I have been known to upset people by observations that I have made that I believe are absolutely spot on. I told an LWML group that I believed the joy they experienced in being in that particular LWML unit was the joy of complaining about all the other women who didn’t come to the meetings. I told people 20 years ago that the days were coming when people would not come to meetings an was laughed at and now it is a cultural phenomenon and we don’t know what to do. Preachers often try and establish the church in their own image and when others have different ideas there are problems. We marginalize ourselves and become insignificant. Here is Bonhoeffer again –
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.
