Krissi

I thought the purpose of miracles was two-fold: first, to do something needed for believers, (healed, restored, etc.); second, to bring unbelievers to faith. This story combines both. Unbelievers who heard of this miracle were brought to Jesus, thinking He had some sort of power, was close to God, was perhaps a prophet, etc. It makes sense that unbelievers who saw Jesus were unable to correctly identify what and who He was. What parallel in life did they have? I'm sure, had I been there, I would have thought He was the reincarnation of an OT prophet, or something similar to this. So the miracles functioned as a way to arrest their eyes and thoughts on Jesus as a man. That's the start. The start of faith. I don't think, unless the groundwork has been laid, that people can see miracles and understand them to be of Jesus without teaching and experience. The start of faith is not the end of faith. I wish, though, as I'm older now, that I could see a miracle, just to see it ... to strengthen already existing faith. What amazes me the most, though, is the man with enough faith to believe Jesus when He said his child was healed. "The man took Him at His word ..." Here is a man who presumably only knew jesus as a healer and miracle-man yet, after seeing Him in person, believed Jesus had the willingness and power to heal. He must have believed not only that He had the power to heal, but also that He could heal from a distance, with the command of words. Jesus didn't do something strange, like spit in dirt and rub it on someone's eyes, but simply spoke, 'You may go ..." I pray for faith like this. I want the faith to believe that my prayers will be answered by just His command, that He wills good for me and desires to answer my prayers, and that His command not only can be expected, but trusted. This man's request to heal the boy was a prayer, a request before God. When Jesus responded, it was matter of fact, as if Jesus was saying to the man, "You should expect this ..." Think how easy life would be if I believed more. I would pray, leave it with Him, and walk away knowing and expecting it to be done. My mind would disengage. I wouldn't second guess. I'd just believe. BUT, in reality, I worry that He doesn't want to answer my prayers or will do so right before I die, which won't matter in my life. I worry that He doesn't want to answer, that He has rejected me or simply refuses my requests. I worry that I'm papering over these worries with platitudes such as "Well, God has a better plan ...". That may be true. I don't know. But I do know that my prayers have not been answered. Why? What would have happened if that man, like me, had prayed to Jesus to heal His son and Jesus didn't do anything? I wonder if there were people in the crowd whose prayers were not heard or answered. Why doesn't Jesus answer prayer consistently and in a timely manner? Why does He permit so much suffering? Stories like this leave me simultaneously hopeful and sad. I have faith, but that faith has been bludgeoned by reality, the reality of faith-filled prayers that were godly, biblical ... and unanswered.

I neither expect mathematical-like consistency in the Bible nor do I expect Jesus' words to not be contradicted in later/different contexts. He is God using the limited language of humans to convey ideas that they probably couldn't grasp even if they understood the words. Bottom line: the conflict here is between universalism and particularism, or between the gospel for all nations v the chosen people. Jesus saw both of these ideas as "right" in turn and, on occasion, went from one to the other. The trend, however, was toward universalism. I'm inclined to think that universalism is the goal, that is, the gospel was meant to be for all people in all cultures at all times. I do not think the particularized blessing God once gave to the Jews persisted after Christ. I know this is probably anathema to many, but it seems clear to me that the promises made to the Jews were fulfilled in Christ therefore have no reason to persist. Jews, like all unbelievers, need to hear and believe the gospel message that was originally spoken to them and then to all humanity. It makes sense that Jesus stayed in Samaria ... and anywhere else. He was bringing the gospel message to anyone who would receive it. His prior instructions to the disciples make sense because the time to enlarge the range of the gospel message had not yet come: first to the Jews ... then to the gentiles. So, Yes(!!) Jesus is the savior of the entire world. His message needs to be spoken loudly and clearly in ways the world can understand. That's our greatest of all commissions, to spread the Word -- not to heal bodies, dig wells, run for office or pursue peace. Our commission is to make disciples. Period.

