Diversity

<idle musing for a Saturday night>
I’m sitting at my desk listening to Third Day. Earlier while I was riding my bike on the stand (hey, it’s 25 degrees out!) I was listening to Petra and I’ll probably put Handel’s Water Music in next. Diversity.

Earlier today I made rye bread. I used light rye instead of the dark rye that I normally use. Debbie commented it tasted different. I told her I used light rye. Next week I’ll make whole wheat bread. Last week I made pita bread. Diversity.

I like snow, some don’t. I like four seasons, some don’t. More diversity. Diversity is good, it is part of creation. We need diversity, we need the strengths of others. When we try to get others to think like us, we lose an important part of what God is doing in the world. We need to allow people to become who they were created to be.

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good...Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third
teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” I Corinthians 12: 4-7, 27-30 (RSV)

Without getting into the whole supernatural gifts issue, the important thing to note is that there is diversity. As I look around the church, I see an overabundance of administrators, teachers and a severe shortage of prophets. How can a church move forward without someone who sees what God wants to do? People tend towards the comfortable. The prophets stir people up and make them uncomfortable. Prophets tend to get stoned or put in stocks or, in Jeremiah’s case, find themselves up to their neck in mud at the bottom of a well. Prophets aren’t comfortable people to be around. They challenge the status quo, but we desperately need them.

Just thoughts triggered by this week and what God is doing at Asbury College. I don’t want to be guilty of stoning the prophets or stifling the Holy Spirit. Revival! I desperately need it. Daily! Not once every 36 years, not even once every Sunday, but daily.
</idle musing>