Shooting the Wolves

As I prepare to move away from my Spiritual children there has been a very clear picture sitting in my brain. I am going to speak very frankly about occurances in ministry because the only person I feel like I might offend is the wolf himself. As I'll point out I think we've been too kind for too long to this sneaky pack.

In ministry, lots of people want to tell you what you should be doing to do ministry "right". Many of the ideas that people brought to us had very little to do with reaching the lost and much to do with creating an appearance of success. One particular person made our lives miserable for a short time. So as we prepared to "go home" to my little country church to minister, I began to worry about who would take care of our sheep.

This person repeatedly came up to Nic and told him exactly how to reach people as if we could have never done ministry without him. He started treating his suggestions as nonnegotiables. He began using speech such as, "I'm part of the church so that means you work for me." He would frequently exert power and authority that he didn't actually have. Wolf Red Flag #1: Assigning himself/herself power.

We responded saying that we'd pray over his suggestions and seek the Lord as to whether or not he would have us to start any of those things. In the meanwhile, we asked he and his wife (who had a lot to say as well) to pray about whether they should volunteer their time to be a part of making a difference in the lives of teenagers and see first hand what the ministry might need. After praying we added a few more game/hang out nights since we tend to focus on the more serious side of things. We definitely did fun things but adding more would only build relationships as long as we didn't sacrifice Gospel-centeredness to do so. We tried to follow up with this couple to no avail.

Soon after, we heard from our head Pastor that they had met with him to bring their complaints. (Keep in mind that this couple has no children old enough to be in the youth group.) After hearing their issues with our "performance" our Pastor just told us to make sure we were meeting the congregants needs and assumed they'd go away. Wolf Red Flag #2: A wolf will not stop until he/she has caused distruction.

We noticed this person still acting suspiciously but we weren't sure what he was up to. We would soon find out that he had contacted several board members to complain about the same performance inadequacies he felt we had and tacked on some issues he had with our appearance and (are you ready for this) that he didn't like one of my facebook posts! We would have never known, except that several board members in he hit one that had the courage to come to us. He boldly (and clearly, YAYYY!) listed all of the things the wolf was unhappy with. We explained our process of praying over things, that we'd tried to follow up and of course easily dismissed his other nitpicky issues. That conversation took place on a friday. When we showed up for church on Sunday he shook Nic's hand and simply said, "You're good to go, thank you for serving." Wolf Red Flag #3: Kill or be killed.

Since this couple would no longer be a problem for us, I had kind of forgotten about them. But as we prepared to leave God game me the MOST CLEAR IMAGE, it's amazing. I'm not really an artist but I finally told my husband I was going to have to draw it just to get it out of my head. All I could see was that same guy with the hide of a sheep draped over his body like a Native hunter would wear a wolf hide to scare buffalo. God was reminding me that although someone was strong of to subdue the wolf, no one had the leadership skills and strength it took to shoot him.

Often in today's church culture, we can't even shoot the wolves without a disguise. So when they are clever enough to come in sheep's clothing, maybe even with lambs in tow, we feed, water and strengthen them to our own injury. The longer they hang around, the more people trust and accept them and the more damage is does to the flock with they eventually do either get shot or destroy it all together.

Why am I sharing this with all of you? This is why:

Have you ever had someone surprise you as deceptive after you'd known them for a long time? What might you do now to remain aware that the enemy wants to use people you know to seek, kill and destroy?

And will you join me in praying for our Spiritual leaders to have discernment and strength to see and shoot the wolves that would try and trap their sheep?

Why You Should Read Leviticus...

I have never been one to read the entire Bible every year. I've read the whole thing a few times and find daily Bible Study and prayer vital to walking this path with strength. But a while back, a friend of mine asked me to help her get all the way through it (not necessarily in a year) for her first time. So, I did her a favor and developed a reading plan that alternates between Old and New Testament books with particular emphasis on spacing out the "hard to get through" books of the Old Testament.

At a large family dinner, I was discussing how it's difficult to read 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles even with short NT books between them because they recount the same rulers twice, with slightly different purposes. One of our relatives perked up and said she just skips the "genealogies and stuff". While this isn't the first time I'd heard this, I still hadn't come up with a good response or reason for thinking they're still important to actually read (not skip, skim or daydream through), so that's what I've set out to do today.

The first reason that comes to mind is that, well, they are still the Word of the Living God. Although reading a story twice or trying to keep up with (confusing) genealogies can be trying, the fact is it's still in there. I really don't think that anything God says or deems important should be ignored.

Number two: reading the entire Bible, including the "boring stuff", helps us to grasp a smidgen of how ridiculously amazing and complex God's plan of redemption was/is. When you read that the Saviour (if you're new to Bella Red, i like to spell things the British way sometimes:) was to come from the stump of Jesse, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. That is, until you connect Noah to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then to Joseph and Israel's captivity in Egypt which brings you to Moses and eventually you'd get to Ruth and Boaz who had Obed who fathered Jesse who fathered King David. Then when you read about Israel's actions after that, you'd realize that Isaiah called it a stump because God had to cut back His people so far that His own son was the only shoot remaining, the Righteous Branch, that could rescue them.

I encourage you to make the time you spend in parts of the Bible you're tempted to skip as much fun as possible. When I was reading the early books I looked into the places that the Israelites traveled and what lies there today. I took an interest in the traditions and festivals and thought about why God instituted them. Once, I made unleavened bread for a small group of believers and we got together on Good Friday, watched the Mars Hill movie on the events of that evening and we took communion together. It was a beautiful time and the bread and wine made it feel super-legit!

Thirdly, it's pretty darn good proof! Not that we should need it, but you can look at secular accounts and find people and occurrences from the Bible listed there. It is so neat to see the facts in God's word confirmed through other ancient texts! This includes events such as the flood, the tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If you researched every encounter Israel had with another culture, you would find that many of those cultures record those events as well! This confirms that God's people, Israel, are a very ancient nation and have been roaming and living in that land for ages! I have also heard of a few secular texts that recorded that Israel was quite protected, blessed or even that their God must have been very real and powerful.

Okay, so now that we've had this discussion, are there any parts of the Bible you will read differently? Are there any passages or parts you think you'd like to go back and do more research (Biblical or otherwise) on?

*Please be careful when you search for Biblical information produced by people. Christian or not, we're all human and can make mistakes. When looking at secular resources, use extreme caution and discernment!

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