Day Thirty-One - Understanding Your Shape
In this chapter Mr. Warren continues discussion of the five factors he says determine one’s suitability for ministry. The emphasis in this discussion is upon the individual, and accordingly, the individual is considered to be utterly unique. “Only you can be you,” he tells us. (p. 241) It was pointed out in commentary of the prior chapter that this emphasis is in tension with the emphasis upon the corporate body of people that Mr. Warren had in view when discussing the church. In that discussion the individual was discounted and made subordinate to the corporate body. He told us in that context that, “…none of us can fulfill God’s purposes by ourselves.” (p. 130) Now, in the present context he is telling us that each individual has an utterly unique contribution to make, and, “If you don’t make your unique contribution to the Body of Christ, it won’t be made.” (p. 241) Commentary of the prior chapter discusses this tension in greater detail. Commentary of the present chapter shall focus upon Mr. Warren’s discussion of the remaining three factors indicated by his acrostic SHAPE: Abilities, Personality, and Experience.
The idea of ability is fairly straightforward. Mr. Warren provides a basic summary of the idea and urges his readers to use their abilities for the glory and the kingdom of God. It would seem that in the process of doing this Mr. Warren is mindful of the tension this poses with his earlier discussions, for he comments along lines that attempt to integrate his ideas of the individual and the church. He says, “Part of the church’s responsibility is to identify and release your abilities for serving God.” (p. 242) The suggestion here is that one’s abilities are bottled up in some manner and that it takes the church to “release” them. Similarly, Mr. Warren previously said that God’s power is bottled up in some manner and that it takes the individual to “unlock” it. (p. 174) In both cases the dynamic is the same: two parties are thought to exist in an essential correlativity; if one party is thought to be prominent, then this tends to imply that the other party is insignificant; significance is rescued for that other party by way of raising it up in prominence, but then this only tends to imply the insignificance of the first party; such insignificance cannot be accepted, so the emphasis shifts back to the first party, and the cyclical tension is perpetual.
In a prior discussion Mr. Warren attempts to rescue Man from insignificance by crediting him with power to alternately “block” or else “unlock” the power of God. In the present discussion, Mr. Warren attributes great prominence to the individual, who supposedly has an utterly unique contribution to make. Where would the church be if any particular individual chose not to make his unique contribution? According to Mr. Warren, a foregone contribution “won’t be made,” and so the church is “cheated.” The poor church is at risk of being reduced to insignificance vis-à-vis the sovereign individual, who alone has the power to determine what ministries will or will not occur in the church. But then here comes Mr. Warren to rescue the church from insignificance. While the individual is portrayed as utterly unique in his abilities and potential contribution, the church then is portrayed as having the controlling power to “release” the potential. So now, in the midst of Mr. Warren’s discussion of the individual, is the church regaining prominence? Is the individual now in danger of lapsing into insignificance? Mr. Warren again comes to the rescue. He says, “God has a place in his church where your specialties can shine and you can make a difference. It’s up to you to find that place.” (p. 243) In the scheme of Mr. Warren’s tensions, abilities come from God, but the individual must “unlock” God’s power, but the church still is necessary because it is the church that must “release” the abilities, but the individual still counts for something because it is up to him to determine what place in particular his abilities shall occupy. Given that Mr. Warren’s current emphasis is on the individual, the individual comes out of the tensions with a fairly strong prominence.
