My husband today made what I thought was an excellent observation in the form of an analogy. We were driving back from church and he was congratulating me on my sermon (which was nice). He said that I'd got the balance exactly right between encouragement and challenge. Then came the analogy...
If the church is a pile of burning coals then to just pile more and more coals on (AKA endless encouragement in the form of platitudes) would choke it and cause it to die. If on the other hand one merely poked at the fire(AKA challenge and criticism) then it would burn itself out very quickly and also die. BUT, by feeding a fire and poking it sometimes when needed to keep it alive, the fire stays alight and has the potential to grow.
I'm going to remember that...a healthy church needs both encouragement and challenge. Too much of one and not enough of the other makes the coals go out...
Inspired! Thanks Grant!
2 comments:
So right.Good analogy.
Great analogy :) I guess the challenge comes in finding the right balance. Thanks for sharing this :)
Jofiersesi
Post a Comment