I’m convinced that gentleness is not timidity but rather the ability to live with purpose without forcing the world or coercing others into the shape we want them to have. The only way limited beings like ourselves who have strong feelings about the way the world ought to be and have a quality like that is if we trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God. We can trust him with the world. We can trust him with our loved ones. We can trust him with our pastor. We can trust him with our parishioners. So we don’t have to try and coerce them to be a certain way.
Thank you for pointing us to gentleness. As a pastor of a multiracial church trying to navigate this season well, it’s really encouraging to read words like yours.
I really appreciate this perspective! As someone who had/has great respect for Charlie Kirk and was very inspired by his boldness to share his faith, I’m also very inspired and have great respect for your voice in this. We are each on a journey of our own sanctification and it makes me wonder sometimes what Charlie would have sounded like by the time he was 60 years old. While I have seen countless examples of times where his words were kind and filled with love, the reality is that none of us are perfect and we are all continually growing in the Lord. We’ve been robbed of the opportunity to witness Charlie’s own sanctification journey because of his murder which is a massive tragedy.
The idea of “leave your church if your pastor didn’t do ____” has not sat well with me, and yet I also wrestled with how vague of a comment my own pastor made about it. Thank you for penning these thoughts, they’re helping me continue to process.
And I think ultimately this is an opportunity and a call to pray for our pastors and leaders. Your last line is spot on. It’s a high responsibility and we must lift our shepherds up in prayer.
I’m convinced that gentleness is not timidity but rather the ability to live with purpose without forcing the world or coercing others into the shape we want them to have. The only way limited beings like ourselves who have strong feelings about the way the world ought to be and have a quality like that is if we trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God. We can trust him with the world. We can trust him with our loved ones. We can trust him with our pastor. We can trust him with our parishioners. So we don’t have to try and coerce them to be a certain way.
Thank you for pointing us to gentleness. As a pastor of a multiracial church trying to navigate this season well, it’s really encouraging to read words like yours.
I really appreciate this perspective! As someone who had/has great respect for Charlie Kirk and was very inspired by his boldness to share his faith, I’m also very inspired and have great respect for your voice in this. We are each on a journey of our own sanctification and it makes me wonder sometimes what Charlie would have sounded like by the time he was 60 years old. While I have seen countless examples of times where his words were kind and filled with love, the reality is that none of us are perfect and we are all continually growing in the Lord. We’ve been robbed of the opportunity to witness Charlie’s own sanctification journey because of his murder which is a massive tragedy.
The idea of “leave your church if your pastor didn’t do ____” has not sat well with me, and yet I also wrestled with how vague of a comment my own pastor made about it. Thank you for penning these thoughts, they’re helping me continue to process.
And I think ultimately this is an opportunity and a call to pray for our pastors and leaders. Your last line is spot on. It’s a high responsibility and we must lift our shepherds up in prayer.
Thank you so much for your work 🤍