that probably makes me tired the most is my theology. Being labeled as a "Liberal" "Post Modernist" "Emergent" "Satanist" has one thing in common, the fight. I have to constantly defend my views and am almost always labeled as wrong without being hear, instead of being accepted as a disciple. I am tired of fighting and not being love by my fellow disciples.
So today I was watching Rhythm by Rob Bell at youth church and he spoke about being part of Gods song. Being in tune to the music of God and playing in that rhythm. In one part of the video I felt vulnerable, safe, open, closed, lonely, cared for, sinner, graced....The emotions were just one of the same and at times totally separate. All I could hear was hear I am send me....And here you are, so am I.
I don't know if minister is where I want to be, in fact there is very little I do know, however, in the word of all who fought for the rhythm of God I shall say "Here I am send me" and I am sure that God will reply "Here you are, so am I"
Hey buddy... I know how you feel about being tired of constantly having to justify your position over and against the mainline (?) conservative positions in SA. One of the refreshing things here is that the majority of the society are progressive (and atheist too), so you can just get on with progressive faith and social justice work without having to take two years to move people from the old, angry, homophobic, white god person to an inclusive image of god (and therefore an inclusive faith).
ReplyDeleteSorry buddy... wish i could help more. It's also a symptom of the relative 'noise' the different traditions make in SA - like the USA. i'm sure there are a lot of progressives, emergents, post-church people, but it seems the conservative voices tend to dominate the airwaves. Or at least they are the ones who get upset and fight with you. Open people wouldn't really care what your doctrine is, as long as you are working for justice.
Or something like that. Maybe you should hang out with people with whom you don't have to justify/argue your faith to - but that may be a bit hard when you work in a church and study theology! Good luck...