The Doors

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ...

How many doors do you walk through in a day? Do you walk through the same 7 doors thousands of times? Do you walk through a hundred different doors a day? Do we walk through doors so often that we forget the significance of them?

Paul doesn't. He recognizes that doors are the barriers between worlds. They keep outside out and inside in. The separate the wild from the domesticated, what we fear from what we trust. Walking through a door can change your life or the life of someone else.

Paul prays for God to open doors for the word, for people to let something new come into their world.

He knows that he can't open those doors. He knows that forceful entry isn't acceptable. He knows that the only way to enter someone's world is to be invited. He knows the only way they'll invite is if God has been there first.

We can't change people's hearts. We can't make them believe. We can't make them open their doors and let us in. Only God can. That should be our prayer, too.

God, open doors for your word. Open them in the people we see every day; open them in our community; open them in our world. Be with us as we walk through life, help us to see the doors that are open. Give us the awareness to see the openings. Give us the courage to walk through.

What doors exist in your life?
What doors do you walk past every day?
What doors have you known but never walked through?
What doors do you pray for?
What doors do you keep trying and trying and trying, even though it's been
locked for years?

Look at Me! Look at Me!

It astounds me the things churches do for attention. They might build a giant Jesus statue or a giant cross, they might go through a sermon series on sex and look for media attention, they might get billboards (this is even attempted by those anti-church churches) to intrigue motorists, they might offer $500 to the person who happens to sit in the lucky seat, they shock or scare or dazzle or beg or pay people to pay attention. As time goes by, it seems like they get more and more drastic in their attempts to get people's attention. There is nothing new under the sun.

Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest. He told everyone. In many ways, this can be seen as a cry for attention.

The prophets came and they set up their altar. Then they proceeded to more and more drastically call for Baal to answer them. They called. They shouted. They danced. They cut themselves with swords and spears. They bled. They became frantic.

"But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention."

People didn't want to hear empty words. They didn't want to see pointless actions.

They wanted something real. They wanted action. They wanted change.

They still do.

My Job, Our Calling

I am paid to be a minister or pastor or preacher or whatever you want to call it. Since I've started down this path one of my big fears has been that this occupation would become just another job - that I would start to dread going into work like I did in the secular world. I've given a great deal of thought to what my job is and what my calling is and what the difference is between those two.

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul seems to be having a tangentially similar struggle. People are questioning if he should be paid for his missionary work. Is what he was doing a job? He goes into a bit of a rant about how he deserves his wages and that he is proud to be able to preach without need of them.

The thing that makes the differentiation difficult is not what the Bible says about the work of the clergy, the thing that makes keeping what I spend my days doing from becoming just a job is history. For years we've seen the minister's job as one of going out and rounding up people - of "evangelizing" and "leading people to Christ." I shudder at the thought of this becoming just a job for me. Thankfully, that's not my job.

That calling belongs to all of us.

My job, which Paul describes in Ephesians 4:12 is "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ can be built up." According to Paul, the main focus of my workday isn't to share Jesus with people - it is to prepare others to share Jesus with people. It is to create the environments where life change can happen. It is to teach people how relationship matters. It is to help people find their next step and to help them help others find their next step. It is to take a background, supporting role and empower others to fight on the front lines. It is to bandage wounds and re-arm those who've been taken out of the fight. It is not so much to love as to prepare others to love.

Loving isn't my job - that's my calling. I'm called to fight and to be on the front lines and to get wounded and hurt as well - but thankfully I share that calling with everyone else.

Everybody's job

Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch (a convert to Judaism) were the first seven deacons. If we read the text, we find that they were appointed to make sure the widows were taken care of and to "wait on tables" so the apostles could do the important work of praying and ministering the word.

So, the apostles go out teaching and these guys stay home and make sure things are running smoothly, right? Nope. Stephen is out preaching to the Sanhedrin and forfeits his life. Philip goes to Samaria, casts out demons and makes disciples. We don't hear what the other gents get up to, but I'm willing to wager that it's similar.

Were these guys forsaking their responsibilities? Were they speaking out of turn? Were they rebelling against the agreed-upon plan? No. They were doing what they were commanded to do - make disciples.