One of many, many questions I have is how "reward" or "getting paid" really works in the Christian life. I have promises to which I can cling, but the timing of those promises, the time of their fulfillment, that is, is not known. Sometimes it's in this life ... sometimes it's delayed to the next. When I desperately need an answer NOW, in my present circumstances, I don't know what to do. Can I claim a promise? Can I beg to reap from what I've sown ... now? This passage seems to suggest that the reaping is seasonal and predictable and will happen after the crop grows to maturity. IN other words, I can expect to reap a few months after I sow. I sow in the spring, reap in the late summer or early autumn. It's predictable. Thus, I can be expectant and even eager to reap. But in my life, anyway, the reaping and sowing seem disjointed. I sow and do not reap, often. Sometimes I sow and reap straightaway. It's difficult to know which it will be and I certainly can't count on reaping in a timely fashion. The promises, or most of them, seem to imply answers in this life. If I have financial needs, it doesn't really help if I "reap" after I'm dead for the need is now. If I have other, more personal needs, I pray to reap quickly, not later, that the delay isn't a lifetime but a season only, or I will be sad and miserable until I die. If the sower and reaper are glad together, they must be praising simultaneously. I cannot be "glad" with a sower if he/she is dead. I can only be glad with the sower in the sense of praising Him if we are both alive. Thus, the reaping after sowing has to be in this lifetime. So why isn't it? I hope this makes sense, Pastor Ralph et.al.

A person's readiness to accept the truth seems more contingent on him than on the smoothness of the message. It's not only slick messages that get across, but rough ones. What matters is the receptivity of the listener. I don't know why some listeners hear and others seem deaf, why the Holy Spirit activates the minds of some and not others. I do not think it is because are not using the right words. The words of our testimonies are of small importance, really. It's the Holy Spirit and the willingness of the listener that matter. Messages get to listeners many ways, not just through us. IN a way, it's egotistical to claim we have an important role in another's salvation. We're just messengers, after all. The message is of/from God. And, frankly, He doesn't need us. Many people have been saved through literature or some sort of miraculous intervention. I've heard of people in isolated places hearing the gospel in their minds. Having said this, it's obvious that the great commission to which we are ALL COMMANDED is to TELL people about the gospel. For whatever reason, God uses us as His mouthpiece. It may have more to do with us than the listeners, in other words, it may strengthen our faith to witness though it is true that the harvest needs a harvester and often God uses us for this labor-intensive act. But not always. When the harvest is ready ... it's ready. We can harvest, someone else can harvest, books can be sent anonymously or the Internet may have a comment that plucks someone's heartstrings and brings them to faith. A testimony of one person is most interesting if that person has a checkered background. Then, it's riveting. But this does not mean that the past behavior of a person makes the testimony more believable, it could be that a great story is just entertaining or at least engaging. I'm thinking, now, of discredited politicians, particularly the Europeans, who prance on stage, write documents they don't intend on taking seriously, promise to send weapons they don't have, etc. Theirs is testimony without substance. Their past lies and behavior negates -- not enhances -- their ability to be taken seriously. But if they came to their people and said, "I was exposed ... I am sorry ... I lied ... this man exposed me rightly ..." people would sit up and pay attention. It's not the woman's poor reputation that brought attention to her message, then, but that she confessed her own past and used Jesus as the explanation of why she was suddenly so honest and forthright. It was her changed stance that made her attractive, not her past. I never ... no, rarely, talk about myself, or give my testimony, when I talk to others. I try to talk solely about Jesus. Perhaps this is wrong. Perhaps I should craft a two-minute elevator performance, though that would make me very uncomfortable. I think some people feel at ease when including their own pasts in an outreach. More so than I do. Some people do it well, too. I assume they're effective in the sense that the harvest was plentiful. We must open our eyes to see fields ready for harvest because our normal vision focuses on the legion of close-minded, uninterested listeners. We often don't see openness among our peers, but closeness. These people have shunned the message/messenger so many times that we simply expect to be ignored or mocked. It's difficult to keep trying when the harvest seems to never happen. But, persistence. I'm not the one who ripens. I just talk. It's the responsibility of the Spirit and the listener to be receptive.

