Why do we blame churches / ministries / ministry schools for the type of lives that their former members / associates / students go on to live?
Our cultural surroundings are often looking for someone to blame. What we need is someone to take responsibility, and that person is the one with the rest of their life ahead of them.
These organizations may have been lacking or errant in their contribution. They may have not been able to positively impact the trajectory of life, or may have actually had a negative impact. Are they, therefore, responsible for any bad decision or mistake yet to unfold?
Here's what I think we know from the scriptures:
I am responsible to God for the things done in my body…. others may have a share of responsibility, but any share they or others have, doesn't compare to the share that I have. God will look primarily at me for the sum of my life.
A lot of the ongoing foolishness and perpetuated darkness in people's lives continues because they are blaming someone else and thinking that at the end someone else will be responsible for how their lives turned out. This is deception and we need to do what we can to dispel it. I am not trying to say that those who hurt you are innocent. Those who hurt will have their share, their reckoning. But don't spend your life on that now. At the same time, in the end, you will stand before God for the sum of your life. If someone hurt you, God gave you a way to dispel the impact of this hurt. It is called forgiveness. Be free now, forgive.
God make us free from blame, and shame, and give us grace equal to the opportunity that lies before us in Your Kingdom.
funny thing this growing up stuff..I’ve observed something in myself that I’ve had to ‘adjust’ in terms of perspectives (namely, my own)..that being, when I find myself taking exception to organizations or affiliations that for one reason or another I don’t agree with, I have begun having a bit of a check in my spirit. When I began to prayerfully inquire, I found my own resentment and unforgiveness looking for somewhere to remain (righteously of course) within ..I found myself finding fault with these ‘entities’ based on my own limited experience or viewpoint when the real issue is human behaviour instead of some massive or broad institutional faux pas or worse, out and out ‘sin’. Why is it such a surprise to be brought up close and personal with the flaws, failings, and brokeness of our fellow neighbor’s conditions (no matter what our voiced intentions and hoped for goals may be)? Its one thing if someone seeks repeatedly to kid themselves (and others) in the name of Jesus; its something quite else to begin an in-depth conversation of grace and truth, championing redemption and humility, while remaining open to furthering relationship on the basis of real grace-filled interaction instead of our cultural mode of disposable, non-communicative methods of worldly relationships and being judgemental. And all the while the Lord remains so open and willing, in the face of our deliberate styles, to welcome, converse, consider and reason together this crazy little thing called love in the midst of all our ‘stuff’…and what manner of (men) folks ought we be in this hour?