Can this also be a time when God is trying to show the person something about themselves?
Yes, I think so. But the church puts a great deal of pressure on to stay as well. So, God's will and all the other stuff can be very hard to sort out. But, there is a reason he is dissatisfied internally. If I can say anything in hindsight, I wish I had listened more to my internal dissatisfaction and sooner....because it turned out to be on target. God eventually showed me what I needed to do.....but it was what my internal doubts were saying all along. So, should I have left sooner? I don't know. That may have been a shipwreck too and only God knows for sure.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
It could be a whole lot of things. It's hard to say what it is for somebody else without knowing lots more details.
I wish it was as easy to get assistants and stuff as these suggestions make it sound!
I was thinking exactly the same. Very hard to come by in a church of 30 and a pastor has to be very careful about recruiting or it could ruin his reputation.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
Sis. Renda, I thought it would be interesting to look at these points
as if this was a family, a home instead of a church.
How long should a father stay at a home under these circumstances?
He's been a father for almost a decade.
- Family membership is 30. (Wow! This man means business. What
does his wife think. How many sets of twins, triplets, etc.)
There is minimal compensation and he works a secular job fifty hours a
week. (He is trying to provide for his family. My, 30 family members
in 10 yrs.)
- The home is an embarrassment, but paid for.
- Started the home from nothing.
- He pays the family bills out of his own pocket. Well that a man's
responsibility, to provide for his own.
- The family members are apathetic.
I would say this man, and most certainly his wife, need a lot of encourage-
ment from someone who has been there, done that. I believe I could provide
some encouragement to that father and mother! How! By telling them about
my father and my mother. And how their Heavenly Father brought them through.
When Dad started the church we attend, he started it with his wife and
eleven children. In ten years, I am sure there was not a huge crowd.
But 50 yrs later, there are a lot more members under the pastors that have
been there since Dad went to be with the Lord.
But I thank God that in that 50 yrs. my husband and I, our six children,
their spouses, their children, and one granddaughter in law, number 29
from this church that started with a family, a man and woman with a desire
and little else.
(one son and his family of 6 worship in a neighboring city a few miles away.)
The apostle Paul said though you may have ten thousand instructors in
Christ, yet you have not many fathers. Fathers beget sons and daughters.
Instructors instruct but fathers produce.
Just some thoughts,
Falla39
I think this is apples and oranges....Just my opinion.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
Farming: Doing the same thing over and over while awaiting the harvest.
"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." (Galatians 6:9)
It's easy to criticize, but, if the rest of the UPC had accomplished as much as this man in the last ten years, it would be ten times the size that it is now. A church of 30, a mortgage free building, and all while working 50 hours per week. I wouldn't be in any hurry to stand beside this brother on Judgement Day.
"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." Theodore Roosevelt
I think Randy was more focused on the fact that this pastor is himself dissatisfied than criticizing the size of his church.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
Maybe God wants him to use his own judgment. To use the mind He gave him, his common sense. To figure out what 2 plus 2 is, without waiting to hear God say "4".
God isn't always a puppet master. Is He?
God doesn't want him to be miserable. Does He?
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Hebrews 13:23 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty
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