(I'm not certain if I'm supposed to stop answering these questions, Pastor Ralph, so I'll continue until you pull the plug. The discipline is good for me.) 1. What does Jesus mean by food? This is fascinating. Jesus switched metaphors from water to food because of the prompting of the disciples, their insistence that He eat to be nourished. Jesus must be saying that nourishment doesn't matter; that which is important is doing God's will. Yes, this is obviously true, but why does He say this now? There's no context recorded. He must have been talking about doing God's will (or something related) during which he used the disciples' food as a verbal segue into what He wanted to say which is this: nothing is as important as obeying God's will. That's the message; we live to know and obey God's will. This is more important than eating. Drinking. Even, perhaps, life itself. Even though eating and drinking sustain life, Jesus is saying that the stuff that really sustains our existence isn't as important as doing God's will. 2. Obviously, then, doing the will "of the Father" is His passion. Another lesson, here, is that we're not to be divided between many passions, but have one overriding passion which is obeying God. Jesus didn't say, "Sit here ... have a bite ... let me tell you about God's will...." 3. So, my life has many passions and sub-passions and minor passions and a few big passions. I pray that my uber- or life-affirming passion is obedience to His will. Am I doing this? No, of course not. I don't think any human being can say, with a straight face and uncrossed fingers, that the ONLY passion they have ALL the time is obeying God. Some of us get closer to the mark than others, obviously. I'm probably in the middle of the pack. 4. One of the reasons why this passion isn't over-ridingly important to me is I don't know what it is. I sense the passion only. Circumstances seem to be narrowing in on a particular passion or calling or life-goal or destiny or God's will for my life. So, without a clear sense of God's will, I do the work in front of me. This is menial stuff that means very little to me, but I do it with gusto praying the Lord rewards my faithfulness in the small stuff and then opens doors as well as my mind to a passion-calling or, worded more nicely, a calling of passion. 5. What does this passion look like, you ask? Well, as I wrote, I'm not certain, but I believe it is diplomacy. Geopolitics. I'm praying for doors to open. I'm praying to be used. I'm doing all the prep work I can think of. Learning languages. Learning cultures. Knowing what's going on. Honing the lingo. Writing to clarify thinking.

God is Spirit means He is not just physical, but invisible/untouchable/omnipresent ... like wind. He is both 'out there" and inside of me. Both. I have a difficult time conceptualizing Spirit. To me, it's a bit like being in warm water, having the water press on me from all sides, seeing only the water from within it, even swallowing some of it. The Spirit is that water. Worshipping in Spirit and in truth means having a reasonably correct understanding of who God is. The problem is that our understanding of God becomes more nuanced and accurate as we go through the Christian life. What I thought of God 25 years ago is not how I think of Him today. So my "truth" was warped then, or more warped, and surely is still warped today. We never know the truth of God but have into it only very tiny glimpses that are additive but never complete. Thus, worshipping in truth must mean that the Truth that is revealed to us, at that moment, is sufficient. We can do no better. Worshipping in Spirit perhaps is the precondition to worshipping in truth. Without the Spirit, truth is impossible. But, again, there are some people who do not believe who have some understanding of what Spirit is. Secular/unbelieving theologians can wax elegantly about the meaning of Spirit and actually have some understanding. The understanding they have, however, never penetrates to their hearts. They think ... not feel/intuit. They understand without really knowing. It's a bit like learning to love someone slowly. Of course I've gone through the motions. When I'm distracted by noise or people's exuberant praise, I cannot focus on God. One of my personal gripes is people who make little comments during a sermon. "So true ... that's good ..." There's nothing wrong with what they do, but why they feel entitled to interrupt other people's thinking with their loud commentary is something I do not understand ... or share. I am weak on worship. I pray. I think. I write. I talk to God often. But really worshipping ... loving Him in praise -- that's something I don't do enough of. I've been recently convicted about this.

