Church

Jonathan, you make an interesting point. Why do we work so hard at making church? Is there another way? Or has our culture pinned us in a corner concerning church life? Have we gone blindly along and apathetically accepted the established church that has been doled out to us?

I recently learned of a family that left such a church (it was a very good church, one not unlike many of today's Christian churches) and simply started meeting with other families who had also grown weary of the business that church had become. Their new "church" now fits seamlessly into their lives; it is no longer an event for which they take time off of life to participate in. They don't have to work at it. No production, no upkeep, no board meetings, no payroll, no advertising.

Church has become an ingrained part of their life and their life has become the church. Church no longer is the place where they go to fellowship. That happens throughout the week. Church isn't where they go to evangelize or where they bring their friends to get them saved or where they drop off their kids to get them to behave better. That all happens during the course of their everyday lives. Church oozes out of them during the regular hours of their lives and not just during the posted services.

This concept of church-life has many interesting repercussions. For starters, many lives are freed up from the traps of "ministry". So many kind-hearted Christians get pulled into service-oriented ministries in order to prop up their establishment-churches. But when the church is your life there is no need for any of those ministry positions. Every life is a ministry to others when you enter into church-life. You don't need youth ministers; every adult parent in your group naturally becomes one. You don't need a helps ministry; needs are cared for when they are seen by those in your fellowship. You don't even need a pastor as the church defines one. When every person in the fellowship digs into the Word daily the wisdom of God will be ever-present. It is amazing what leadership (and where He will bring it from) God can bring into a fellowship that enters into church-life.

All those servants who struggle under the weight of the establishment are now able to simply carry Jesus' yoke, which is much lighter than man's. Their hearts will still want to serve and they will. But I venture to think that their service for the Kingdom will have a greater and wider reach than the doors of their church building. Their service will travel further than their boards or elders could envision. They will enter into real life; the kind of life Jesus disgusted so many by getting knee deep into.

But the greatest blessing that church-life will bring is its impact on the world. The heaviest charge brought against the church is its hypocrisy. And the church is guilty. Church-life, however, is a Jesus-inspired movement into true spirituality.

Can a change occur that will rock the foundations of Christendom? I hope for it but doubt it. Love has grown cold in the churches of the world and a great apostasy is in full swing.

Can a change occur in you and me? I think it should. I pray it will.

Yell

Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.

This little verse hides an immense secret. Here's the secret: God does not want me to yell. Now it's not a secret. Now I know. I should not be yelling. No yelling at my kids or any kids. No yelling at my coworkers. No yelling at my wife. No yelling behind closed doors. No yelling in public. No yelling...ever. And the words we speak should not be harsh, negative, mean, or noisy. hmmmm...

Prayer

I spent the afternoon praying.

After lunch, I came home and took a shower and prayed all afternoon. I prayed until dinner. It was wonderful.

I prayed for everyone I could think of and every thought that came to mind. I asked Jesus question after question and His peace flowed through my body. I loved it.

No wonder Jesus kept trying to get away!

It's one of those things that, even if I did it for a long time, I don't mind doing it again. The only reason I stopped was because of meeting I had scheduled.

Now I know that God didn't call me to spend every afternoon praying the way I did. Tomorrow, I'll be so busy, I will have to pray as I go. Such are church days.

Sometimes I wonder if church is supposed to be so much work. We work so hard to put on church for the people that come, and I wonder if that's what Jesus had in mind when He talked of the church.

I don't want to say that what we're doing is wrong. I firmly believe that the men who are running the church I'm apart of fully believe they are following the Lord's leading with every decision they make.

I recognize my questions as questions of youth and although I'm to old to blindly make foolish accusations and call for change, I would still like to understand how things got the way they are and why they should stay that way.

I'm all for change as long as it's a good change. I just spend a lot of time in meetings and doing things that I don't see the benefit in doing. But I'm still young...ish and I know it. So I'll keep doing things in faith that they have a purpose that I don't know about yet.

And I will continue to pray that God deliver me from what is useless.

What is love...?

Going to the grocery store at 11:00 at night to buy chicken fried rice stuff to make said meal for your son's class for lunch (they read Mulan this week)...then staying up even later to cook the rice and chicken; supposedly it tastes better when the chicken and rice are precooked and then stir-fried cold. We will see in the morning. The house does smell good tonight though.