Oswald Chambers says, “The great dominant need is not the needs of men but the command of Jesus. The source of inspiration for the work of God is behind not before. The tendency today is to put the inspiration ahead, to sweep everything in front of us and bring it all out to our conception of success. In the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, the Lord Jesus.
The ideal is to be true to Him, to carry out His enterprises. In missionary enterprises, the great danger is that God’s call is effaced by the needs of the people until human sympathy overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus. We forget the one great reason behind all missionary enterprises is not first the elevation of people, but first and foremost, the command of Jesus.” (October 26).
Chambers is right. And he is encapsulating the key point behind my preliminary research for my Oxford proposal.
I suspect that the Western management model has so clouded the way we operate, that it becomes difficult for us to follow the biblical model.
Western management has supplanted the leadership of the Spirit. This is not semantics, nor is this a diatribe on goal-setting and vision. It is an issue about the heart. The language of the Spirit is the language of dependency. The language of management is the language of efficiency.
The biblical way is not always an efficient way. The way of Christ is right, whether it appears efficient or not.
