Friday, December 11, 2009
To Focus on the Solution
You guys made great points. I think Greg identified the struggle between "focusing on the problem" vs. "focusing on the solution." There's this fear that if I focus more on the solution rather than the problem or in my example's case - giving a pencil to a student without making a big fuss (which BTW is where the coach / disciplinarian in me wants to go) , when or does it ever perhaps become enabling the offender? Is there a charge to "teach this kid a lesson" / "if I give you a bloody nose you'll think twice about doing that again" so to speak?
I think Paul explores that to some degree in Romans 6 when he writes:
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Paul seems to focus on the "solution" rather than the "problem" which in his case seems to be what some would see as the danger of teaching on grace might cause one to say, "I can just keep on sinning because I will always get grace."
What do we tend to do in churches - focus on the problem or the solution? Now trust me, my default programming is to be a "rules / draw a line in the sand" kind of guy. How ever the more I live the more I am coming to understand the following:
1. I don't understand as much as I thought I did.
2. All of us have problems / baggage.
3. All of us need the ultimate solution - God's grace in the guise of Jesus Christ.
4. We cannot "operate" or "run" our church's in fear of someone abusing grace.
Paul seems to say "trust in yours and others new life in Christ." There is nothing we can do about the past - it is the past. But we can focus on the here and now as well as the future and perhaps lead a fellow human from "the problem" and to the "solution," Jesus!
God bless you guys.
But that doesn't mean I won't take him to task over anything he writes or his grammar!! :)
When Greg and Jan came to our church in Florida, I was a "3 softball leagues / 2 city league basketball leagues / fit in God as an afterthought kind of guy.
The debt I owe Greg as well as the people that I try to shepherd cannot be quantified so I'll just say thanks for being the brother that I never had.
O.K., anybody ready for a "chick flick?" :)
And the relationship between you and Greg and your families warms my heart. I'm thankful to be able to glimpse it. And I, too, would LOVE to have you as "my" elder.
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