{"id":5068,"date":"2010-08-20T14:52:21","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T03:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/?p=5068"},"modified":"2010-08-20T15:39:41","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T04:39:41","slug":"to-serve-is-to-suffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/08\/20\/to-serve-is-to-suffer\/","title":{"rendered":"To Serve is to Suffer!?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ajith Fernando was our guest speaker at CMS Summerview Conference here in Tasmania last year (January 2009]. Ajith is a challenging Christian from Sri Lanka with an often prophetic challenge to the Church.\u00a0In this article I am personally challenged by &#8211;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0<strong>The Glory of the Gospel &#8211; <\/strong>In a world where physical health, appearance, and convenience have gained almost idolatrous prominence, God may be calling Christians to demonstrate the glory of the gospel by being joyful and content while enduring pain and hardship. People who are unfulfilled after pursuing things that do not satisfy may be astonished to see Christians who are joyful and content after depriving themselves for the gospel. This may be a new way to demonstrate the glory of the gospel to this hedonistic culture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0In this article Ajith presents some challenging thoughts:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<blockquote>\n<li>If the apostle Paul knew fatigue, anger, and anxiety in his ministry, what makes us think we can avoid them in ours?<\/li>\n<li>As a leader, I am the bond-servant (doulos) of the people I lead\u2026This means that my schedule is shaped more by their needs that by mine.<\/li>\n<li>Vocational fulfillment in the kingdom of God has a distinct character, different from vocational fulfillment in society. Jesus said, \u201cMy food is to the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.\u201d\u2026if we are doing God\u2019s will we are happy and fulfilled.<\/li>\n<li>The model of Christian leadership is that of the Good Shepherd dying for his sheep, not abandoning them when the situation gets dangerous. When God calls us to serve him, he calls us to come and die for the people we serve. We serve\u2026.we help\u2026we labor with them.<\/li>\n<li>It is wrong if one gets sick from overwork through drivenness and insecurity. But we may have to endure tiredness when we,\u2026are servants of people.<\/li>\n<li>The New Testament is clear that those who work for Christ will suffer because of their work. Tiredness, stress, and strain may be the cross God calls us to.<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0Ajith also writes of the Western Church:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have a great fear for the church. The West is fast becoming an unreached region. The Bible and history show that suffering is an essential ingredient in reaching unreached people. The church in the East is growing, and because of that God\u2019s servants are suffering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So we need to stop and ponder:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are we stressed\/burnt out\/sick because we are driven to be \u201call things to all people?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Or, are we a \u201csuffering servant for the Lord\u201d due to lifestyle choices that are counter cultural in Australia?<\/li>\n<li>How do we hold together\u00a0passionate commitment to growing the kingdom of God and stewardship of our health?<\/li>\n<li>How do we steward our health from the stresses of having the latest &#8216;got to haves&#8217;\u00a0 in our society?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0Read the rest of Ajith&#8217;s article, \u201cTo Serve Is to Suffer,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/globalconversation\/august2010\/index.html\">here<\/a>. The article is from <em>The Global Conversations<\/em> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/\">ChristianityToday.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Read\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/08\/18\/no-rest-for-the-holy\/\">No rest for the holy?<\/a>\u00a0as an essential conversation partner to this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ajith Fernando was our guest speaker at CMS Summerview Conference here in Tasmania last year (January 2009]. Ajith is a challenging Christian from Sri Lanka with an often prophetic challenge to the Church.\u00a0In this article I am personally challenged by &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/2010\/08\/20\/to-serve-is-to-suffer\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5068"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5082,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions\/5082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/imaginarydiocese.org\/bishopjohn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}