Transparency

We had a missionary some Recife Brazil come to our church not long ago. Forgive me for being bluntly honest, but I often find myself struggling during missionary presentations. So often they feel "put on" and "scripted." Please understand that I am not anti-missionary, nor anti-missions. My struggle is more in the fact that when missionaries come, it is often made to seem that, although there are ministries struggles, they themselves seem to have it all together. However, on this particular occasion, I was riveted by a new sense of transparency that I had not seen from any missionary or even pastor for a very long time. He spoke of how he had lost the vision for the unsaved. He had gotten so busy doing ministry that his heart and passion for it was lost in the process. He related how God used his wife's borderline cancer and his own massive heart attack to revive his heart and passion for the calling that he had to share the gospel. It was such an encouragement to me because here was a believer willing to be transparent about his struggles. This is a rarity.

Think about it, when was the last time you heard some one pray or ask for prayer for a deep spiritual concern? It has been said that we spend more time praying to keep saints out of heaven than praying to get them into heaven. Think about that. Think about the prayer requests that you receive in your prayer meeting; your bible study; your Sunday school class. I would go out on a limb and dare day that 90% of them are health related. So few deal with the all important matter of the heart and of spiritual growth. So few deal with the unsaved and lost and dying.

When will we as a church begin to make the commitment to being transparent and vulnerable? When will we begin to pursue God with whole hearted abandon and passion? Until we do, we will continue to be a shallow, lukewarm church.

Casting Crowns has written a wonderful song on this matter of pretending and putting on a face in front of others. Listen and watch this video.