7 marks of a healthy church... 4/7

Faces the cost of change and growth.Individuals and groups are regularly faced with hard choices and testing circumstances. These churches evidenced the courage to face hard and painful truths and to be prepared to make real changes that were often costly.
Warren, R (2004) The Healthy Churches' Handbook. Church House Publishing

So is this a mandate to be radical? A sign of healthy church is all about hard nose change, standing up to what has been, a new direction however painful? I'm not so sure, I don't think Warren is aligning 'church health' with being radical for being radical's sake. I think it is more a question of attitude when faced with hard and painful truths.

Someone gave me this prayer she found...

Give me courage, Lord,
to take risks;
not the usual ones -
respected
necessary
relatively safe -
but those I could avoid
the 'go for broke' ones.
I need courage;
not just because
I may fall on my face
or worse -
but others seeing me
a sorry spectacle
if it should happen will say
he didn't know what he was doing
or he's foolhardy...
When it comes right down to it, Lord
I choose to be your failure
before anyone else's success
Keep me from reneging on my choice!

Facing the cost of change and growth - perhaps needs to be beyond wanting to dazzle and impress, each other by being 'so radical'. Perhaps being truely radical comes from being used in the identification of our own vulnerability.

I choose to be your failure before anyone else's success! If only it was that easy!

Comments

Anonymous said…
This book sound really good. I must get a copy.

Trevor
7:09 PM
Gordon said…
heh Trev - as in the green un?
11:06 PM
Sarah said…
I hope that I do not strive to be radical for radicals sake. Being God's fool would make me radical enough. Actually, being willing to be God's fool would make me radical enough.
10:27 AM
Gordon said…
sarah - nice of you to pop by! What is radical seems then to be teh question! I like the God's fool concept as a starter.
3:27 PM
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