Jesus was standing on her country’s territory, commanding a stranger to give Him water – against their religious beliefs – when she brought up the obvious fact that they were of different religions. I’d be surprised if she did NOT bring up Jesus’ stunning disregard for religious protocol. I don’t think she was trying to create a controversy or argue for the sake of arguing, but merely wanted to clarify the situation and remind Jesus that He was in Samaritan lands. No one tries to generate religious controversies with me. I wish they did. The arguing would hone my arguments, teaching me where I am wrong.

I'm not surprised that God can see into our hearts and knows our history. Jesus knows about us all. Intimately. He knows what we're thinking, not just what we're doing. Omniscient... Of course He knew about the woman's history as well as that of every other person He encountered during His brief ministry. What surprises me is NOT that He had this knowledge, but that most of the time He keeps quiet, sharing what He knows with no one. It's His silence in the face of total knowledge that's shocking, not the knowledge itself. She didn't know Him so she immediately assumed He was some sort of future/fortune-teller, a seer or prophet. How was Jesus "wired"? I don't know. Did the Holy Spirit hover outside of Him until His baptism, even though He was God? That's what's implied here. And then afterward, when His baptism was complete and the dove came down to Him, The Spirit still was at work in Him? What's concerning is the splitting of Jesus/God and the Holy Spirit. They are one. Jesus IS the Holy Spirit. It's not like the Holy Spirit wasn't a part of Him. -- Regarding our own inner constitutions, I see the Spirit as within me, but to a limited degree. Sometimes those limits are placed on Him by me ... sometimes by other forces including God limiting Himself for reasons only He knows. Obviously, the Spiritual gifts are not all mine. So, yes, the Spirit is in me to bring me closer to the Spirit, which is a tautology, I know, but that seems to be how it works. God circulates in me. In doing so, He deepens my faith. I firmly believe, now, that only the Spirit brings us to saving faith. I cannot explain why some are saved and others are damned. I cannot explain why it takes so long for the Spirit to come into some people and not others. All I am confident of is this -- that through the pulling agency of the Spirit, we come to know God as savior, that what is within us causes us to acknowledge the aspects of God outside of us.

Jesus Himself is living water. NO, that’s incorrect. The verses say Jesus GIVES living water because God is generous and also because of His identity: “ If you knew who I am …” He says that any recipient of His water will never thirst again. That’s the consequence of His living water. Jesus says, in a looser translation, that the water He gives is an “artesian spring within, gushing fountains of eternal life.” It’s not a metaphor. Jesus claims identity with this water. Thus, we can be certain that the water/Jesus is within us as well as endlessly generated. I'm not sure I understand the connection between 1.33 and the fourth chapter. In 1.33, John the Baptist says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit (not water) (because) He is the Son of God. 1.33 severs any logical connection between water and spirit baptisms. God first authorized John to baptise with water, but Jesus, because of his status as the Son of God, was further authorized to baptise with the Holy Spirit. They seem to be two separate baptisms. Are they two separate gifts? They may be two baptisms, but that doesn't mean that both are necessary now. I've often wondered why we still baptise with water. It is clearly NOT necessary for salvation but merely a symbolic act. When children are baptised, the symbolism is meaningful to parents or community of faith; when adults are baptised, the symbolism is significant to the recipient. But, it's mere symbolism. Nothing substantial changes, as far as I can tell. Baptism is a public declaration of faith. Without such a public declaration, is faith void? Of course not. I’m trying to get past my preconceptions and actually look at these verses freshly, which, frankly, is difficult. Always. What I don’t see in here is a reference to the Spirit ... until verse 24. In this section Jesus announces Himself as the Messiah. That seems to be the apex or crux of this section of scripture, that the confused woman realized, albeit imperfectly, that Jesus is God and the Messiah. She doesn’t have to wait any longer. The Messiah has come. He’s standing in front of her. Nothing in this passage commands us to be baptised in water or spirit. It says that Jesus will come "down" and baptise us with the Spirit, but it doesn't say when or how. The verse centers around Jesus' identity as the Son of God and Messiah, not our baptisms. I may be very wrong, but from these verses, this is all I see. It seems that water baptism is passe and Spirit baptism is something done to us -- we are passive recipients of the Spirit. No where in this chapter does it tell us to ask for the Spirit. Sorry ... this is the best I can do, for now. I pray for greater understanding.

