{"id":2654,"date":"2020-10-26T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2654"},"modified":"2020-10-23T14:23:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T20:23:23","slug":"alert-ready-taking-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=2654","title":{"rendered":"Alert, ready, taking action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are continuing to think about the church equipping people to be \u201cMinutemen<\/a>:\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that enabled the colonies to respond immediately to war threats.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a force would be in keeping with Jesus\u2019 command in Luke 12.35, 40:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prepared for action at a moment\u2019s notice, alert and ready at all times.<\/em>\u00a0(The Passion Translation)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a story, perhaps typical, about a church acting more like a roadblock than a highway. I was teaching this principle that churches ought to be in the business of releasing people for ministry in a church in Wisconsin a number of years ago. A lady told a story that went something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are German Lutherans, and many of our older members speak German as their first language. I thought it would be nice to read to these older members in German so I asked the church leadership for a list of our members in nursing homes. Three months later they still hadn’t decided whether or not they could give me such a list so I just went to the nursing homes and read to anyone who was interested!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story has a good ending in that the lady was able to expand her ministry beyond the walls of the church. But it remains a mystery why church leadership likes to function as ministry stoppers rather than ministry enablers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it will be said: \u201cBuild up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.\u201d (Isaiah 57.14, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations. (Isaiah 62.10, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are continuing to think about the church equipping people to be \u201cMinutemen:\u201d A highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that enabled the colonies to respond immediately to war threats. Such a force would be in keeping with Jesus\u2019 command in Luke 12.35, 40: Prepared for action at a moment\u2019s notice, alert and ready at all times.\u00a0(The … Continue reading Alert, ready, taking action<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-GO","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2655,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2654\/revisions\/2655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}