I recently received a note from the former General Secretary of a denomination: "We have a crisis concerning leadership at present. Whereas previous generations had held with: ‘Whoever wants to be the greatest must be the servant of all,’ the present one thinks: ‘Let's impose our will upon them.’ This is the reason for the disaster ..." OBSERVATION: Personally, I’d cast it in spiritual terms rather than in terms of human will. It is about yielding to the Holy Spirit or not. I think this is the continual struggle of the Church everywhere -- between human control and divine control -- human influence and divine influence -- human will and Holy Spirit. The two stand in stark contrast with one other. And all the more so where there are people present who do not have communion with the Holy Spirit.
2 comments:
I often wonder at Acts 15, "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to..." They had such certainty and conviction. It almost seems unfair.
This is one of the "touchstone" passages of Congregationalism. They didn't seem to start with certainty and conviction -- there was "much discussion". But then they recounted what God Himself had done, and out of that came the answer. For this reason, we begin our congregational meetings with "Church Reports" -- which are not mere reports, but reports of what God has done.
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