Jesus’ words to the woman in verses 10-13 seem to imply that all people are spiritually thirsty. What has been your experience? Does the woman seem spiritually thirsty at this point? What caused her deep thirst to surface? What does this teach us about our own witness? I do not think the woman at the well was spiritually thirsty. She was only trying to figure out what Jesus was saying and hadn't yet connected enough ideas to grasp the spiritual message He was conveying. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God>" I Cor somewhere. (I wonder why Jesus continued to speak on one level while the woman was understanding at another. It is almost as if His goal was NOT to communicate but, maybe, to leave a message to be recorded in the Bible? ) Spiritual thirst has a spiritual source -- the Holy Spirit within. Similarly, salvation has to be prompted by the Spirit within. I wonder, then, if everyone has a tiny remnant of the Spirit within their minds, or is that heresy? Does the Spirit come and go: alighting in this person and then in that one, here today, gone tomorrow? The idea I have is that the Spirit dwells in Christians permanently, that nothing can/will separate the Christian from his indwelling Spirit. But, in the case of the woman at the well, she was not a Christian or even a Jew. She did have some of the scriptures, Pastor Ralph wrote, but not all of them. Thus, her understanding of what Jesus was saying was quite limited. So, how do people who know NOTHING of Christian theology, beliefs, history, etc., understand what He is talking about? A few thoughts ... 1. I've known a few highly trained/educated people who knew Christian theology and thought very, very, very well, yet were not Christians. Obviously, they were able to grasp the intellectual dimensions of what Jesus was teaching. Had they been that woman at the well, they would have argued with Jesus, perhaps persuasively. Thus, it is possible to understand what Jesus is talking about without having faith ... it is possible to know about God without having the Spirit's illuminating power within. 2. I do believe all people are spiritually thirsty but most are satiated with untruths to such an extent that their thirst is never felt ... they're thirsty and don't know it. It's as if I were thirsty and drank cooking oil instead of water, then felt satiated. 3. I don't know why the Holy Spirit doesn't re-orient the thirsty to the right "drink." If a person is thirsty and feels satiated, isn't it the Spirit's "responsibility" to try to grab that person and re-orient him toward real thirst? If we can't come to faith except by the Spirit's prompting, then perhaps the Spirit should prompt a bit deeper ... at least more dramatically? (The pat answer about free will doesn't apply. When Paul was blinded on the Damascus road, was God worried about Paul's free will? I think not. Free will has to apply all the time or it's just a ruse). 4. I'm torn between believing that salvation is wholly a gift of the Spirit, prompted by the Spirit and actuated by the Spirit, AND the belief that as a human on this earth, I have to witness to others, to give them the modicum of information needed to be saved. Why am I in this process at all? If the Spirit can floor Paul on the road to Damascus without the agency of others around him, then what is my role? Dual agency? God does this and I do that ... makes no sense. The bottom line is that God does not need my flailing about, searching for words, in order to explain Him. He can explain Himself. And yet, He asks me to "do my part." Why? If people metaphorically go to the well because they are thirsty, that thirst can only be filled by the Spirit. Not my lousy explanations. Thus, I witness, but wonder why. I was pulled to faith alone. By the agency of books. Someone did come to me to pray with me on the beach when I was a young woman, even going so far as to baptise me in the ocean, but had that person not arrived, I think I would have come to the same point by myself. The Spirit was prompting me. Pulling me. Maybe others are not guided in this way ... I don't know, but it seems that most people come to know Him through the words of a sermon or person who witnesses, not solely inner spiritual prompting.

