The Curse of the word 'Should'

Our Kingdom Vision is big: we know that in God's Kingdom there is release, healing, transformation ... and we can see an ocean of need around us. This means there are many possibilities for good Kingdom activity around us.

Yet we have limited capacity, and thus churches (collections of people) have limited capacity. Now of course God can supernaturally extend our capacity - He can do 'immeasurably more' (Ephesians 3:20)! But discernment of what God is calling an individual (or a group) to do is needed - God has Kingdom plans and wants us to join in. However we tend to bring our own priorities and agendas to this dynamic, and often we let this stand as higher importance than genuine discernment. This is often betrayed by sentences based on the word 'should'!

"The church should be doing ministry X", said Y to a membership of the church leadership team.

The 'should' implies mandatory. It suggests that if we are not doing it, then we are somehow defective, not meeting the grade, falling short of what God wants for us.

But in many many cases, it is based on opinion rather than discernment!

Personally I have come to see the presence of the word 'should' in our language as a kind of curse ... because it so often represents a projection of someone's opinions or self-determined priorities onto another (or onto a group).

So I am doing my best to avoid using the word 'should'. That doesn't mean we can't suggest or recommend things though, we just have to find alternatives ...

• If we as church were able to do ministry X, it could bring benefits A, B and C
• There is a gap that potentially makes ministry X relevant for us
• Giving attention (or capacity) to X has its merits
• God seems to be laying on my heart the whole idea of ministry X
  

The above presents the possibilities, be they well informed & reasoned possibilities, just hunches, or random thinking. They do not project requirement onto anyone, leaving the space open for individuals, groups or even the whole church to seek God to discern His wisdom and call: where might God wish us to allocate our capacity, where might God extend our capacity supernaturally? The word 'should' projects requirement, alternatives invite us to seek God!

Let's not be slaves beaten into submission by the word 'should', and instead constantly return to Him for discernment, and encourage others to do similarly.