The importance of the role of the master craftsman

This is a synopsis of my arts study and links to each chapter which I will publish as I rewrite each section. I had written this originally about 20 years ago and have rewritten in several times over the years because I have changed and the world around me has changed. As I near the age where my children are off on their own and I am preparing for my eventual retirement hopefully another 20 years from now. I've decided to officially publish the book after rewriting it for a final time. I hope you will find a little bit of inspiration from my journey and will share your own in time.

Shaun McNicholas

The Purpose

An introduction ~ To my children. This idea has followed me all of my life in my struggle with my place in the movement of God. Why God created me the way he did, with the heart I have, with the skills and talents I have, with the mind and intellect I have, and then thrust me into the time and place I now find myself. I often feel alone and directionless, like someone wandering in the desert on an unknown journey to an unknown destination. What defines me as a success or failure? How does God want me to feel about my current point on the journey He created for me? Where do I fit in today’s church family?

Find Yourself in God’s Story – A brief summary of my main desire in writing this book and hope that others will find it helpful or useful. If this is the only chapter you read, I pray it changes your life, and your outlook on life within His church. Jesus could open the scroll of Isaiah to a specific sentence and point directly to it proclaiming, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:21 – Can you? I’ve come to believe that if you can in fact do this at least at this stage in your journey then you will be faithful until the end of your physical journey. Knowing why you’re here is key to making it through difficult times in your odyssey.

Discovering God

Discovering ~ God’s Heart – The Sanctuary – Intimacy, Quiet, Solitude, Worship, Friendship. God’s desire never was to have the leadership structure that we try so hard to build and live within… he only allowed it because we cried so hard to have someone to physically point at when we don’t like the way things are going. We don’t trust God enough to live only with Him, we still need some physical representation of authority to blame for our own lack of happiness. So God gave in to this need and changed the priorities as they are carried out to the community, the commands themselves didn’t change but I believe the priority did, and it was based on our human weaknesses and God’s understanding of them as demonstrated here at Mt. Sinai

Discovering ~ God’s Desire – The Tabernacle – Community and Structure – Utilize everyone’s talents. A truly healthy ministry is utilizing everyone’s talents and skills not just those few who desire to be teachers, preachers and elders. There isn’t much in the new testament about how to do this, because nothing new needed to be added in regard to how this should be accomplished. The plan is complete as it was written on the stone tablets. The new testament only needed to address those missing things about God’s heart in regard to the new command, “Love as Jesus Loved” John 13:34, 1 John 2:7-11, 2 John 1:4-9 Before Jesus’ sacrifice of dying in our place the old testament taught segregation from impurity, now we learn how to love through impurity and navigate the difficulty in how we are supposed to do that. Just like medicine has grown as our understanding of the way our bodies work. We no longer chop off limbs due to infection unless the infection is truly beyond curing and the amputation is necessary to save the entire body. But if all we focus on in our church families is teaching people how to love as Jesus Loved and we disregard the importance of the rest of the structure, then we are incomplete, and we aren’t living with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. God expresses Himself to us with what is described to us as three distinctly different faces, each having its own personality or relationship with us; if you are trying to build a healthy church community then your ministry should also follow this example.

Discovering ~ God’s Anger – The Golden Calf – Idolatry “All sin can be categorized as idolatry of some sort” Our understanding of why it is that we are so tempted by Sin and why it angers God with such intensity is important to understand if we are to truly learn how to be open about it and seek the healing we need from others. Looking at how Jesus dealt with sin in others is a critical study for anyone desiring to lead or teach others about God. Understanding again the trinity of faces that should be worn in regard to our responsibility in sharing truth with those around us. God gave us directions and it’s our responsibility to learn from Jesus how to deal with people the way God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost desires for us to reflect Him.

