Thursday, November 23, 2017

Straight Talking

People ask me whether it is difficult to talk to people about their sins as a minister. The answer is no, not at all. If they know that you are on their side, you can say anything. In my experience, it is one in a hundred who will take offence. OBSERVATION: Wife E points out that such "straight talk" tends to be the reserve of a minister -- and in her culture, of the elders, too -- but in my culture, she says, we have generally lost that. In my experience, the one in a hundred tend to be those who are oppositional to begin with, or those who suffer what in Afrikaans is called skaamkwaad -- anger born of shame. Also, I probably exclude sins against the Church. Those are harder.

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