Have you ever been in the hunt for a new computer, electric generator, or some other item needed for ministry or home setup? As cross cultural workers, we are pretty good at ferreting out the best possible price. It’s just our way of trying to use the Lord’s money wisely. However, you know there have been times when all that work was for naught. Sometimes, taking too much time to think about the best option, caused you to miss the sale price which ended yesterday!
Sometimes the same process occurs when we launch a new ministry project or tool. Someone comes up with a great idea. We’re excited about what might happen through this project or tool. We begin to brainstorm how to make it happen. Then we move to ‘launch’ and that’s when the questions start to come.
Now, there is nothing wrong with questions and analysis. Yet, I’ve noticed two things about ‘over-questioning’. First, at times ‘over-questioning’ is a smokescreen for our criticism, not our constructive, critical help. We simply want to prove that we are right about the theological or missiological standing behind our comments, rather than help the brother or sister move a new idea forward. Second, we underestimate the truth that we can learn an awful lot when things don’t go as we planned. The Spirit of God has much to teach us from those moments of stepping out in ‘faith’ as well as those moments of stepping out in our own self sufficiency.
I don’t have an answer as to the best way to ‘work this process’, but I think it starts with a good deal of prayer, honesty with one another, and just plain old ‘give-it-a-try’ effort.
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ain meeting place. When they arrived, I ‘tested’ them by asking what metro line they had taken to get to the meeting place. “You took line 6, right?” Their reply caught me by surprise: “No, we took line 3! It looked like a shorter route.” I had always taken line 6 to get to the meeting place. I knew what to do to get to the meeting place. Where in the world did they come up with the idea of taking line 3?
Thoughts Along The Journey 