What Does Kairos Mean?
They say timing is everything.
Sometimes we carry a vision for years before we see it come to
fruition. It was that way with Kairos Ministries, Inc. Our
ministry name, Kairos, has the connotation of timing in the
Divine sense.
The word Chronos deals with
quantitative time. It’s clock and calendar oriented. Measurable.
Time we humans understand intellectually. We get our English
word chronological from it.
Kairos is quite different.
It’s qualitative time. Can’t be measured — it’s mysterious. It
carries the sense of being the “opportune moment.” In a sense we
could say Kairos is God’s kind of time.
|
Kairos (Gk. right or opportune
moment): Fullness of time; the propitious moment for
the performance of an action or the coming into
being of a new state
(Oxford
English Dictionary). |
What’s In A Name?
Even as we were forming the
ministry in 1999, a Kairos moment occurred. We were
busy assembling our registration materials to incorporate the
ministry (under a different name we had planned), and paused to
read an article in Charisma magazine. We saw the word Kairos,
and suddenly we sensed that was the right name for this
ministry.
Kairos. The opportune time. The
right activity happening at the right moment. When circumstances
of life come together. When the right events have taken place.
When people are ready. When things line up in a way that the
right result can happen. Then it’s Kairos time. Before
then (in chronos time) the activity cannot be
accomplished.
God’s Time
When the Lord has set in motion the
right events in the world … established the idea in the hearts
of the people involved … moved in the spiritual world so His
will can be accomplished … then it’s Kairos time. A
confluence of circumstances, ideas, changes in people, merging
of events — a melding together of all the elements that make up
the totality of a situation.
What we do is simply be available.
Sensitive to God’s Spirit. We create the right atmosphere.
Establish an acceptable environment. Open hearts. When something
happens, it seems like the right time (chronos). However,
what really occurs is a Kairos moment. Everything is
ready. God acts. |
