S05E097, We Don't Want No Grey Areas, Andy B 2 Minute Video
I’ve worked alongside, or under, some great leaders in churches and in businesses, and voluntary organisations. And, sadly, I’ve also served around people who love to use their position to bully others and, the most successful approach I’ve seen to achieve this, is through creating grey areas of information and knowledge.
Think about the last half dozen big names in the Christian world who ended up failing either morally or criminally and you’ll encounter people who were allowed to create grey areas around them: grey areas allow us to operate without accountability and that always ends badly. Because grey areas, ultimately, simply allow us to manipulate others in to doing what we want.
Put simply, grey areas are not healthy for anybody, and for churches least of all, because they can never promote healthy and righteous flexibility!
A classic grey area I’ve come up against is when someone asks when children should return to the adult church service. The response is, invariably, we’ll let you know when we’re ready. That’s a grey areas right there, and I can state that it does not need to be. God is big enough to coordinate the reconnection of His people, when they have gathered to worship Him.
Let us never allow ourselves – or others – to create grey areas that deny the opportunity for either accountability or transparency.
Just a thought...
Andy B
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Transcript
[00:00:00] So another Andy B two minute video and I've titled this one, slightly tongue in cheek, so We Don't Want No Grey Areas. What's that about?
[00:00:15] If you've ever worked in a situation, or volunteered in a situation, or maybe part of a church, part of an organization, you may find that certain individuals love the gray areas.
[00:00:26] What are we talking about? Well, usually those in leadership. They like you to be left slightly out of the loop, in order for you to be more flexibly used, so they can get what they want. It's not a good thing, it's not a positive thing.
[00:00:38] It's quite an evil thing actually, when you think about it! Because we don't like, we don't like grey areas because in those grey areas people can do what they like. And that's not good because boundaries are healthy, and they are really rational and very, very appropriate for all of us.
[00:00:53] Let me just flick to Proverbs 29, 15. I'm reading out the New Living Translation, which words this wonderfully.
[00:00:59] To [00:01:00] discipline. A child produces wisdom, but a mother is disgraced by an undisciplined child.
[00:01:06] What are we talking about here? Well we're talking about boundaries. We're talking about the idea of discipline.
[00:01:11] I remember not that many years ago wearing 2023, maybe 2010 or something like that. There was a police officer who said, it's so tragic, the first time I meet someone, he said, it's usually with a pair of handcuffs and I'm the first person to say to that child, No, you are not allowed to do that.
[00:01:27] How tragic, how broken a society are we where parents are not teaching their children the value of the safest word in the English language? No! It's such a basic word. It's two letters long. And it's wonderful liberating.
[00:01:42] Why? Because when we say no to something, we can say yes to something else. That's what I say a lot of the time. If you find yourself being pulled in all sorts of directions and you're busy and you can't cope, the power of the word no is wonderful because it liberates you and releases somebody else. and it allows another individual to get involved and do something. Not quite talking about that [00:02:00] today.
[00:02:00] I'm talking about boundaries and children because we live in a society where, in France, as I'm recording this, we've got riots because a, a child has been shot. It's terrible, it's traumatic. They've got some clear issues in their society.
[00:02:13] But what happens? The young people go out and they loot the stores. It's got nothing to do with social justice, it's to do with selfishness, and stealing, and theft, and anarchy. I'm praying for France to deal with this!
[00:02:26] Learn the value of the word no. Teach your children the value of the word no. And if you are in a church and you haven't got children, you still need to help children understand the word no, gently, for boundaries, because what happens with boundaries? We've got something appropriate, righteous and healthy to push against, and it helps us to grow.
[00:02:47] Learn to say no!
[00:02:48] Just a thought.
Andy B, 05/07/2023