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I was just chatting with a ministry colleague in a rural area with not many evangelical churches. He was observing that whenever someone left a church, they did so in a way that left everyone angry! The pastor is angry because he lost a person who might have been helping him in ministry and who was unhappy with the pastor’s way of doing things. The person who left is angry. The people left behind are angry. My friend observed that the net quality of relationships among believers seems to go down every time this happened. What’s the solution?

It might be helpful to revisit some of our “lessons from locusts”!

• They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.Does each of us know our job and do it? Can each of us operate within our own calling?
• They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path. Are we content to let others pursue their calling?

An application of “they do not jostle one another,” content to let others pursue their calling, is to understand that God often moves his people around. A pastor explaining to his congregation of five years why he was accepting a call to a church in another area explained, “A pastor is not married to the church. It’s not a lifetime arrangement; it’s a ministry assignment.”

When I first heard that, I immediately thought, why is that fact limited to pastors? Why aren’t others free to accept different ministry assignments? Then maybe we can stay friends and advance the Kingdom together even from different churches!

When James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (Galatians 2.9, NIV)

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, …and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade… After this, Paul stayed many days longer and then took leave of the brothers and set sail for Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila. (Acts 18.1 – 3, 18)  (A new ministry assignment for Priscilla and Aquila!)