Jesus made a point of taking the shortest route through Samaria. He could have opted to go other more “proper” routes, but instead chose to cut through Samaria. Pastor Ralph suggests He did so because Jesus had a “divine appointment” with the woman. Of course this is true. Every aspect of His life – and ours? – is predetermined or appointed. These circumstances in Samaria, then, were expected. Looking at it this way, the woman’s social status pales in importance to Jesus chugging through his appointed tasks and events. Furthermore, I’m not sure He noticed who she was, at least at first. He saw a woman in need, a woman with a checkered past, a woman who was in the heat of the day pulling up water, and He served her by asking her to serve Him. Many clusters of questions bubble to the surface at this point. Where were His disciples? Why didn’t they come with Jesus? Who, then, recorded this story? The apostles were not there, presumably, so was this story recorded from the woman’s point of view? If so, it’s remarkable. She didn’t gloss over her past. Secondly, why didn’t Jesus draw His own water? Why did Jesus do this? Yes, He was tired, but how difficult is it to draw water from the bottom of the well … unless He didn’t have a bucket? Perhaps He was so exhausted that He couldn’t pull up water, OR, more likely, He was just resting next to the well when the woman came along, to His surprise (?). I’m not sure Jesus knew, in his humanity, that He’d encounter this woman though he knew, in his divinity, that His entire life was a series of divine appointments. So, when He unexpectedly encountered the woman, he could have ignored /shunned her but chose, instead, to interact. This is Jesus's typical behavior as we know it: He encounters the off-beat and shunned in society and gives them a fair hearing and conversation. This was his modus. He didn’t do anything differently with the woman than He did with others. Social norms exist to give people a baseline set of expectations that we share and obey when interacting with other.s They’re not all bad! But they are norms … mere rules, thus meant to be broken. They are not social “laws” but “norms,” that is predicted and typical behavior. When our faith conflicts with any norm or when we feel led to extend His kingdom via evangelization by ignoring or tweaking norms, we should do so. Peaceable cultures can be oppressive. We may do society a good turn by selectively and carefully jettisoning norms.

I don't know how God combined love and wrath in His one person, but perhaps it's like loving a person in spite of his or her flaws, acknowledging the flaws (and hating them) while also acknowledging the blessed traits (and loving them). It's difficult to know how they're combined within a person's heart, but both good and evil exist in most of us. God sees us as we are. I wonder if there is anything good in us that hasn't been washed over, as by a paintbrush, by the tint of sin. Maybe God sees us as grey-tinged -- tinted or toned. Maybe He sees the bright good parts next to the bad parts without any crossover. In either scenario, God has both love for us and wrath toward us at the same time, in the same Being. Salvation is a willing blindness, on the part of God, when looking at us, to not see the flaws and horrible aspects. That willing blindness is based on Jesus' act on the cross. Jesus took from God, in a sense, the ability to see evil as it is. Honestly, I don't believe God doesn't see evil in us or in the world. I think He sees everything "as is," but makes the choice, based on the death of Jesus, to overlook what He sees.

I don't think answering these questions is as easy as first appears. In the Christian life, we increase, not only spiritually but in our abilities and accomplishments. As persons, we become bigger and, hopefully, have more to give as we mature, make mistakes, grow from those mistakes, become more proficient at particular skills or abilities, etc. Secular people also increase for the same reasons, so there's nothing particularly faith-filled about increase. Healthy cultures revere the elderly by assuming that older individuals function as cultural repositories of knowledge and wisdom. Older, wiser people point not only to the past, but to a way of living well in the future. What they say matters in every generation because true wisdom is timeless. But ... and this is decidedly Christian, we also shrink in ways that have to do with volition or self-will. We opt not to do/think things that we would, left to our own inclinations, prefer to do, and, conversely, we do things that we would have avoided in the past. Our will submits to His will in this way. We change essentially. Deep within. We decrease. This decrease is decidedly Christian. Seculars can't do it. The way we decrease, that is, is a Christian way. We decrease our will, the motive force within. The will is not superficial but defines who we are. In a very real way, our will IS us. It defines us. Makes us. To decrease in our ability to will independently of God is to change our inner selves. The irony, of course, is that we must will to not will! We must decide/will to cease willing before we can decrease. At this point, a miracle occurs. As we choose/will to not will, which is humanly impossible as well as makes little sense philosophically, He enters. He does so because we can't un-will our own wills! It's impossible. So God steps in and begins the unspooling process of unwilling our will. He hears our plaintive bleats, that of his sheep. He knows we don't understand what we're saying when we ask to be "unwilled." And yet, He answers our silly prayer. Always. As we age, then, we more quickly and thoroughly give up our will. Practically speaking, this means a "willingness" to be/do somehting foreign to us, to be like Him. Though we were created in His image, we are also fallen. Such fallenness impacted the will. Thus, our wills have to be redeemed. Made right. Set on a new course. And that's sanctification, as I now see it -- the process of willingly un-willing before a God who re-wills us in His image. .

