Thanks to a gift book from my brother, my attention has recently returned to the helpful perspectives associated with ‘bounded sets’ and ‘centred sets’ as expounded in this discussion with Dave Schmelzer:
http://www.nycvineyard.com/training/Schmelzer_MinistryInOurCulture1.mp3
I firmly subscribe to this way of thinking. I understand that any kind of corporate believers’ meeting is ‘bounded set’, and I am increasingly aware of the presence of various ‘set perimeters’ which exist amongst groups that I either meet with or know about. This is of continuous annoyance to me.
I consider many aspects of ‘the kingdom of God’, as described by Jesus in my NIV bible, and indeed the nature of my personal journey of faith, to be best modelled as ‘centred set’.
Now this is something that gets me down;
I live in a culture where, for sanity’s sake, progress has calibrations, performance is measured and success is awarded. By very nature, bounded sets are highly measurable and there is a 'feel good' factor associated with the measurement of growing head-counts or of reaching fund-raising targets.
But if faith and the kingdom of God are centred set, and if progressing in the pursuit of God/Jesus is calibrated by ‘motion towards God/Jesus’, then how can that be measured ? Is it not depressingly subjectively immeasurable ?
[763:3002]
1 comment:
No measurement? yeah but that's the liberatingly beautiful thing about it...we don't need to rely on schemes or "ticked boxes" cos Jesus knows people's hearts. It means we just allow the one who CAN judge to do the judging. We just get on with doing what we're meant to. Sowing seeds of the Kingdom. God does the rest.
Having said that the only thing that I can think of where scripure even alludes to success is "by their fruit will you know them" so I do think there is precedent to seeing where the Spirit is bearing fruit in a person's life or in an group of people's lives.
There are some problems with this tho:
1) often fruit takes a while to grow.
2) Fruit also get reaped a while later - in my experience, you end up reaping the harvest others have sown as others reap the fruit you have sown.
3) How do we know what the fruit is? Church attendance? no. Giving? no. I think it is more subtle...
On this point - remember when Jesus says that there will be people who say "Lord, Lord" but I did not know them.
Complicated stuff huh?
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