Someone asked me this week, when talking about a whole load of things that I’m actually quite passionate about, if I blog. I said, ‘not really’. It wasn’t a lie, but what I wanted to say was ‘yes, but I kinda stopped because it’s too painful.’ Seeking my own comfort, I stopped expressing what God was laying on my heart about many things because people didn’t like it, to the extent that my questioning of the leadership structures of a part of the church I was serving in led me having no choice but to leave. Water under the bridge.
Boiled down, this is about the courage of convictions and the boldness to share them. In the film musical ‘Guys and Dolls’ (ironically!), there’s a song lyric that says ‘and the people all said “sit down, sit down you’re rocking the boat!”‘ Being an outlier, a minion, in that system, I proved myself to be dispensable for even daring to raise the possibility of standing up.
None of that is to say that in my immaturity I couldn’t have done it better, but I realise even now how much of a guard I now keep on my heart and on my mouth because the institution of the church has continuously told me to ‘sit down, you’re rocking the boat’ even although many of them have paid me to stand up and speak! (But only if we actually agree, Andrew…) He who pays the piper calls the tune?
I am just noting here today how much I have been silenced and, actually, how much the church has continually tried to dampen my heart to the extend that I’ve capitulated to saying nothing, or at least very little ‘in public’ about many thinks. Not a great state for leadership to really arise.
I notice now the fear that can still arise, even when empowered by the Spirit to speak, the natural fear that rises up in my chest… and then the sense of having been made feel like an ‘extremist’. Stuff like ‘that’s too challenging, Andrew.’ And I’m like, ‘what?’ I read the bible and I am rocked to the core again and again about my faltering allegiance to Jesus compared to what he asks of us. I think, on the whole, my life is ridiculously not like a radical follower of Jesus.
So, that’s the story of the blog and its author, really. Many might not know that this is the act of spiritual warfare that comes against me. The enemy delights in trying to find ways to silence and discredit me and I’m pretty good at taking myself out of the fray too.
Every faithful follower and lover of Jesus in these days needs a ‘band of brothers’ to fight alongside as the days get more evil. By God’s grace I look to him.
Andrew S M Clark 