I have a difficult time drawing a parallel between the relationship which John has with his cousin Jesus and the relationships I have with other people. It just seems so far-fetched to think that normal human relationships can be similar to that of John and Jesus. But, then again, Jesus is fully human. As is John, of course. I can honestly say that I've never met anyone I would regard so highly that I would consider myself to be his/her forerunner. I have met many admirable people ... but they're not THAT admirable! So, John's joy in Jesus' success isn't like normal human relationships. John simply relishes in his appointed duty, to be Jesus' forerunner. ON a personal level, yes, I'm competitive, admittedly, but not in spiritual matters, gifts, etc. It seems that when others are successful in their callings, it reflects well on the rest of us. It's uplifting. Reading about missionary lives, for example, is inspiring even though I'll never be called to such a great task. Knowing our calling and being absolutely certain of it's boundaries helps keep our minds focused on what we have to do. When callings overlap, which happens, God has a reason. It's not necessarily a sign that someone is stretching the boundaries of his/her calling. We may not like such an overlap, but if we focus on our calling by doing our best in the limited scope in which God allows us to work, competitive desires wane. When pastors compete with others, it's pride. Pride causes us to think that we're better than our calling, that God should open the doors a bit wider and let us do something "worthy" of our natural talents. I AM very guilty of this. I beg God for a bigger life and ministry, one that widens and doesn't trap, which honestly is how I feel right now. I feel constrained by God. Imprisoned, even. Isolated. I want so much more ... Is this wrong? Maybe. Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's striving to serve Him. Probably it's a mixture of both.

These questions made me laugh, honestly. I think this is called "stealing sheep." In some cultures including the American frontier, cattle rustling or sheep stealing was a felony-tier crime. But not in the church. I really don't care if one church "succeeds" while others slowly close. The ebb and flow of churches is part of His ways -- some increase, others decrease. Churches are supposed to be temporary and ephemeral just as our lives and relationships on earth are short and evanescent. Building a church "to be around for generations" is akin to aiming at the wrong goal. Our purpose as a church is to serve NOW, not later. When our NOW service has ended, it makes sense the church would fold ... or morph into a new form. This doesn't happen enough. There are thousands upon thousands of churches that have lost their vision and persist, like B-grade country clubs, on long-ago endowments and memories. If they closed, nothing would be lost. If the people in those churches moved onto more vital, focused congregation which rekindled their faith and enabled rubbing shoulders with people who were on fire for the Lord, it would be a great thing. But people cling to the familiar and comfortable. Many people don't like change. They see churches that close as failure rather than success. It is a success to have done one's calling well and then move on to whatever God asks of you. I find it upsetting to see empty churches or cathedrals that scream of a faith that died. The churches in Paris, for example, are mere memorials to the tragedy of secularism. They point to a time when Catholicism was the centralizing force of French culture and are now run by the state. Both larger churches and smaller ones have their place. They each speak to a certain sort of calling. ALL churches, however, have an obligation to reach out to unbelievers -- to evangelize -- and not merely "steal sheep" with fancy programs and enticements. If the only new people coming into a congregation are those from other congregations, the church leadership should do an inner "survey" to figure out why the Lord isn't expanding His kingdom on their watch. On a personal level, "He must increase, I must decrease," could be the Christian's credo, one tattooed on our minds. God must get bigger in us. We need to make space for Him to take over our lives, for though a church is corporate and involves many, the increase of God also happens within us.