Discovering ~ God’s Plan – The Stone Tablets – The Epic Exodus Story – War and Peace – The Desert and the Promised Land and why in the world would God ask a primitive people to build a huge elaborate structure that would need to be assembled and torn down and re-assembled in the middle of the wilderness? Is God asking people to do pointless repetitive tasks for no real practical reason? Or does the story actually have a deeper spiritual point? Does the effort and monumental waste of time and resources actually have a deeper and more profound purpose to today’s ministry? The mysterious answer in the way the stone tablets were destroyed, recreated, and then re-delivered for all time… what was changed as a result of the Golden Calf?

Discovering Yourself

Discovering ~ Your calling – “What radically changed in me when I heard this calling” – Who is Bezalel and why was he so important for me? Jesus asked questions – he didn’t know everything until he learned everything, from the same scriptures we now possess in the palms of our hands, and in hundreds of translations interpretations and commentaries. Perhaps God wants all of us to travel through the same journey that Jesus did and discover ourselves and our role in the same manner. God just keeps calling to you, are you going to listen?

Discovering ~ Your Role – Is the church community you are part of at war or peace? Are you a warrior, a craftsman, a teacher or a shepherd? Look at many different stories in scripture that describe how people found or were found so that they could fulfill a specific role in God’s eternal plan. The way God does things hasn’t changed… He’s still doing this today. So, what is your story? Have you heard him call your name? I Have! It’s a life altering experience…

In Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus tells a parable illustrating the way that God has distributed the resources necessary for your participation in creating the sanctuary. He describes God the Father as a man going away on a journey who leaves the care of His property to us His servant children. Has He entrusted you with five bags of precious materials, two bags or just one? And what have you done with His resources? He will return and ask you to give an accounting of your management of His energy and resources.

Discovering ~ Your (Many)Cross(es) – Crucifying everything selfish in your heart and soul so that what God put in you can shine as brightly as it was intended when God crafted you. Before you were made, He knew you, and He determined the exact time and place for your birth, so that… Acts 17:24 tragedy is part of everyone’s story I will share a few of mine in the hope that it will help you to face yours. Death, Loss, Weakness, Grief “While Jesus’ sadness was apparent in the garden and He expressed it clearly on many occasions, the scriptures still say it was for the Joy set before Him that He endured all of it… Sadness and Grief are not weakness or sin and emotions must be expressed to prevent them from fermenting into much more destructive sin.

Discovering ~ Grace – Dealing with the crowds, the noise, the needs, and allowing God to be God while you remain just a man (or woman) acutely aware of your weakness and yet somehow stronger than you have ever been, able to do immeasurably more than you ever thought possible.

Rediscover “The Church” – “The Kingdom of God” – “The Family you were really hoping would be found in your local church” – in the context of this study, look at the teachings of Jesus through the lens of Moses’ radiant face. God doesn’t change; therefore, His word doesn’t change, but after your initial radiance, over time, the brightness fades in yourself and your opinion of your church family. The scriptures are living and breathing Life. Your perception of what the Word says to you at each step of your life changes not because the Word changed, but because you did. What you are experiencing is seen through the filter of your own life and experiences.  Just as a newly wedded couple and an older married couple differ in their enthusiasm in greeting each other every day when they come home, so our relationship with this very broken and very flawed family of believers changes over time. The desire didn’t change for you or for your bride, but familiarity and comfort make it difficult to maintain our gratitude as we learn just how fallen and broken our partners really are. Our Love doesn’t change, but the way we express that Love should, and does over time.

The Sanctuary as an idea instituted by God had the purpose of maintaining a level of intimacy between us and God in much the same way as date night for married couples, celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries and family vacations. A way of reconnecting, remembering, mourning and celebrating all the life that has previously been experienced. The quality of your intimacy between yourself and God and the family environment you create between yourself, and your church family is in direct proportion to your personal investment. God created the process by which this happens by instituting the tent construction process enabling you to fully utilize your gifts to build up your portion of the sanctuary. What are you doing with your “bag of gold”?