Prophets Must Use Approved Channels
(short version)

Based on Numbers 11:24-30 – The Spirit rests on Eldad and Medad outside the authorised gathering, yet they prophesy.

The message was still climbing when the call came through, less than ten minutes after I had posted it. I watched the numbers rise; reactions, comments, shares, all the small digital signals that something had landed harder than expected. It hadn’t been a statement, not really. Just a question. That was what made it dangerous. Questions slipped past defences more easily than accusations.

Where are they?

The photo beneath it showed everything it was meant to show. Hundreds gathered, different languages woven together, hands raised under a banner that promised unity. It looked convincing, almost complete. That was the problem. It looked complete, but it wasn’t. One of the oldest communities was missing. Not small, not forgotten, not hidden. Just absent, as though the space they once filled had been quietly edited out.

The first call came from a private number. The voice on the other end was calm, careful, the kind of calm that comes from practice rather than peace. The concern wasn’t whether the question was true; it was whether it was appropriate. Responsibility, I was told, mattered more than visibility. There were places for these things to be discussed, proper channels that ensured clarity without confusion. Public space, I was reminded, was not one of them.

I sat back, still looking at the image on my screen, and felt the familiar disconnect settle in. The service had been public. The message had been public. Even the absence was public, if anyone cared to notice it. But naming it out loud had somehow crossed a line that no one could quite define, only enforce.

Continue reading the full story here.

Prophets Must Use Approved Channels

Based on Numbers 11:24-30 – The Spirit rests on Eldad and Medad outside the authorised gathering, yet they prophesy.

The message was still climbing when the call came through, less than ten minutes after I had posted it. I watched the numbers rise; reactions, comments, shares, all the small digital signals that something had landed harder than expected. It hadn’t been a statement, not really. Just a question. That was what made it dangerous. Questions slipped past defences more easily than accusations.

Where are they?

The photo beneath it showed everything it was meant to show. Hundreds gathered, different languages woven together, hands raised under a banner that promised unity. It looked convincing, almost complete. That was the problem. It looked complete, but it wasn’t. One of the oldest communities was missing. Not small, not forgotten, not hidden. Just absent, as though the space they once filled had been quietly edited out.

The first call came from a private number. The voice on the other end was calm, careful, the kind of calm that comes from practice rather than peace. The concern wasn’t whether the question was true; it was whether it was appropriate. Responsibility, I was told, mattered more than visibility. There were places for these things to be discussed, proper channels that ensured clarity without confusion. Public space, I was reminded, was not one of them.

I sat back, still looking at the image on my screen, and felt the familiar disconnect settle in. The service had been public. The message had been public. Even the absence was public, if anyone cared to notice it. But naming it out loud had somehow crossed a line that no one could quite define, only enforce.

More messages followed, this time with names attached. People I trusted. People who had once encouraged me to ask better questions. Their tone was softer, but the direction was the same. It might be worth removing the post. It could create unnecessary confusion. There were processes in place, conversations already happening, spaces where these matters were being handled with care. I knew those spaces. I had sat in those rooms. Things entered them clearly and left them… quieter.

I typed a response and deleted it. Typed again. Deleted again. The banner in the photo stretched across the stage in bright, deliberate colours, words repeated often enough to feel permanent. Unity. Belonging. Diversity. They looked less like aspirations and more like conclusions. As though saying them often enough had made them true.

The comments began to divide. Some cautious, some quietly affirming, a few already pulling back, as though proximity to the question might implicate them. The post had moved beyond my control now, carried into other groups, other conversations, other eyes. That was when the second call came through, and the tone had shifted. Not harsher, just firmer. The issue was no longer the question itself, but the way it was travelling. Things were spreading. That word lingered.

Spreading.

As though the problem was not the absence but its visibility.

By the time the calls stopped, the messages had taken over. One stood out from the rest, not because of who sent it, but because there was nothing attached to it. No name I recognised, no history, just a blank profile and a single sentence.

We’re not missing. We left.

I opened the account and found almost nothing. A few scattered traces, a single photo taken at night; a group standing in a loose circle, faces blurred by motion or intention. No explanation. No context. Just presence without recognition.

I replied before I had time to consider whether I should.

Why?

The answer came quickly, as though it had been waiting.

You already know.

I sat there longer than I meant to, staring at the screen, replaying conversations I had heard, statements I had agreed with, sermons that had named gaps without ever naming names. I thought about the times I had sat in those quiet rooms, watching concerns be acknowledged, redirected, absorbed. Nothing denied. Nothing was resolved in a way that changed anything visible.

My phone lit up again. A message from leadership, measured and precise. The absence would be acknowledged. Not ignored, not denied. A statement would be made. But it needed to come from the right place, at the right time, in the right way. This time, they said. The words sat heavily, as though they carried more meaning than they were willing to explain.

This time.

I looked back at the photo again, then at the message beneath it, then at the one that had appeared without a name. Inside the frame, everything was ordered, accounted for, carefully held together. Outside it, something less certain was taking shape. Unstructured, unapproved, impossible to contain.

Alive, maybe. Or unstable. It was hard to tell the difference from a distance.

I hovered over the post, my thumb resting between options that all felt like decisions I didn’t fully understand. Remove it, and the question would disappear from sight, folded back into the places where things could be managed. Leave it, and it would continue to move, beyond me, beyond anyone who claimed to oversee it.

Another message appeared, quieter this time, almost conciliatory. The situation was being handled. There was no need to escalate. Trust the process. The words were familiar, comforting even, in the way well-worn phrases often are. They had held things together before. They would hold things together again.

For a moment, that felt like enough.

Then I looked again at the empty space in the photo, the place where something should have been and wasn’t, and at the message that refused to stay quiet.

We’re not missing. We left.

Inside, everything remained intact.

Outside, something had already begun.

I wasn’t sure which one was closer to the truth, or which one would last.