{"id":4102,"date":"2011-12-20T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=4102"},"modified":"2011-12-20T09:57:35","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T17:57:35","slug":"should-i-stay-or-should-i-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2011\/12\/20\/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Should I Stay or Should I Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Elder Peter Lim<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently, Jonathan Leeman authored an excellent article titled \u201cWhat To Say To Church Members Leaving For Poor Reasons\u201d<\/a> on the 9Marks blog. To summarize briefly, he suggested some practical suggestions on how to respond to someone who is trying to make the decision whether to leave a church. I understand why he considers \u201cmoving to a different city\u201d to be a \u201cgood\u201d reason to leave. I agree with him. However, I think that if he had more time and space to elaborate, he would agree with me that more consideration needs to be given to the reasons why<\/em> someone would want to move to a different city in the first place. For that matter, people should think more about why<\/em> they are in the city that they are in now<\/em>. I am about to reiterate a lot of what I already wrote in \u201cNo Better Place on Earth” (Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>). Here in San Diego, it\u2019s easy to want<\/em> to be here: great beaches, great weather, friendly people, Phil\u2019s BBQ, usually a good football team, laid-back atmosphere, and it\u2019s not LA. However, when someone asks me why I like San Diego, is it really that the city has all these desirable qualities? Is it because San Diego is truly America\u2019s Finest City? Is it because I have a good job here? Is it because I have family here? What makes a place a good place to be?<\/p>\n

In the grand scheme of things, all these reasons are inadequate. Where in the Bible does it say that we should choose where to live based on any of these reasons? For Paul, making tents was something he did just to pay his way for expenses incurred in ministry. He worked in order to do ministry without burdening the churches he ministered to. He didn\u2019t merely do ministry wherever he found a demand for tents and move around for the sake of his business. He wasn\u2019t passionate about creating a tent-making empire nor about increasing business profits. In other words, his reason for moving around was to plant churches and minister to them. Making tents was just incidental to his main purpose, which was to plant churches and strengthen the believers. Too many Christians have been so influenced by the world\u2019s values that they don\u2019t think twice about pursuing a college education or following a particular career path that would take them away from a healthy church situation, not that those things are necessarily bad. In fact, they would elevate some of these goals so highly that they would look down on someone choosing to pursue the pastorate, missionary life, relocation for a church plant at the risk of their careers, or full-time stay-at-home motherhood.<\/p>\n

I hope that my call to examine our heart\u2019s motivation for being where we are is received as I am intending\u2026 as a loving reminder to live our lives purposefully to minister to the people around us as an effective witness for Christ to the world and not as with a \u201cholier than thou\u201d arrogant attitude if you aren\u2019t thinking like I am. God has placed each one of us where He did in order to minister to the people around us. He has built His church to carry out the mission of bringing the gospel to them. Let\u2019s accomplish our mission with a clear focus on that goal wherever He leads us. That by definition is a good place to be because our good God places us there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Elder Peter Lim Recently, Jonathan Leeman authored an excellent article titled \u201cWhat To Say To Church Members Leaving For Poor Reasons\u201d on the 9Marks blog. To summarize briefly, he suggested some practical suggestions on how to respond to someone who is trying to make the decision whether to leave a church. I understand why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elders-corner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4103,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions\/4103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}