A lot of people like to bash felt-need ministry by saying that it takes away from the focus of the gospel. We can spend so long meeting people's felt needs that we never get around to meeting their real need of Jesus. But most of the time in the Bible I see the focus being on meeting felt-needs. Here Peter and John heal a guy without admonishing him to trust Jesus, or repent, or do anything else. They just said "by the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" and then heal the guy.
Even people that like felt-need ministry still like to make people jump through hoops in order to have their needs met. You have to show up at certain times and do certain things and meet certain requirements to get what you need. Or making it more personal "I am willing to meet your felt-need of being your friend so long as I've had a good day." If it's going to drain us, then we don't want to do it.
I think the point of living in community is that we sacrifice ourselves and any rights we have so that we get to struggle through things together. That's the beauty of it, and the difficulty of it. It's easier to go it alone, but it's not nearly as rewarding and definitely not as much fun. JM
No comments:
Post a Comment