Methodology: a body of practices, procedures and rules; a systematic way of accomplishing something; the belief that the use of a method or system will increase the productivity or efficiency of results.Does the church use methodology? (Does it seek to increase the productivity or efficiency of God’s work?) Should it? Can it?
It is an important question. In order to subscribe to methodology, one has to believe that (a) the work of God can be made more efficient and (b) that if it can, it by all means should and ought to be.
This is rational thinking, the kind of thinking we apply to our household and jobs. Rational thinking is the currency of the world, and for the most part it pays pretty well. But is the power of God in our hands? Can it be metered out according to our plans and purposes?
Maybe you’re saying, yes, yes, to these questions. Yes, we could certainly be doing more for God. We could send more missionaries, we could train more pastors. And because we can, we ought to be doing... more and more and more.
But then, what is the meaning of the passage in Romans 12:2 about our being transformed by the renewing of our minds? Doesn’t it mean that to us the nature and workings of God are counter-intuitive? That we have to struggle to see things His way; that we wrestle in prayer, as the saying goes, not to change His heart but ours? Isn’t the prize before us to know God as He is, to love with His heart, to think His thoughts? To leave behind our old ways of thinking and adventure out to see what He has to say to us?
God’s ways are not my ways. In fact, His ways do not seem to me, in my fallen thinking, to be either supremely productive or efficient.
A few weeks ago I was stuck on the phrase, “at the perfect time.” Haven’t you been amazed, at times, to look back and see the perfection of God’s plan through times that seemed anything but perfect? And today, what struck me was that it is ALL perfect. It’s not that there are perfect moments. It’s that we are blinded by our nature. We have fleeting glimpses of God’s perfection only as He opens our eyes.
