This just keeps coming back to me. We come and get filled up with encouragement...then we go and sit on our back sides all week doing nothing for the Kingdom. Then we go back to do "Church" again and get our tanks filled up.
How did we get to this point? Is it just me? We "do" Church but we have forgotten what it looks like to "be" the Church. I am as guilty as anyone.

The Church that you and I have grown up with is a filling station type of Church. I can't remember where I heard that discription from but I think it fits perfectly(maybe it was Tenney or McManus).

It is hard to break old habits and old ways of thinking. The Church of our grandparents isn't going to meet the needs of future generations. Who are we kidding, it isn't meeting the needs of this generation. However, the God of our grandparents can...but the methods we use to meet their needs with the hands of Christ need to take a radical turn.

To check out a great picture of what that might look like check out Eric's Blog

Like I have said before...I don't have all the answers, I just want to be a part of the solution and not the perpetuation of the problem. I want to quit doing and start being. Doing church takes so much energy when you are a person that has to put it all together, but being the Church is much more real for the world around us.
For instance...I am worrying right now about the "order of service" for this Sunday instead of what I can do to help serve others.

It is like we are having a 21 point lube and service done on us in the Church with coffee and a doughnut while we wait.

Sometimes I just want to break out!!!! Give me something new something fresh. Give me something I could invite friends to and not be worried about the pharasees pointing out their sin for all to see. Someplace where the conversation is real and not ruled by religious rhetoric. But I know not everyone holds my view...

In the mean time I will just keep dreaming and letting the Lord shape my ideas on the future of His body alive through us on this earth.

How as a worship leader do you keep yourself from entering a state total dependence on music for worship. We don't need music to worship God, but most people equate the two. They think that music is worship.

This is one major area of reformation in which the church needs to reconstruct a "worship service" to include worship of many forms. The other areas of the arts and creativity are gifts of God that can be lifted back up to Him in praise and honor just as music is. We need to be creative in our attempts to show Him how much he means to us in the same way we were creative when we were courting our spouse so she would know we were serious about our love.

Maybe our Sunday morning times together should be a time of refreshing and corporate worship to be followed by a missional, deliberate, and focused time of ministering to the needs of those in the community. A way to live out our worship in a real and obvious way.

Just thinking

Wow! only 5 days since my last post.

McManus calls the church to be "a refuge for the world, not from it."

I am really not sure what that looks like, but I am ready to see it happen.

He also says that, "too often, the church becomes our secure place, our haven from the outside world."

We tend to plan our ministries in the church around what we need ourselves instead of what the world around us needs. Some of us can't identify what the needs of the world are because we have become so far removed from this culture's reality that most times we have no clue where people are. We work along side people everyday and we don't even know them. We don't know their hurts, their joys, their heart's desires or their pain. How can we minister to an entire culture of people that we don't even know?

I am as guilty as anyone in this. We have created an Oasis in the church and we love to dwell in that, but we continue to hide our light under a bushel. We tend to only show it in the presence of others that also possess the light. It is safe to do that. No rejection, no persecution, no judgment, no mocking, no hurts, no challenge.

God is challenging me to minister to someone...anyone... Look for someone that is hurting and hurt with them... Find someone down and out and reach out to them... Find someone who's alone and talk to them...
People all around us are in need of a touch from Christ... they just don't know it yet.
When will we begin to be the church...the true body of Christ?

I know that if we ask for a real passion for the lost the Lord will bless us with it. Many times we don't ask for it because we are afraid of what we may be asked to do, or maybe what we will have to give up to see real ministry happen through us.
What are we waiting for?

Ok...maybe I should rename my blog...bi-weekly reflections...just doesn't have the same ring to it does it.

I hate this busy time I am in right now, but it just shows me more and more how totally dependent I am on my Father.

The other day I was on my way to an event that I wasn't looking forward to...
I just wanted to get though it and get it over with...punch the time clock.

With the help of my wife and the Holy Spirit I saw my error. The enemy will get us frustrated to the point of ineffectiveness if we let him. I could have really blown a great opportunity to minister because I was tired, frustrated, and angry. I am glad Jesus didn't do that sort of thing when he went without sleep, food, drink, and privacy to minister to people.
I decided I wasn't going to let it ruin me...I didn't feel like worshipping...I didn't feel like letting my frustration go...I just wanted to feel bad for me...but I didn't. I began to worship and my eyes were opened to the release possible when I come to my Father with a broken heart and contrite spirit. When I came to Him alone and exalted Him in private...I was able to lift Him up in public without disgracing His name by my flesh getting in the way as it does so often.

I know this is elementary...but it is impossible for me to live a life of worship without having those times of private, alone worship in front of an audience of one. I guess I just saw this right up in my face this week unlike I have ever seen it before. It finally got from my head to my spirit.

Boy it has been a long time. Things have been pretty busy around here.

Just something quick to share. I am still reading The God Chasers and I am gleaning more and more good insight from Tenney.

He says,

The Lord knows that we have tried to pave the way for people to come to God through painless, cheap grace and costless revival. But all we wound up with was bargain basement salvations that hardly lasted a week. Why? Because all we gave people was an emotional encounter with man when what they really needed was a death encounter with the glory and presence of God Himself.

All I know is that I want to experience God's presence as I continue to seek Him in my brokeness. I am convinced that we won't see people come to a saving knowledge of Christ until we ourselves are broken and repentent before the Lord. We have been trying to sell a phony for a long time and the world isn't buying it...and I don't blame them. As my friend Eric stated once on his blog, "...my only thought is that they were fed a pretty weak solution conjured up by the religious and not the righteous."

We have been selling an emotional experience as the real thing...I have even bought into it...I don't have all the answers, but I do know that most of what we are doing isn't working. Until we get right by becoming broken before the Lord we will still miss the mark in our attempt to bring people into that right relationship with Christ.

May this new revival of the Church start with us!!