Mr. Warren continues his emphasis on the utter uniqueness of the individual with his discussion of personality. “When God made you, he broke the mold,” he says. (p. 245) His case for this is the fact that the number of possible combinations of DNA is greater than the total number of particles in the Universe. However, this implies that personality is a chemical effect. It also implies that whatever is found in the human personality is normal and the basis of godly service. These implications are quite unfounded in terms of truly Christian theology. The Christian will grant that DNA chemicals determine certain physical characteristics such as hair color, eye color, stature, and so forth. However, the Christian will deny that the sum total of what makes a person human is determined by DNA. Also, the bewildering variety of possible DNA combinations is uninteresting in a discussion of the uniqueness of the individual. DNA is the last thing that might account for the uniqueness of the individual. There may be virtually countless possible combinations of DNA, however, there are not virtually countless different hair colors or eye colors. Really, there is a fairly small set of different hair textures and colors, eye colors, skin colors, ear, nose, and lip shapes, statures, and proportions, and every one of five billion people fits into one of these very limited categories of physical characteristics. How many times have you heard it said that so-and-so looks exactly like [insert name of celebrity]? I cannot count how many times I have been told that I look exactly like a singer named Michael McDonald. Perfect strangers have stopped me on the street and asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Michael McDonald?” I think some of them were hoping I would answer, “I am Michael McDonald,” so they then could ask me for an autograph. I never heard of the fellow before people started telling me that, but now having seen his picture I have to agree there is a remarkable outward similarity. The point here is that what makes McDonald and myself unique individuals is not our DNA. Uniqueness of personality derives from immaterial factors. Personality is an aspect of the human soul. There really is no way to distinguish strictly between personality and heart.
The human soul or heart is corrupted in sin. As was elaborated in commentary of the prior chapter, the inner man cannot be trusted to present a sound direction or style of ministry. Mr. Warren says, “Like stained glass, our different personalities reflect God’s light in many colors and patterns.” (p. 246) There is, of course, some truth in this. However, the personality also reflects the corruption of sin in our lives. Due to this corruption, there are many ways in which our personalities present an obstacle to ministry. Francis Schaeffer had a volatile temper. This aspect of his personality did not “shape” him for ministry, but posed a difficulty that he had to overcome in order to accomplish his remarkable ministry. We cannot simply look into our “personalities” and take whatever we find there as evidence of what we are to do for God. Whether or not it “feels good” (p. 246) is not a reliable indicator of godly ministry.
Finally, Mr. Warren presents the factor of “Experience.” Everyone who ever applied for a job is familiar with the pedigree of “experience.” The experienced worker is more preferable than one lacking experience. It makes sense that one’s experience in life would tend to suit him for particular ministry. Mr. Warren catalogs a variety of areas of life experience, ranging from family and educational experience to work experience, spiritual experience, ministry experience, and finally painful experience. It is upon this last sort of experience that Mr. Warren fixates. He conjectures that it is the painful experiences that “…God uses the most to prepare you for ministry.” (p. 246) This priority of pain is reminiscent of a similar line taken in a prior chapter involving “real” vs. “fake” fellowship. Back in chapter 18 he told us that “real” fellowship involves being “honest” and “authentic” about who we “really are,” which means freely disclosing all about our hurts, feelings, fears, failings, mistakes, doubts, weaknesses, etc. In a similar manner he now suggests that, “God never wastes a hurt! In fact, your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.” (p. 246) It is quite stunning how Mr. Warren has so suddenly changed the flow of his thesis. All through discussion of his “SHAPE” scheme over the last two chapters the focus has been upon the positive things that would suit one for ministry. Through the first four of the five factors in the “SHAPE” scheme he has argued that our spiritual gifting, our inner natural inclinations, and our natural abilities all work together to point the way into our best service to God. As he began to discuss the factor of experience, he listed several different areas of positive experience - what we learned growing up, our strengths in education, effectiveness on the job, meaningful spiritual experience, and history of prior successful ministry. But then he came to the element of “painful experience.”
