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Do we need to be powerful to be fruitful?

preacher-preachingA little while agone, I read a blog post which started past mentioning 'one of the well-nigh powerful Christian leaders in the world.' I don't think I read much further. What on earth could such a comment mean?

I was peculiarly struck by because of a chat I had had a couple of weeks earlier. I visited some friends, a couple who are both ordained, and who take (rather unexpectedly) ended upwards in suburban ministry afterwards quite a long period of working in inner urban center contexts. They arrived in this place through some quite remarkable experiences of guidance from God, including someone who prayed over them and had a very precise vision of the building that they would work in—even though this person knew little of their situation.

Since then, they have been encouraged by significant growth in numbers, giving and discipleship, and are looking to plant a new congregation after only a couple of years. When I asked whether this was difficult work, the hubby commented forth the lines that 'no, no at all, it was no effort'. God was only doing information technology.

At 1 level, part of this annotate was a reflection of the difference in leading a church with a good number of confident professionals, by contrast to the demands of inner-city ministry—at that place was now little shortage of competent volunteers for the range of lay leadership roles in the congregation. Simply suburban ministry has its own challenges and pressures, and it is certainly not the case that all suburban churches are growing. And the reality is that my friend is incredibly hard-working, resourceful, creative and inspiring. He is no slouch!

So what did he mean by this?


Luke-Acts appears to have a detail interest in the question of power. The TNIV includes 'power' 22 times in the gospels; 2 of these occur in Matthew, 4 in Marker, 4 in John, and 12 in Luke. This translates the Greek worddunamis which occurs xv times in Luke and a farther x times in Acts. This word also occurs in the other gospels, especially Matthew, but where Matthew generally uses it to refer to what we would call 'miracles' (so TNIV translates it thus), Luke uses it more than generally to talk of power in the abstract.

At that place are several times where Luke adds a reference to 'power' where Matthew and Mark make no reference to information technology.

  • John the Baptist will minister in the 'spirit and ability of Elijah' (Luke 1.17)
  • Jesus returns from testing in the wilderness 'in the ability of the Spirit' (Luke 4.xiv)
  • Jesus is acclaimed as teaching/doing miracles 'with authority and power' (Luke 4.36) [Mark and Matthew mention authorisation only]
  • Before the healing of the paralytic, Luke notes that 'the power of the Lord was with him to heal the ill' (Luke v.17)
  • The crowds press around him, considering 'power was coming from him and healing all the people' (Luke 6.19)
  • When he sends out the Twelve in pairs, he gives them 'power and authorisation' (Luke 9.one) and similarly on the return of the 70 (Luke 10.19)

This interest in power links with Luke'southward involvement in the Spirit—though, curiously, I don't recall seeing whatsoever literature on this.

Slide08There are a couple of things which are quite striking about this language. For ane, there is a curious parallel between Mary and her virginal conception and the Pentecost experience of the disciples. Luke uses a very similar phrase in each instance, at Luke 1.35 (for Mary), Luke 24.49 (Jesus' instruction to the disciples to look) and Acts i.8 (the second business relationship of Jesus' words). On both occasions, it is predicted that the Holy Spirit volition 'come on you' and 'you will be clothed with power from on high/ability of the Almost High'. Then here, the clan is between power and new nascence—for Mary, the actual nascency of the Messiah, and for the disciples, the birth of the new community of religion in Jesus and his resurrection.

A 2nd thing to annotation is that often the power comes almost as incidental to the efforts of those involved. I accept long been struck by the fact that (in Luke alone) Jesus enters the desert 'full of the Holy Spirit' (what more could you want?) but returns from the desert 'in the power of the Spirit.' In other words, the effective power of the Spirit, even though he is present, is not consummate without the straightening, challenging field of study of the trials, hunger and thirst that Jesus goes through.

And then it makes sense that the control to Mary and to the disciples, the ones who will receive 'power', is to…do zip! They are but to await until God, in his sovereignty, wearing apparel them with his ability. If we want power, it seems, we must seek something else.


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I used to row, and I know first hand that rowers tin can be fairly fetishistic about strength and power. I once stood in a queue, in Barclays, Cornmarket Street in Oxford, behind the largest human ever to row for Oxford. He was big! It was said that if y'all were in the seat behind him, you actually could not encounter a thing. The secret of rowing is that the speed of the boat is determined past how hard you lot pull on your oar, how cleanly and how frequently.

Merely sailing is rather dissimilar. (I've done a bit of this too.) You don't really come across 'powerful sailors' in the mode you lot come up across 'powerful rowers' because a different dynamic is at piece of work. Of course in that location is difficult work, discipline, stamina and commitment involved. But the speed of the boat is adamant by the speed and management of the current of air, and whether y'all can catch that effectively. That is what the disciplines in sailing are about.

Despite all the pressures we experience to work harder in society to be effective in ministry, it seems to me that the work of ministry is much more than like the work of sailing than the piece of work of rowing. I remember that is a little of what Luke is telling usa. And I take a feeling that that is what my friend was talking about. Yep, he worked hard—but all that was happening was the indirect, 'wind-blown' result of what he was doing. He was working to set his sails right, not to haul the boat along. (First published June 2014.)


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