Of Coyotes & Wolves

The last couple of mornings we have been awakened by the howls of a pack of coyotes in the creek-bottoms behind our house. Sometimes we hear them in the distance, but recently they have been coming quite close. It's a good reminder that we live in an environment surrounded by predators which would like to have an up close and personal relationship with our poultry.

We really don't need much of a reminder because we have already lost a number of guinea fowl and chickens... as well as one duck... to things that go bump in the night.  Now we make the extra effort to make sure all the poultry spend the nights inside their safe little homes that we have built for them, but for a while we had allowed them to sleep outside... and that was just what the predators had ordered!

It was too difficult to get the ducks back in their little house... they didn't want to go in, and they seemed to really appreciate the freedom to sleep out under the stars in our front yard. The guinea fowl had also started to decline our invitation to sleep in a nice safe place with the chickens, and they were roosting up in a tree.  There seemed little that we could do to change their minds, so we left them in peace...

It took the loss of a duck and five guinea fowl to night time predators to make us realize we had to do something. It wasn't going to be easy, and it wouldn't make our poultry happy... but we could no longer compromise on their safety. They had to sleep indoors at night, or there would not be any left to carry on the family name! The last several weeks we have been more insistent, and have come up with ways that keep our flock safe at night. We are also sleeping easy as a result, even when the coyotes wail nearby!

There are some churches, ministries and missions who compromise on specific issues to make their flock; their missionaries; or those they are trying to reach, more comfortable and content. Compromises of over-contextualization, over-conformity to host cultures and religions, and even adding to and taking away from the very Word of God when doing so-called translations, are happening in churches & missions that we think of as conservative, Bible believing and teaching ministries. These compromises go way beyond conformity of dress or diet, and as a result leave those impacted in actual danger of their spiritual lives when the predators come out to feast.

Paul, in his farewell speech to the elders of the church in Ephesus hammered the dangers of compromise home. He reminded them:   "For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them." This challenge to these men of God that Paul had invested so much time with is a sobering reminder to us that the very same thing can happen today. How much worse will the impact be if we compromise on the essentials of our faith that keep us and others safe in His care.