Empowering

The Shoestring Conspiracy—Empowering

It is a word that may mean different things to different people. It has theological meat and fat at the same time. Our task is to trim the fat and chew on the meat.

The fat to be trimmed is any notion that we possess great power in and of ourselves divorced from a relationship with God. It is a superficial exercise to merely help people realize their own potential because that will sell them short and we will settle for less than they can be.

In the common place world where we do what some people erroneously dismiss as “social ministry,” we are dealing with supernatural power and theological truth at such a depths hat it is difficult to fathom.

The meat of the matter is that God is the source of our power and we have been called to help people and communities to connect with Him and realize their potential in Him. In a ministry of empowering we must exercise faith at whole new levels than we ever have before. We must learn trust that that God can work in the midst of individuals and communities to do for more than we could ask or think. We live out the love of God in magnified ways. We practice grace to the extreme. We demonstrate mercy. We, as St. Francis said, preach the gospel daily and when necessary, use words. The great question is whether we believe that God’s power is all we’ve ever said it was and whether or not He has the power to change lives and communities.