This follows recent entries I’ve written about appreciating gospel partnership and then defining them based on my experiences.
I felt it would be worth sharing some lessons I’ve learnt from pursuing them. In the first part of the lessons, I explored how it was worth pursuing as long as prayer was pivotal. In the second part, I considered opposition and the foundation of love. Here are some final lessons (for the time being).
From The Natural Flow Of Life
What I believe often prevents people doing life together for the gospel is the thought that it’s something in addition to what you already do. So when it was door-to-door work, you did that in addition to everything else you already schedule for your life.
That level of the added responsibility can be off-putting. It can also reveal what we consider more important in life.
Yet gospel partnership does not necessarily have to be about doing things in addition. The beauty of many of the partnerships was that it was done as part of what we did anyway. We go to the cinema, we enjoy having meals together, we love conversing with others – and in those regular activities we would create opportunities to develop relationships and be sensitive to note where the time arises to explain the gospel.
If your life is boring anyway and you are a home-work-church-home kind of person, even there gospel partnerships can work in the home time where possible, and if you can find a partner whose at the same work as you all the better. You might even grow to realise that there’s more to life than just running around that hamster’s cycle. Get involved in charitable causes. Doing good works in the community. Joining clubs or societies. All these offer great opportunities to let the gospel partnership be from the natural flow of your life. That embeds gospel all the more into the weave of your life.
Don’t Be Precious About The Partnership
By this I mean do not think that the relationship you have with the partner is meant to be the most important relationship in the world. As a gospel partnership it is open for growth and development. It’s open for others to join to turn it from a partnership to a team.
Unfortunately for me, I can sometimes get caught up in the feeling of now having this friend and he’s my friend. It’s almost as though I get possessive and invest far too much in it for its own sake, rather than for the purpose it has to glorify God.
Remembering this helps prevent turning the relationship into an obsession or a crutch. Everything is done in the light of Christ and so as that remains the main focal point, so it allows us to realise we are not wholly defined by the relationship. This also helps with the final lesson …
There Is A Time And A Season
Gospel partnerships are not always going to last forever. There is of course the inevitability of death which handily brings things to a close. There are other things, however, that can bring a chapter to close on a gospel partnership. For me it was relocating. There are other reasons that will either see the partnership come to an end or take on a very different expression.
When you consider all that you’ve accomplished together and how close the bond has become, this can be upsetting. It can even cause hurt. This, however, is a reflection of the level of intimacy that’s been developed and how close the bond has become. That is worth celebrating. It is wonderful to know that’s how deep the love of God can reach our hearts. It also means though we part physically, though things change, there is now something rich and deep that remains with us long after the partnership comes to an end.
It reaffirms our central focus on Jesus in all things, so that we don’t idolise relationships, but accept them as channels of blessing of God from Him, through Him, for Him.
Conclusion
As I mention it is my firm conviction that such gospel partnerships are worth pursuing. They help elevate our church family relationships towards an effective mutual stirring of each other to good works, whilst allowing us to experience sharing the gospel not as something scary and daunting, but something natural in our new lives in Christ.
These are just some of the lessons I’ve learnt to date, I am excited about other things that will be highlighted as I continue to pursue these.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 