Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.-Abraham Lincoln
Cynthia, assistant to the founder of a charitable organization - he makes executive decisions without consulting with anybody, but feels rejected when the outcomes are problematical...Thirty-something female youth worker. Senior pastor who founded this church had a military background - no idea how to work consensually...
This whole thing is 'his baby' and he makes all the substantive decisions without consulting me - or, often his leadership.
They are servile...Dale Carnegie
Saw this somewhere: Gerard Manley Hopkins was basically the revolutionary force in English poetry that Walt Whitman was in American poetry, but whereas Whitman wrote three of the first five favourable reviews he (Whitman) ever received, Hopkins forbade any of his poems to be published during his lifetime as part of his religious vow of obedience. The only exception were two poems he submitted to a Jesuit magazine which rejected both for being 'difficult'. Yes, Hopkins' poetry is difficult to begin with...
"The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. This paradox becomes visible in very ordinary situations. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are nonpossessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it, but when we have no need to be known, we might be remembered long after our deaths. When we want to be in the center, we easily end up on the margins, but when we are free enough to be wherever we must be, we find ourselves often in the center.
Giving away our lives for others is the greatest of all human arts. This will gain us our lives." --Henri J. M. Nouwen
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"But the disruption of our relationship with God may take a very different form. Rejecting God’s grace, we may despise ourselves and allow other creatures to take the place of God in our lives. This is the sin of self-rejection and self-hatred, and it easily leads to passive, other-centred idolatry. Sin as pride gets more than its share of attention in sermons and theological text-books, but sin as self-hatred, self-negation, and self-loss is often ignored. Yet while less sensational, this form of sin is no less a turning from the gracious God who calls us to freedom, maturity and responsibility in community. In our acquiescence to self-denigration we deliver ourselves over to shabby little idols and thus make of ourselves pitiful caricatures of what God intends for human life."
Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, P151
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MINISTRY AS EMPOWERMENT: My Personal Journey...
WILDERNESS TEMPTATIONS - vs POWER
JESUS (Mark 12:38-40)
'BEWARE OF THE SCRIBES,
WHO LIKE TO WALK AROUND IN LONG ROBES,
AND BE GREETED WITH RESPECT IN THE MARKETPLACES,
AND TO HAVE THE BEST SEATS IN THE SYNAGOGUES
AND PLACES OF HONOUR AT BANQUETS!
THEY DEVOUR WIDOWS' HOUSES
AND FOR THE SAKE OF APPEARANCE SAY LONG PRAYERS.
THEY WILL RECEIVE THE GREATER CONDEMNATION'
RC - prophetic pattern in my life:
BRETHREN - THEORY VS. CLERICALISM
- PRACTISE X (ELDERS)
BAPTISTS - THEORY: MINISTRY WHOLE CHURCH
PRACTICE: 'ORDINATION --- ELITES'
--->> Prima Donnas (eg. FWBoreham)
ACADEMIC ATTAINMENTS: DON'T TURN UP/ GRADUATIONS
MEd. * ALL INSTITUTIONS INHERENTLY DEGENERATIVE
* THE EVIL IN INSTITUTIONS IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE EVIL OF THE INDIVIDUALS WITHIN THEM (Robert Merton)
BBC - 60 small groups, collegial pastoral team.
DMin. THE CHURCH AT ANTIOCH: GAVE AWAY MINISTRY LEADERSHIP IN ONE YEAR, RATHER THAN HANG ON TO IT.
(So I didn't turn up at either graduation seminary - I was actually in the U.S. when Fuller's was on).
BOOK (UC): Your Church Can Come Alive: nobody has passed yet.
WK. TO PREVENT DEPENDING TOO MUCH ON ME, GOD GRACIOUSLY SENDS AN AGGRESSIVE FORM OF CANCER TO MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE... AND OTHERS STEP UP, WHICH THEY'VE DONE BRILLIANTLY.
ST MARTINS: Collegial ministry team (not led by an apostle)
Ministry team 2014: how much $$? Divide it equally according to prescribed ministry description and hours worked. No hierarchies...
St M. Elders: Story of BBC elders --- hospital with dying lady/daughter
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Breaking Bad pride
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/~~
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Niebuhr - http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/
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Power tends corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, except for God.
Another question relates to the non-use of power. Did Nelson Mandela do everything possible in terms of devising creative economic structures to raise the living standards of the South African black-poor? Most historians don't give him high marks in that area, even though he was such a splendid human being in other areas...
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Power tends corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, except for God.
Another question relates to the non-use of power. Did Nelson Mandela do everything possible in terms of devising creative economic structures to raise the living standards of the South African black-poor? Most historians don't give him high marks in that area, even though he was such a splendid human being in other areas...
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