Once having mentioned pain, now all of the positive encouragement of all of the prior two chapters is set aside. Now, in contradistinction to all of that, he tells us that “your greatest [emphasis in the original] ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.” It will not come out of our greatest spiritual gifting. It will not come out of the greatest passion of our heart. It will not come out of our greatest ability. It will not come out of our greatest personality trait. It will not come out of our greatest experience. It will come, he insists, out of our greatest experience of pain. It will come out of our greatest hurt. All through discussion of his purpose number three - to become like Christ - Mr. Warren told us that the purpose of our whole lives was to prepare for our role in eternity by becoming like Christ. When he turned to discuss his fourth purpose - to serve others - he attempted to integrate these conflicting purposes by suggesting that, “Jesus taught that spiritual maturity is never an end it itself. Maturity is for ministry! We grow up in order to give out.” (p. 231) But now it is not our spiritual maturity, but our pain that equips us for ministry. “God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.” (p. 247) Is it not amazing how Evangelicals will stand on their heads and do back-flips syntactically in order to avoid saying that God causes us problems? “Intentionally allows” is oxymoronic. “Intentionally” is properly paired with what one causes or positively does, not with what one might merely “allow.” In the prior chapter, Mr. Warren confidently intoned that, “Not only did God shape you before your birth, he planned every day of your life to support his shaping process,” and that, “He would not give you abilities, interests, talents, gifts, personality and life experiences unless he intended to use them for his glory.” (p. 235) But when it comes to pain and hurt - the things that he now expects us to believe equip us for our greatest ministry - he cannot bring himself to say that God causes them. He must resort to grammatical gymnastics such as “intentionally allows.”
God “intentionally allows” us experiences of pain and hurt, Mr. Warren claims, because he wishes for us to “…understand a powerful truth: The very experiences that you have resented or regretted most in life - the ones you’ve wanted to hide and forget - are the experiences God wants to use to help others. They are your ministry!” (p. 247) Our pain is our ministry, he says. “People are always more encouraged when we share how God’s grace helped us in weakness than when we brag about our strengths,” he says. (p. 247) So much for, “God doesn’t waste abilities; he matches our calling and our capabilities.” (p. 244) Already, before the chapter is concluded, the tensions that necessarily must plague the sort of world that Mr. Warren hopes to create prompt one notion to dismantle another. He began discussion of his “SHAPE” scheme urging us to utilize our giftings and abilities to glorify God, and now he ends it by urging us instead to embrace our pain and hurt because God is more glorified in our weakness than in our strength. At this point we wonder why Mr. Warren did not spend these two chapters on “SHAPE” warning us that our giftings, abilities, and interests are distractions, that to emphasize them is only “bragging,” and that our real ministry is instead our pain and failure. We shall have occasion to elaborate on the dialectical tension of strength vs. weakness in commentary on the coming chapters.
The idea of ability is fairly straightforward. Mr. Warren provides a basic summary of the idea and urges his readers to use their abilities for the glory and the kingdom of God. It would seem that in the process of doing this Mr. Warren is mindful of the tension this poses with his earlier discussions, for he comments along lines that attempt to integrate his ideas of the individual and the church. He says, “Part of the church’s responsibility is to identify and release your abilities for serving God.” (p. 242) The suggestion here is that one’s abilities are bottled up in some manner and that it takes the church to “release” them. Similarly, Mr. Warren previously said that God’s power is bottled up in some manner and that it takes the individual to “unlock” it. (p. 174) In both cases the dynamic is the same: two parties are thought to exist in an essential correlativity; if one party is thought to be prominent, then this tends to imply that the other party is insignificant; significance is rescued for that other party by way of raising it up in prominence, but then this only tends to imply the insignificance of the first party; such insignificance cannot be accepted, so the emphasis shifts back to the first party, and the cyclical tension is perpetual.
