Behavior Modification

I used to meet with a guy once a week to go over a list. This list included things that I was not supposed to do. If I could get through the meeting without checking the box next to an item on the list somehow I was displaying maturity. If I had transgressed during the week I would have to check the appropriate item on the list and repent for my wrong doing. I have to be honest, there were things on the list that I did not agree with. The culture I was in demanded that I conform to the image of the leadership. There was little talk of relationship with Jesus and a lot of talk about how I should model those above me. For the record I get the “follow me as I follow Christ”, I do not however get “follow me and my unchecked ego”

In the past several months I have had to apologize to people for inducting them into this same behavior modification program. I met with people and gave them lists. I made them accountable to me and left little room for the Holy Spirit to do any work. If they messed up they were afraid of what I might say to them or that they would
lose status in the church.

If Jesus had done things this way none of us would be here. Jesus did not use lists or manipulative tactics to get people to conform. He knew it was only through relationship that people would come to know him. Jesus did not tell the woman at the well to conform before she went and changed her city. He did not require her to become a “mature” Christian before becoming the first woman evangelist. We hear Jesus say things like “Don’t you guys get it yet?” to the disciples, yet he does not bump them down to the lawn guy on his church staff when they don’t get it.

Rather than letting the Holy Spirit do his job, "leadership" spent years trying to program me. Try as I may I just could not fit into the non-relational business model that was being called church. Lynde and I love people and want to be involved in their lives on a personal level, yet we were told not to get too close. I think this is why we never truly fit in.

We spend so much time trying to impress God when Jesus has already done that on our behalf. It does not help when we have pastors trying to conform people to their image rather than God’s. I think it would do all of us a great deal of good to revisit the Gospels and become reacquainted with Jesus. We need to stop putting things on people that Jesus never put on them and please, please, please stop with the psycho-babble already. One of my pastors told me for years that you could tell a Christian was "mature" when they could go through a trial and no one could tell. That would exclude most of prophets and possibly Jesus. It is no wonder why everyone hid their problems and we could not be real with one another.