A Quirky Journey

I posted this in another blog; but, thought I would share with you. You may be able to use it with people you speak with on a daily basis.....Hope this is of value to you. This process has been stewing in my mind and spirit for quite some time. So I thought I would share with you a little of how my mind thinks. Be warned. It may be crazy. It may be far fetched; but, I trust it will be worth the read by the end of the story. We go to church; some of us take a Bible, while other’s read along on their iPad, iPhone or some other smart device, listen to the speaker, then head back home. Many don’t pick the Bible up again until the next week when we do church all over again. Don’t get me wrong. I am thrilled we take our Bible to church in one form or another. The thing that has my mind stirring, is how often do we read the inspired Word of God for ourselves. Do we tend to push it aside because we believe it is too hard to understand on our own? Maybe we believe it is irrelevant for us; or, hearing our pastor, or some other speaker preach from the Bible once a week is all we need. For these various reasons, the wheels in my mind began to turn. I may be a little different, some may say strange; but, I am giving this a shot and hopefully it will inspire, encourage or challenge someone as they read. So as we begin this quirky journey, we will start with Peter’s thoughts on the pages of 1 Peter. Grab a cup of your favorite coffee, latte’, or soda and allow your imagination to go with me to the thoughts of one of the first disciples of Jesus. Find out who Peter was, by reading what he had to say to each of us, as he was inspired by the Spirit of God Himself. When we open to the book of First Peter it begins with Peter telling us who he is and to whom he is writing. He gives a tad bit of informational background before getting to the main theme of his first letter. For a minute let’s pretend we are Peter and we are writing this letter. What would that look like? Maybe something a little like this… In my case it would read… ******************************************* Just who am I? “Hi, I am Cheryl, a minister of Jesus. I am messaging each one of you who have been chosen by God. We are visitors in this world and scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Europe to Asia, Africa to Australia, and North America to South America. (2) We have been chosen by God, according to what He has known from the beginning of time; to be obedient to Christ and washed clean by His blood on the cross. May you be filled with an overwhelming amount of grace and peace.” ******************************************* Although we have just read what would be two verses of 1 Peter 1, I want to stop here and add a personal commentary. I am not confessing to be a Biblical Scholar, just a person taking verses apart, hoping to help normal, every day peeps understand how to apply the Bible to our lives. It is relevant and very helpful for todays generation. ******************************************* After reading the first paragraph of First Peter, we can see that there are peeps just like you and me all over the world. Each one of us have been chosen by God Himself from the very beginning of time. We have been cleansed by His blood and are expected to be obedient to Christ. Because of this we are encouraged to have an overwhelming amount of grace and peace. Merriam/Webster Dictionary’s definition of grace: a temporary exemption or reprieve, a virtue coming from God, unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification. When I looked up grace in the Urbandictionary I found the only use of the word is describing a girl, beauty, or something feminine. hmmm This generation has no clue. Ok, back to Webster’s definition of grace. The definition uses the words regeneration and sanctification. We may understand regeneration, but, what exactly is sanctification. Let’s touch a little on both. Regeneration is something coming back to life or being restored or renewed after an injury. UrbanDictionary says regeneration can be traumatic. It can be traumatic because our lives are being changed and transformed. Much like a transformor from the movie by the same name. The only difference is as we change from our original “old” self to the new, we need to make a determined effort to continue changing and not go back to the “old” self. That is where sanctification comes into play. Sanctification is the process of growing and developing in the grace given you by God. Alost everytime I hear grace, I remember the scene in “Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring” where Arwen is taking Frodo to her father, after he has been stabbed by a wraith. They get across the river and Frodo begins giving up, soon to be a wraith himself. Arwen helps him from her horse, leans over Frodo, and says, “What grace is given me, let it pass to him.” Arwen knew grace was important. Now, the LOR Trilogy is just a story made into movies; but, it allows us to understand visually, a little of what Peter is talking about in his letter. Grace is important to the health of our life. If we are transformed or regenerated we must not stop there. We must continue to evolve into the new person we are to become through the process of sanctification by the grace God gives. That is it for this post. Check back again for the continued quirky journey through the book of 1 Peter. btw I would love to know what your thoughts are about what you’ve just read.

Churches We Can't Help (Pt 2)

Thanks for all the feedback on the previous post. Here's the second part...

The next church you can't help is the one who expects the pastor to make a greater investment than they are willing to make. As we mature in Christ we should want to invest more and more of ourselves into our church family and advancing the Kingdom of God. Remember when we first accepted Christ? We were all excited. We wanted to be at church all the time and around those God was using to help us grow. As we develop spiritually that should become stronger and not diminish, which so often happens. Our prayer should be, "God help me retain my enthusiasm for the house of God and His people." Be available. Volunteer to help whenever the church has a function going on. You will be blessed as you bless others.

The last point I want to make is this:

You can't help a church who refuses to spend and invest their time in prayer and the Word in order to bring transformation. It is not enough just to go to church and listen to the pastor. Each church member needs to spend time conversing with God, getting to know Him.

You get to know Him by reading the Word regularly. Sure there will be days we skip our reading, but that should not be the norm. Each one of us has a best friend we love to spend time with. We love to talk to them. If this person is a true friend, then you will both talk together, back and forth. The conversation will not be one sided.

Talk to God, then sit quietly and allow Him to speak to your spirit. He may even direct you to a certain scripture to read. He disires for us to get to know Him. Make sure you are spending the time you need in order for your spirit to be transformed and encourage others within your influence to do the same.

I trust we are all part of a church that is seeing God move in awesome ways. If we don't see that happening, ask ourself if we a part of a church that cannot be helped, or am I someone that needs to change my perspective on things? If we find we are part of a church that cannot be helped, maybe it is best that we move on, in order for us to be able to spiritually grow and mature.

Believe me, I understand the thought, "Maybe, I can help them. God can use me here." Those thoughts may be true; but, if you have been in the church a while and it is not going anywhere, it is time for you to move on. You must move on for your own spiritual health.

Maybe you have wanted to move on at one time and your spouse encouraged you to stay in the church. Later, you both changed your position, your spouse was ready to leave and you were the one encouraging to stay. Be very careful with this, because you do not want to stay too long. That is what happened to us. We loved the church and wanted to see it move forward in what God desired for it. The reality was, we needed to move on long before we did, because it affected our spiritual health. It became a situation that caused me to not want to be in ministry ever again. God had a way of bringing about healing, causing His vision and call to resurface; but, it was at a great cost. Please be careful and earnestly seek God's wisdom in this kind of a situation. He definitely wants to lead, so let Him.

Thanks for reading and may this be the start of a fresh, new journey for each of you in your walk with God. May He take you to new levels of leadership in the ministries you are in. Blessings!

Churches We Can't Help

I heard a sermon on "People You Can't Help" several months back. Over the months the "Churches We Can't Help" has been stirring in my spirit. Being in ministry for 26 years, you see a lot of things. You see churches who are struggling, pastors who are struggling, and both are wondering why. Could it be that both are a little "closed minded" to how God desires to use them?

If we aren't careful we lose our edge because we become so comfortable in our ways. When God brings people across our path we don't recognize what God is doing because we are "set". When concrete sets it is not going to move unless someone uses a sledge hammer or a power tool to break it up. God help me to be a little more flexible than that!

As you read on I hope this speaks to you and challenges you to ask God if you are in one of these categories. My intent is not to condemn anyone, it is simply to try to stir our thinking up a little so we do not become "set" and comfortable in our ways.

We can't help a church who refuses to believe or accept they have a problem. When we look in the first chapters of Revelation we see churches that were doing what they thought best, but God had issues with them.

We can look around the United States and see many churches who were once powerful forces in God's Kingdom. They were alive and helping people get to know Christ and start relationships with Him. If we talk to people who were around during that time, they become excited just talking about all God did; but saddended because it is not happening today.

It is awesome how God moved upon men and women. He is so ready and willing to do that now...but we, the church, put too many guidelines on how we are to reach out to people searching for what we have to offer. What happened to God's grace? Until the church accepts that God's grace looks at the heart of an individual and not the outward appearance; until the church acknowledges that the methods of reaching generations has changed (not the message); until the church realizes and acknowledges it has a problem, the church cannot be helped.

Now, this next point may cause some readers to not read my blog anymore; but this point is so very important for the health of the church. Here it goes...

You can't help a churh that believes the pastor is the problem. Why? Because God gave that pastor to them as a GIFT. Ephesians 4:11 in the Message says, "He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher." God loves the church so much He gives them their leaders. When we give gifts to people we normally don't take the gift back. AND, if the person receiving the gift shows any hint of not liking and appreciating the gift, we get hurt and upset. Let that sink into our spirit for a moment.

God gave these leaders to the church to help the church grow and develop into mature Christians. We read on in Ephesians 4:12 of the Message, "...to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other..."

Now bear with me while I use my imagination. Imagine God looking down at His church here on earth. He sees congregations in North America, South Africa, Europe, Asia, Canada; wherever you live, and say, 'This is the man or woman I want to place in such and such city, town, or village." If God cares for us that much, who are we to try and undermine the pastor? Who are we to think we hear from God more than our pastor? If each church would allow their pastor's to implement the task God is showing he/she, our congregations would be overflowing with people hungry for more of God.

Didn't verse 12 tell us the reason for these leaders was to help the church move rhythmically and easily with each other? I don't know about you; but there are far too many churches not moving rhythmically and easily together. Now, please hear me out. This is not condemning anyone, please do not feel as if I am. I am trying to help us take a good, hard look at ourselves to see if we fit this categary. If we don't that's awesome. If we do and we recognize it, then that is awesome as well; because, that is the first step in change.

When we take a look at our church there could be a couple of reasons why we are not living these verses out. The first may be that the pastor may just be worn out and exhausted from his/her task; and the second could be the church is not trusting and following their pastor's lead. Sure, there have been pastor's who have taken advantage of churches; but they are few and far between.

If you are a member of a church in which that has happened, please remember that not everyone that way. God has a desire for you to forgive, forget and move on in your spiritual development. If you can't do that, then maybe God could use you better somewhere else. That is something to seriously consider and pray about. God may want to use you more elsewhere. Allow Him to grow you in that way.

This has become rather lengthy. I will post the other two points tomorrow. Have an awesome day!