"...but I was wanting to be present toward you now and to change the voice of me. I am at a loss in you."
-F2F. Face-to-face. Ministry is always done best in person, life-on-life. It is all about relationships, and relationships always function best when you are together with the other person(s). Immediacy, proximity - these are the secret sauce in a modern electronic age where advances in technology and the advent of things like first the telephone and then email and now text messaging and social media now conspire to make face-to-face practically obsolete. F2F has always been somewhat impractical, but now there is so much communication which can happen from a distance. In abstentia, in other words. It can be good for business - faster, more convenient. But consider the potential impact on relationships which would go deep and be meaningful and built on trust and understanding. So much of communication is non-verbal, and there are back stories and context and lines-to-color-in, warmth and passion and emotion to convey - these are things which cannot be imparted thru the cold vacuum of digital distance. They are always served up best face-to-face. And let’s be honest - face-to-face still is less convenient and far messier (at least it can appear that way). Way easier today to just shoot off a text or an email. You can even break up with someone on Facebook instead of having the difficult conversation face-to-face. But who are we kidding - meaningful relationship cannot happen in 140 characters or less. F2F vs FB? F2F wins hands down - if your goal is transformational relationship.
-So Paul wanted to be WITH them, these Galatian believers. He had questions for them, things to tell them, instructions and warnings and corrections to give, he wanted to be able to hear their side of things and have meaningful dialogue, to be able to carefully observe and lead by example and monitor progress. This is what you do with ones who have been entrusted to your care and tutelage. This is what you do with disciples. You spend time WITH them. This is the way of the Master, Emmanuel, God WITH us, the consummate Discipler of disciple-making disciples Himself. He chose people first that they would be WITH Him (Mark 3.14). Turns out this most-powerful life-changing little preposition is God's plan for saving the world. And let’s be honest, is this not the divine design of things (cf Luke 23.43; John 14.16-17, 17.24; Matthew 28.20; Psalm 36.9, 65.4)? Isn’t there no better place to be than WITH the Lord and with His people (Psalm 16.11, 27.4, 84.10, 133.1)? Is it not safe to suggest that absence in fact is not God’s plan A? Let's state that again for the record - absence is not God's plan A. Separation and isolation and alienation and hiding and distance (not to mention death, and goodbyes even?) - these all came in as a result of the fall (cf Genesis 3.8, 4.16, Jeremiah 2.13). We were designed and built for relationship, for community and fellowship, for sharing and meeting needs and building up one another - and in Christ we have been redesigned and are being rebuilt for abundantly more of the very same (Hebrews 10.24-25, Romans 14.19, Ephesians 4.12, 1Thessalonians 5.11). Doing good and sharing always go hand in hand with physical presence (Hebrews 13.16, 1Timothy 6.18, Ephesians 4.28) - this is our calling, truly this is God’s plan A. F2F. To be face to face with people. Doing life together, messy, dirty, trying and exasperating one another yes, but being real, exposing (and eliminating) our junk, encouraging and sharpening and building up one another into glorious temples of the Lord, wondrous shining manifestations of His breathtaking goodness helping a world adrift in a sea of darkness to find their way home to Him, to be with Him forever, just as He always intended. This was Paul’s heart for the Galatian believers, and he wanted, he knew he needed to be with them, face to face.
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