But another analogy is that of a soldier
Submitted by Forgiven on August 17 2000 17:59:02
In reply to Caring For The Sick… submitted by Andy on August 17 2000 13:36:19
|
And indeed it is one that gets more prominence in the New Testament. On that model our churches become training centres - and whilst there is time for the wounded to recover, there is also an awareness that there is a war on, in which we have signed up to fight, like it or not. What it really comes down to is the desperate need in our churches to build real relationships between Christians where we are free to share what is going wrong in our lives; as the NCOs of an army should be sufficently close to the people under their command to be able to tell the shirker from the geuninely sick, so should we be close to our 'pastors' - in the broadest sense. The temptation to reply to the question 'How are you' with some phrase like - 'well I'm really struggling with lust this week' - offers a reality check; if you did it - no not mentioning the object of your lust :-) - how would most of your church react. I know most of mine would fail to cope. It is of course one of the virtues of this place that we are free to be rather more honest; it is interesting that the Methodist class system as originally organised by John Wesley involved a depth of sharing at least as challenging as that; funnily enough it hasn't survived..... |
Follow ups: