Church

I dreamed a dream

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I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go fill in one more blank on my sermon notes. I couldn’t listen to one more sermon. Not this Sunday. I felt full to the brim of being edified, pumped up, praised up. I thought……what if. What if I devoted that hour to going out and asking God who He wanted me to help that day. Who he wanted me to pray for.

What if I gave Him full permission, power, control. What if I gave Him his authority, his Lordship. His rightful place in my life. I wonder how different my walk with Him would look?

I dreamed of  what would happen if I stopped doing church and took the church out to the world. I dreamed of thousands of people spilling out onto the streets.  Churches set up in parks feeding the homeless, and places where the lost and lonely gather.

I dreamed a dream of empty pews.

And then I dreamed of people streaming back into church with new purpose. Remembering why they were there. I dreamed that churches would look more like hospitals and a place where you could always feel welcomed, loved, accepted.

I remembered how Jesus sent them out two by two. I imagine how excited they all must have been, buoyed up by a fresh dose of Holy Spirit power, looking forward to doing and seeing wondrous things, miracles.  I wondered at Jesus’ timing when after he got done instructing them He added this dire footnote:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

“Wow, Lord…..I can’t wait to go now!” Jesus can be a little scary. And honestly? A bit of a wet blanket at times. But He’s also never boring. Following Jesus is anything but boring. And follow is just what He asks of us. No matter where that road leads.

There’s a time for everything in its season, and sometimes you need to go to church and be built back up after the world has used you for its punching bag, I know,  I’ve been there. There is a time for being mended, and I have had holes in my heart mended in church more times than I can count. But then I get comfortable. I get complacent. And I sense Jesus tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Now that I have mended you, go mend someone else.”

Sometimes the best way to stay afloat yourself is by helping someone else.

I think if the gospels and Jesus are not just a little disturbing then I wonder if you have really grasped the full message. If Jesus is not just a little unsettling then I wonder if I really know what he requires of me. Follow Me. Follow me even though you are afraid of where I might take you. 

That is scary for a clinging to the side of the pool person like me.

But Jesus is a God of His word. He said He’d never leave me and I believe Him. And in a way, I am thankful for my fear for it keeps me close to Him.

I dreamed a dream. But I think it may happen.

I have been reading about what it really means to follow Jesus in the book Follow Me by David Platt. I highly recommend it. Not very comfortable reading but sometimes we need that.

Follow Me

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“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

“We’ve all made our mistakes, and dwelling in the past can destroy us. The solution is to make the most of the time we have left on this earth.” Francis Chan

For the Christian, how should that look? What does making the most of the time mean in the context of what Jesus requires of us? David Platt answers these questions by holding a light up to what the Bible (and Jesus) actually say. Sometimes it is painful to stare hard into the light of the truth of Scripture. It’s much easier to accept what many of our modern churches tell us.

“All you have to do is repeat this prayer after me.”

Jesus said we needed to lose our life in order to save it.

“Just believe in your heart, and you will be saved.”

Jesus said we needed to pick up our cross and follow him.

I checked this book out at the library, but I am turning it in and buying a copy on Amazon instead. I am already wanting to get out my highlighter and mark it up. And I am only on page 18.

That’s about all I have to say today, but I am sure as I delve into this book I will have much more…….

How we carry the church wherever we go

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The One who breaks open the way will go up before them;
    they will break through the gate and go out.
Their King will pass through before them,
    the Lord at their head.” Micah 2:13

I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to buy yet another book that chronicled the failings of the American church. Maybe I am tired of being scolded. On my shelf I have Crazy Love by Francis Chan, Confronting Casual Christianity by Charles Stanley, Radical by David Platt, Hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns, and Classic Christianity by Bob George. The ones I read had some very good points which I couldn’t argue with. Sometimes the truth hurts.

I recently picked up Follow Me, another by David Platt. I have yet to crack the cover, but I am going to do so this week.

There is a reason these books resonate, have rocketed to the best seller charts. In every generation, God brings voices out of the wilderness. To challenge. To wake up. To engage. I have been reading Amos and Micah and I have been moved with their words, their anguish for a lost people. We need people to help us find our way back. There is a reason African missionaries are training to come over here.

Whom God loves, he chastens. God loves His church because He loves us.

The church is not a building. The church is living and breathing in you and me and everywhere we go we carry it with us. Yesterday we went to downtown Phoenix and on the way, on the lightrail, we went through areas where the poorest of the poor live. I pointed out the window and told Elaine, “That’s where the church should be, that’s where Jesus would be if he were here.”

Outside the window there was a man wearing a very offensive T-shirt. I said, “Isn’t that against some kind of law?” She said, “No, not anymore.” I won’t even repeat what it said. It was disgusting. And then I said, “God loves him too.” A part of me, a really big part of me, wanted a huge guy to approach him and confront him about his shirt, put him in his place. Tell him that he shouldn’t wear that around women and children. It’s hard to love people like that. But love is what we are called to do.

I will crack the cover of this book and I will be open to the message, be open to the truth, even if it hurts because it is probably something I need to hear.

All over the world and right here in America too, the Holy Spirit is moving. The church is moving, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. God said that.

Just last night we sat at an outdoor cafe. There on the sidewalk about 10 yards away stood a young homeless man with his dog. He was dirty with matted hair, and skinny. As we ate our food he kept convicting us. I thought, how could someone so young end up like that? A woman pulled up in a car as we watched and began unloading things from her trunk. She gave the dog some food, and him a sandwich. Elaine said, “Bless her heart.” She got up and approached the woman with some money to help out. She said, “Give it to him.” So she did.

There might be a chance that they are a team, working together. Unfortunately there are many scams artists around. But it really doesn’t matter.

You give when the Spirit directs and after that, He does the blessing.

I will keep listening to Micah and Amos, because we still need their wisdom and warning. They voices work just as well today.

Am I welcome here?

Love one another

Yesterday in church, Pastor Kevin related a story. A woman came to him asking questions about our church, she was confused. She had been visiting a few different churches in the area. On Easter, she had been one of the 967 people to walk “through the arch” and give her life to Christ.  She wanted to get baptised but she had some questions. She related an experience she recently had at another church she was thinking of attending. She saw that they needed help in the Children’s ministry so she went to volunteer. She was told that she would have to change her attire, “If you come back in a skirt,” they said.

Kevin described her clothing as “urban.” In her own words she says: “I dress like I am from the hood.” That included a few tattoos and piercings. She asked, “Would I have to change my clothes to get baptized?”

Am I welcome here just the way I am?

She also asked that same church for help moving but once they found out she was living with her boyfriend they said, “As long as you are living with him, we can’t help you.”

The door slammed the second time and the message was clear; make yourself and your life presentable first, then we can help.

She was justified in having some concerns and questions and I am very happy to say that Pastor Kevin assured her that she was indeed welcome just the way she was. That’s why I attend the church I do. But clearly, it seems some churches are handing out a different message that the one Jesus handed out. What they are asking for, God doesn’t even ask. Jesus asks us to simply come.

His grace extends to everyone but without Him it is impossible to change.

There is no effective or lasting change without Jesus coming first. It is not even possible to be sanctified without the work of the Holy Spirit, but it seems some churches are asking for the impossible. In effect, they are saying that anyone is welcome, but only as long as they clean up at the door. Until churches change that type of thinking, lives will remain untouched, unchanged. We will still have dead congregations that are still thinking they can make themselves acceptable without Jesus.

God wants to reach everyone. It doesn’t matter what we have or what we don’t have, what our background is, or what may be buried in our past. I like how Pastor Kevin said it. Instead of thinking, “What’s in it for me, we need to be asking how can I be more like God in this situation?”

Not what can I get out of today, but how can I show His love today?

Linking up with Michelle today at the Hear it on Sunday Community.

Confession


A few years back the Pastor of the church I was attending was giving a message on confession. In the sanctuary strategically placed were four huge wooden crosses. I didn’t pay them much attention figuring that they must be part of the set for the upcoming Easter celebration. At one point during the sermon we were told that if we had anything that we needed to confess to God, anything at all, we should write it down on a small piece of paper. “By the cross,” he said, “you will find a hammer, just nail your confession to the cross and leave it with Jesus.” People started going forward with their scraps of paper. At first there was some tentative tapping from the first few. A little ping here, a gentle tap there. As it went on though, the tapping turned into what sounded more like angry pounding. It began to sound like a construction site as the hammer blows echoed off the walls!

It was there that my very strange sense of humor betrayed me and I let out a muffled giggle. I was instantly elbowed. I couldn’t help it. I was positive I was going to hear an electric drill fire up next. Maybe it was nervous laughter. After the service I found out that some people were extremely moved to tears as they heard the pounding of the nails and were relieved of their burden. The next Sunday the crosses were still there, the confessions plastered all over them. I suppressed a morbid urge to go up and read them. Is it because I want to know that others struggle with the same things I struggle with?

With all church practices, we need to go to the Bible to get our rules about Christian conduct, for that is our “rule book” per se. So I did. I came up with 53 references in the New Testament and 51 references in the Old Testament, right off the bat.

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16

So according to Scripture and all the references I found, it would seem that God cares a great deal about confession, both confession to Him and one another. What is it about confession that is SO difficult? We try to stuff it down and it just gets bigger, like a self inflatable mattress in our soul. We think maybe we will ignore it. It takes on a life of it’s own and begins to affect everything else in our lives.

It used to be a common practice to stand in front of the entire church body and confess. Could we even imagine that happening now?

Satan knows that confession makes us free and he will try to do everything he can to keep us from unloading our burdens. He whispers all kinds of scary scenarios to us to keep us from being free. He wants us to think we can fight the battle alone in isolation. Confession is the beginning of restoration, and there are times we need to confess to God, and there are times we need to confess to one another. There is tremendous power in it!

I confess with tears today:

Forgive me Lord for lying.
I tossed out what I thought was a
harmless lie, but I know that no lie
is truly harmless, it hurts You and it
hurts me and the one I lied to.

When I told that man that I would look
at his petition at the library “on the way
out” I knew that I had no intention of
stopping. Why didn’t I just say I was
not interested?

Forgive me also Lord for wondering why
certain individuals are still on the
earth.

Who made me God? What makes me think that
my days are any more important than theirs?
You number all of our days, Lord. You hold
them all in Your hand. If they are still
living, breathing, then there must be a
reason, for it is by Your great mercy
that we all still live.

Their time is no less precious than mine.

Help my heart be open to see and address
needs of others in my path….

In Jesus name, Amen

Ezekiel 11:19 “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh….