What we war against

As part of the encounter 9 and our Wednesday morning What-A-Study, Brian’s been focusing on the battles/wars men face and wrestle with in our daily lives.

Last week we discussed the idea that we can’t battle our wars alone – we need other soldiers to come along side us and fight with us – side by side.

Today we discussed some of the things we as a church fight against. We came up with our own collective list and then Brian shared some of the things he sees us, as encounter waring against.

Here’s the list of what we war against:

• the idea that you can’t have a great marriage because your spouse is unwilling or unresponsive.
• the idea that I am a prisoner of my addictions, failures, pains and the seemingly impossible solutions of my life.
• the idea that the church is a building, a location, a program.
• the idea that walking with Christ is about rules, guilt and lifeless religion.
• the idea that life is destined to be mundane and meaningless.
• the idea that church is about membership, bureaucracy, internal introspection, exclusivity and it exists for itself.
• the idea that the gospel is a singular event to experience and separate from the very real and relevant areas of my life.
• the idea that the church is to be against the non-Christ followers: looking to remove itself from them, condemn them and blame them and compete to overtake them politically, socially and economically.
• the idea that the gospel and church are irrelevant to the everyday issues of life.
• the idea that the problems are too big and nothing can be done.

We added a couple more things to the list, like waring against “private faith” and the idea of “picture perfect families and lives.”

I think looking at the list, it comes down to one thing – we war against ME… not just me as in Jonathan Blundell, but as you, your ideals, my ideals, my wants, your desires, my selfishness, your selfishness. We battle against the idea of ME and battle for idea of WE and us and the community of believers.

At the risk of sounding cliche or trite, I want to be the standard bearer for this battle. I want to raise the flag high. Sure I’m gonna trip and fall and I may have trouble getting back up again – but that’s why we need our fellow brothers and sisters to join us in battle, who pick us up and will be willing to carry the standard when the standard bearer struggles.

What do you war against? What role do you want to play in this war?