Let's allow God to speak through the Body of Christ.

Please, friends, take a moment (about 20 minutes or so) to hear this interview between Rose Swetman and Rob Bell about women's issues...led by a quote from Eugene Cho about how women need to be free to do whatever it is God asks them to do.

Rose speaks about how she dislikes "women's initiatives" which involve only women -- because they "ghettoize" women. And the church needs to be about bringing men and women together to serve. Don't have "token" people make the church about "equal opportunity" rather than an open expression of the vast diversity God has created and blessed and given to each other as the Body of Christ.

At around 9 minutes into the talk, we get to the quote from Rob Bell that Jonathan Brink drew out which brought this to my attention: “Women can teach the children. Okay so let me get this straight. When people are the most susceptible, moldible and gullible…Let the women at them. But as soon as they can actually discern and resist....”

This was the exact conversation I had with the church elders when I was 17 years old and was told I could not lead a high school Bible study because there would be boys older than 13 attending. What a de ja vu moment....

The challenge for men and women who are trying to remove from the church the very barriers Christ has already removed, is one of timing. God leads his people according to their readiness to follow. That readiness is something that we have not been very good about discerning. If we do not move at the right time with the right circumstances and the right people, disaster can result. We must learn the discernment required in order to properly pick our battles -- because having our pearls trampled by swine does not serve the Kingdom. We must follow the lead of the Spirit to where and with whom and how we are to serve.

There is a time to wait patiently. There is also a time to say "No more waiting. We move forward now!" But this time must be chosen by the Spirit.

Friends, please allow that there are a variety of circumstances in the church in which the Spirit is at work. What is the right time and place and action for one group may just not be appropriate for another. The prophets of God were deemed authentic by whether they spoke the words of God ... not whether they were popular. Sometimes their words were received and God's will was done. Other times their words were rejected and God had to fall back and regroup. But the point was that the prophet was obedient to God, not whether the people responded appropriately. This is so challenging....

The Holy Spirit has brought all those who name Jesus as Lord into a dynamic relationship called the Body of Christ. It is time that we allow the Spirit to actually connect all the bones and ligaments and muscles and nerves and blood vessels and the other millions of cells so that we all are able to do our part in The Great Dance.

...and I will get to my stuff on perichoresis ... please be patient! ;^)

Waiting on Papa's time and Sarayu's power while following Jesus.