Frank (our teamleader) is really good at helping us go beneath the surface of our lives…see things we haven’t seen before and try to live more like Jesus would. He’s always coming up with questionaires and books to help me probe under the surface. This last assignment brought about some interesting questions. So I wanted to pass them on to you.
1. I am teachable? Am I selectively teachable?
2. Do you tell me when you see an area of struggle or character flaw?…If not,
why not?
3. Is there something you need to speak in my life right now that I haven’t
been open to?
Here’s the assignment…send these to people that know you and you trust to give you honest feedback. I sent this to a few friends near and far and heard some of the same themes throughout. I learned I am eager to learn when I want to learn, but when I don’t want to learn I judge people and disqaulify them from speaking into my life…wow.
I would say ‘Have fun with this’, but as my friend Hud says, “Maturity is hard”. So, have a hard day…a few these make for a lot more good ones….
I have decided to read through the book of Acts for a while and take some notes…I’m usually a fast reader, but I’m downshifting to understand the book better.
In Acts 1 there is a really great scene…here’s the summary: The 12 Apostles had become 11 because Judas was no longer around. They decided that they needed to fill the twelfth spot on the roster and they wanted to fill it with somebody that had been following Jesus His entire ministry. It came down to two guys: Matthias and Justus. They did not make the decision themselves. Instead, they prayed and then had the two guys draw straws. Matthias wins and becomes the twelfth apostle.
Here’s what I get out of this: The Apostles really believed that God was in control of His Church. Despite the fact that Jesus had left them as the initial leaders of His church, they still believed that in a difficult situation that God would be the leader of His Church…even through a gambling game! As one who has been and currently is in leadership of a church, I have never been in a meeting and had somebody suggest that we pray and break out the straws to make a decision. Maybe we feel (and can justify) that we are the leaders of God’s Chruch and that He has equiped us to make decisions on our own? Maybe we feel that this blind trust of God isn’t spiritual enough? Maybe we believe that God doesn’t care about what happens?
I don’t think that point of the story is in whether or not to draw straws to make decisions…I think that the point is in the example that the 11 apostles set: to allow God to be the leader of His church. I believe that God has and will always have a deep desire to be the only true leader of His Church. When we allow our positions, knowledge, or experience to tell us that we are the leaders of the Church then I think that we are missing out on allowing God to be the one and only leader. My prayer for me is that I will see more ways of letting God direct and lead our ministry here…
If you are a guy, and you like cool stuff, you need to check out ‘Uncrate’. Here’s the address: http://www.uncrate.com Just a warning…don’t get sucked into things that you don’t need…which is the majority of this stuff! But’s it’s cool anyway…
We had our 3rd public worship service tonight (they are called Sanctuary if you hadn’t guessed) and it went really good. Here are a few thought…
1. We have a great core group of people coming…there aren’t many people who don’t follow Jesus at this yet…There were new faces, old faces that hadn’t been to Sanctuary yet, and a solid group of Vintage regulars…somebody’s rough count was around 50…20 more than last month! Not that I have ever cared just about bodies, but this number represents that fact that we are developing momentum and Vintage is building quickly on the foundation that has been laid these past two years. It was so cool to see old leaders talking with future leaders, and new people being taken care of by not-quite-as-new people. Our values of authenticity, grace, and community were on display tonight and it was really cool to be a part of it.
2. Our community grew together around communion and reminiscing about Jesus. We had an extended time of communion where we sat around and just talked about Christ and what He has done in our lives and what He means to us. Then we served each other communion (at our tables) and enjoyed the communion of loving Jesus together. There was an electricity in the air…I would call it the Spirit of God…I could not have been any prouder to be a part of our church tonight…the Spirit of God is truly knitting our community together…
3. It wasn’t just Americans…or French for that matter! I saw tonight that we truly are an international church. Not just diverse in our nationality or birthplace, but different in our place in life and occupation…from diplomats to computer programers, studying philosophers to cameramen, New Zealand to Germany and all the way back to Korea…all together and enjoying the common bond we have as followers of the Way…Jesus…
All the drama of getting stuff set up and taken down, tables being borrowed and delivered, equipment being rented and picked up (all without cars by the way!)…faded away in the enjoyment of worship and experiencing God’s love through the teaching. Keep praying that the details will continue to fall into place, but more importantly that the momentum that our baby church has will continue to grow us into further maturity…
Superbowl XL..in the books. I went to the Royal Canadian at 12am to start watching the game. At 4am when I left to take my 30 minute walk home I had a lot to think about. Back to this in a minute…I really didn’t know who I wanted to win. I wanted Seattle to win because I’m from the Northwest and they are probably my favorite NFC team. They had never even been to the Superbowl, much less won one…so good reasons to want them to win. The Stealers, however, had all the storylines…Cower, the Bus…so good reasons to want them to win…
The part about having something to think about…what the heck was up with how the Steelers won? Yes, they scored points, but the defense needed the team wearing stripes to keep the Seahawks out of the end zone. 2 touchdowns brought out. One first down on the one, called back. Wow…I’m not an angry fan (like I was watching the Colts!) so this is just what I saw. It’s great the Bus won one. It’s great the Bill Cower ended a season with a smile…and a Superbowl ring. But it’s too bad that the refs were such a big part of the game.
Just like Porter (Steelers player) said after the Colts game…the refs wanted Peyton Manning to get to the Superbowl…The ‘Hawks players are now saying that about the refs wanting Bettis and Cower to have their Superbowl win. I guess Porter should just be glad he plays on a team with some greats…The refs knew who was who and called it that way…
This is officially the first post where I raise some questions that I have when reading through the Bible. I hope that you will join me in asking God for understanding a lot of this hard stuff.
I decided to read through the books of 1 & 2 Samuel this past week. The story of Samuel, Saul, and David (primarily). I have to be honest. My mornings with my coffee reading about armies running all over Israel killing villages didn’t really bring me closer to God like I had hoped. I was looking to hear from God about leadership and being a person after God. It’s there and it’s good stuff (it’s the Bible so I am biased). But my mind had a hard time getting around the times when David would get angry and want to go kill a man because he wouldn’t give David some food. Or the times when Saul, God’s anointed, had all the priests murdered because they helped David.
I’ve been taught my whole life that all scripture was useful for teaching, and that it is all to weighed equally. But when I’m honest with myself I have a hard time wanting to say that these passages are equal with the time that Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (he also said to love our enemies!!!)
Or in Micah when God says, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” .. Or when Peter says “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
I am trying to reconcile all of these things in my mind…What do you think?
To the right of my post you’ll see a photo album that shares the same name as this post. This is the place that our band has been rehearsing…I don’t know if it even has a name.
This is one of those places where if a band were to get famous VH1 would send a crew here to shoot where they got started…How they came from the bottom up…Because I assure this is the bottom. ‘How do I know this?’ you ask? Let’s start with the fact that the owner does the schedule in a spiral notebook that he has to find every time we need to schedule our next appointment. There was a cockroach on the rim of the toilette when Matt went to use it. I don’t think there is a mic stand in the entire facility of 8 or so rooms that isn’t held together with tape…that goes for the drumsets too.
This is the type of place that singlehandedly could make a band quit playing. It’s that bad. The rooms are small and they proudly boast about six or seven ash trays in the rooms, despite the numerous non-fumer signs all over the walls.
Behind the doors of each room leads the way to humble beginnings…which I guess is a where a worship band should always be…that’s why this place feels so much like home for our band.
I’ll get to the point…this past weekend was terrible for me for more than a few reasons. I don’t want to go into all of those and make this post into a small novel. Instead I want to share the one that cuts the deepest. To put is simply, I had a crisis of trust. Trust in God, trust in friends, trust in the intentions of others, trust that God is at work around us…Needless to say that when we lose trust like this the world can look really bleak.
I wonder why it is that I lose trust…and that it fluctuates? I believe (for me) that if there is one thing that I need (I don’t use need lightly) to retain in my life it is my ability to trust. When we choose (yes, it’s a choice) not to trust in God’s good intentions we are ignoring the promises of God, the reality that we live in as followers of Jesus. When we ignore the promises of God, life on earth can start to look too human. We see our problems from a human perspective. We feel alone…like God isn’t around. Why do I choose not to trust? The last thing that I need to feel is to feel as though God weren’t here. I need Him here!…Well, I guess that I need to trust that He’s here. My lack of trust certainly doesn’t make God go away…He’s not the one shifting around…I think that’s me.
Spending some time reflecting with Jen about the reality of things helped me see that the way that I was seeing things wasn’t true. Isn’t that essence of being able to trust God? Seeing what’s true about him? When old demons come up and my head gets filled with lies, I have to go back to what is true. When I see the truth about God’s love and the love of others, then trust is easy. When Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” it wasn’t just a clever saying, his truth is the path to trust, and trust is a the only way to live.
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