In a prior discussion Mr. Warren attempts to rescue Man from insignificance by crediting him with power to alternately “block” or else “unlock” the power of God. In the present discussion, Mr. Warren attributes great prominence to the individual, who supposedly has an utterly unique contribution to make. Where would the church be if any particular individual chose not to make his unique contribution? According to Mr. Warren, a foregone contribution “won’t be made,” and so the church is “cheated.” The poor church is at risk of being reduced to insignificance vis-à-vis the sovereign individual, who alone has the power to determine what ministries will or will not occur in the church. But then here comes Mr. Warren to rescue the church from insignificance. While the individual is portrayed as utterly unique in his abilities and potential contribution, the church then is portrayed as having the controlling power to “release” the potential. So now, in the midst of Mr. Warren’s discussion of the individual, is the church regaining prominence? Is the individual now in danger of lapsing into insignificance? Mr. Warren again comes to the rescue. He says, “God has a place in his church where your specialties can shine and you can make a difference. It’s up to you to find that place.” (p. 243) In the scheme of Mr. Warren’s tensions, abilities come from God, but the individual must “unlock” God’s power, but the church still is necessary because it is the church that must “release” the abilities, but the individual still counts for something because it is up to him to determine what place in particular his abilities shall occupy. Given that Mr. Warren’s current emphasis is on the individual, the individual comes out of the tensions with a fairly strong prominence.
Mr. Warren continues his emphasis on the utter uniqueness of the individual with his discussion of personality. “When God made you, he broke the mold,” he says. (p. 245) His case for this is the fact that the number of possible combinations of DNA is greater than the total number of particles in the Universe. However, this implies that personality is a chemical effect. It also implies that whatever is found in the human personality is normal and the basis of godly service. These implications are quite unfounded in terms of truly Christian theology. The Christian will grant that DNA chemicals determine certain physical characteristics such as hair color, eye color, stature, and so forth. However, the Christian will deny that the sum total of what makes a person human is determined by DNA. Also, the bewildering variety of possible DNA combinations is uninteresting in a discussion of the uniqueness of the individual. DNA is the last thing that might account for the uniqueness of the individual. There may be virtually countless possible combinations of DNA, however, there are not virtually countless different hair colors or eye colors. Really, there is a fairly small set of different hair textures and colors, eye colors, skin colors, ear, nose, and lip shapes, statures, and proportions, and every one of five billion people fits into one of these very limited categories of physical characteristics. How many times have you heard it said that so-and-so looks exactly like [insert name of celebrity]? I cannot count how many times I have been told that I look exactly like a singer named Michael McDonald. Perfect strangers have stopped me on the street and asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Michael McDonald?” I think some of them were hoping I would answer, “I am Michael McDonald,” so they then could ask me for an autograph. I never heard of the fellow before people started telling me that, but now having seen his picture I have to agree there is a remarkable outward similarity. The point here is that what makes McDonald and myself unique individuals is not our DNA. Uniqueness of personality derives from immaterial factors. Personality is an aspect of the human soul. There really is no way to distinguish strictly between personality and heart.
The human soul or heart is corrupted in sin. As was elaborated in commentary of the prior chapter, the inner man cannot be trusted to present a sound direction or style of ministry. Mr. Warren says, “Like stained glass, our different personalities reflect God’s light in many colors and patterns.” (p. 246) There is, of course, some truth in this. However, the personality also reflects the corruption of sin in our lives. Due to this corruption, there are many ways in which our personalities present an obstacle to ministry. Francis Schaeffer had a volatile temper. This aspect of his personality did not “shape” him for ministry, but posed a difficulty that he had to overcome in order to accomplish his remarkable ministry. We cannot simply look into our “personalities” and take whatever we find there as evidence of what we are to do for God. Whether or not it “feels good” (p. 246) is not a reliable indicator of godly ministry.
Finally, Mr. Warren presents the factor of “Experience.” Everyone who ever applied for a job is familiar with the pedigree of “experience.” The experienced worker is more preferable than one lacking experience. It makes sense that one’s experience in life would tend to suit him for particular ministry. Mr. Warren catalogs a variety of areas of life experience, ranging from family and educational experience to work experience, spiritual experience, ministry experience, and finally painful experience. It is upon this last sort of experience that Mr. Warren fixates. He conjectures that it is the painful experiences that “…God uses the most to prepare you for ministry.” (p. 246) This priority of pain is reminiscent of a similar line taken in a prior chapter involving “real” vs. “fake” fellowship. Back in chapter 18 he told us that “real” fellowship involves being “honest” and “authentic” about who we “really are,” which means freely disclosing all about our hurts, feelings, fears, failings, mistakes, doubts, weaknesses, etc. In a similar manner he now suggests that, “God never wastes a hurt! In fact, your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.” (p. 246) It is quite stunning how Mr. Warren has so suddenly changed the flow of his thesis. All through discussion of his “SHAPE” scheme over the last two chapters the focus has been upon the positive things that would suit one for ministry. Through the first four of the five factors in the “SHAPE” scheme he has argued that our spiritual gifting, our inner natural inclinations, and our natural abilities all work together to point the way into our best service to God. As he began to discuss the factor of experience, he listed several different areas of positive experience - what we learned growing up, our strengths in education, effectiveness on the job, meaningful spiritual experience, and history of prior successful ministry. But then he came to the element of “painful experience.”
Once having mentioned pain, now all of the positive encouragement of all of the prior two chapters is set aside. Now, in contradistinction to all of that, he tells us that “your greatest [emphasis in the original] ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.” It will not come out of our greatest spiritual gifting. It will not come out of the greatest passion of our heart. It will not come out of our greatest ability. It will not come out of our greatest personality trait. It will not come out of our greatest experience. It will come, he insists, out of our greatest experience of pain. It will come out of our greatest hurt. All through discussion of his purpose number three - to become like Christ - Mr. Warren told us that the purpose of our whole lives was to prepare for our role in eternity by becoming like Christ. When he turned to discuss his fourth purpose - to serve others - he attempted to integrate these conflicting purposes by suggesting that, “Jesus taught that spiritual maturity is never an end it itself. Maturity is for ministry! We grow up in order to give out.” (p. 231) But now it is not our spiritual maturity, but our pain that equips us for ministry. “God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.” (p. 247) Is it not amazing how Evangelicals will stand on their heads and do back-flips syntactically in order to avoid saying that God causes us problems? “Intentionally allows” is oxymoronic. “Intentionally” is properly paired with what one causes or positively does, not with what one might merely “allow.” In the prior chapter, Mr. Warren confidently intoned that, “Not only did God shape you before your birth, he planned every day of your life to support his shaping process,” and that, “He would not give you abilities, interests, talents, gifts, personality and life experiences unless he intended to use them for his glory.” (p. 235) But when it comes to pain and hurt - the things that he now expects us to believe equip us for our greatest ministry - he cannot bring himself to say that God causes them. He must resort to grammatical gymnastics such as “intentionally allows.”
God “intentionally allows” us experiences of pain and hurt, Mr. Warren claims, because he wishes for us to “…understand a powerful truth: The very experiences that you have resented or regretted most in life - the ones you’ve wanted to hide and forget - are the experiences God wants to use to help others. They are your ministry!” (p. 247) Our pain is our ministry, he says. “People are always more encouraged when we share how God’s grace helped us in weakness than when we brag about our strengths,” he says. (p. 247) So much for, “God doesn’t waste abilities; he matches our calling and our capabilities.” (p. 244) Already, before the chapter is concluded, the tensions that necessarily must plague the sort of world that Mr. Warren hopes to create prompt one notion to dismantle another. He began discussion of his “SHAPE” scheme urging us to utilize our giftings and abilities to glorify God, and now he ends it by urging us instead to embrace our pain and hurt because God is more glorified in our weakness than in our strength. At this point we wonder why Mr. Warren did not spend these two chapters on “SHAPE” warning us that our giftings, abilities, and interests are distractions, that to emphasize them is only “bragging,” and that our real ministry is instead our pain and failure. We shall have occasion to elaborate on the dialectical tension of strength vs. weakness in commentary on the coming chapters.
posted by S. C. Mooney at 7:22 PM
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