The day started off wet 
, but brightened up a little later. Everyone was tired, and happy to have a day of rest. Mike and I spent time talking about a variety of topics, from our personalities and our wives to church, callings, spiritual gifts, passions…
We discovered that our views on church, callings and spiritual gifts are similar. He sees the family – actually, a couple – as the basic expression of church. See my coming entry about house church/simple church for more on that. (But what about singles?) He wanted to know what I or others see as my spiritual gifts or calling, which I am not going to mention here. However, he believes that as we become more like Jesus, we also become more able to express all of the callings (apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and evangelist), because Jesus also expressed them all. That is an interesting and plausible idea, but I’m not sure that I have seen it actually happen.
One of his convictions is that if Christ lives in us, then his particular calling for us is the thing about which we are most passionate. Many of us have lost our passion – I have. There are a number of things which I recognise as good and worth doing, but I would not describe myself as passionate about them. Mike wants to use our time to help me discover my passion. I have nothing against that!
Mike is also in the process of reorganising his web site, and is looking for some input about the technical and organisational issues he needs to address. I’m here at just the right time for him.