What's Our Status?

Last night we had our church family over to our home for grilled hamburgers and fellowship around the Table of Jesus. We enjoyed the superb Spring weather and the men ate outside. The ladies stayed inside and chatted over dinner. After everyone ate and spent some time relaxing and catching up, we all gathered in the living room for Communion. I read from Luke about how Jesus said we can only serve one master and that it is impossible to serve God and material wealth at the same time. A few of us shared stories of how Father was teaching us to be more generous with our money and material things as we were growing in our faith.

After Communion, I kicked off a discussion about how we all felt things were going in our life as a church family. Our "core group" really began meeting as a church family back in the Fall of 2006. Today we have more than doubled and we are enjoying what Father is allowing us to do with Him. It was really cool to hear everyone's perspective on how they feel we have grown spiritually as a group and how each individual has grown as a result of this new church life.

Last week I had some extra time on my hands and used part of that time going back through this blog and re-reading a whole bunch of posts from back in the beginning of this blog. (You should do it. It is funny!) What was cool was to see how our desires changed in what we were doing. Actually, it is amazing how we started life as a house church and we focused on what we "did" compared to what other churches "did." If you pay close attention to the blog and the vocabulary we used, you'll see how there was a shift over time from "doing" to "being." Somewhere along the line we stopped focusing on how we "did" church to focusing on truly "being" the church. What a wonderful shift it has been. Father only knows how much more shifting needs to take place to get us to the center of His will for who the church really is.

What is your status?

Your friend,

Jason

When the Light Comes On

A friend of mine mentioned to me that she and her husband are getting away from "organized religion" in search of the intimacy meeting in homes creates. While they still attend a Sunday morning assembly mainly to see people they enjoy seeing, they are beginning to understand the Sunday morning gig is by and large ineffective and does not reflect how Jesus met with people. "Church" buildings didn't appear until the 3rd century and paid clergy a century later, therefore can't be the teachings of Jesus. Wrong? NO, but it's important to understand where "organized religion" comes from.......man.

As I have blogged in the past the "main street" churches are dying but Jesus' church is growing and becoming more and more effective in presenting Jesus to a world in trouble. It's really cool to witness the event when someone who has been stuck, becomes un-stuck and moves forward in their daily walk with Father. I wished it happened more often...

When God Is the "Enemy"

Have you ever considered that the same God we pray to is the same one some of our enemies pray to?

The most classic example is sporting events. You've got both teams presumably praying to the same God before the game to give them victory. After the game is over, you'll even see a player giving credit to God for the victory. (Rarely do you see the loser giving credit to God for the defeat!)

Another example is political disputes. You've got one party or faction relying on their faith in God to accomplish a political victory while the other side does the same. Only one wins, so I guess we're to assume that God loves that party better, right? (No. Not really.)

There is a song by Derek Webb titled "In God We Trust" that really puts things into perspective about whose "side" God is on. Here is a portion of the lyrics (emphasis added):

In God we trust
And the government is on His shoulders
In God we trust
Through democracy and tyranny alike
In God we trust
He uses both good and evil men

In God we trust
So we fight for peace and He fights for us
In God we trust
Even when He fights us for someone else
In God we trust
Even when He looks like the enemy

I think the power in these lyrics is that we are to trust in God no matter the circumstances. If we live in a communist country, we trust Him. If a law is passed that goes against our core beliefs, we trust Father. If we lose our job, we trust Him. If our spouse takes off and leaves us for another, we still trust Him. Even if God looks like our enemy, we trust Him.

When things may seem worst, when you've prayed and prayed and prayed to seemingly no avail, consider that Father may be working on a bigger plan than your human eyes can perceive. Who knows, maybe answering it the way YOU want will cause unnecessary harm to someone else praying for the exact opposite somewhere else. Will you trust Him even under those circumstances? I hope so.

I encourage you this day to trust Father more than your circumstances--even when He looks like the enemy.

Simply,
Jason

The Outdoor Church

(This post came from Roger Thoman's Simple Church Journal website. I thought you might enjoy it...)

I love hearing the stories that come out of this creative journey into simple/organic church-without-walls (or whatever else one wants to call it). One of the keys to what God is doing is that we are all unique and there is no cookie-cutter way to gather, grow, and reach out. We will miss it if we seek to copy what someone else is doing. Nevertheless, hearing each others stories can help us break out of own boxes and allow our imaginations to be engaged with God in a greater way.

With that in mind, I want to share Craig's story of "The Outdoor Church."

While still in full time traditional-church ministry, Craig recalls reading an article by Ted Stump called “Entertainment Evangelism: The Spinning Act." He realized that his high-octane efforts among youth were not producing spiritual growth in the young people and was surely leading him into a major burnout.

After several years of transition and recovery, he began to see the possibilities of incorporating "outdoors" into ministry:

During this time [of recovery], we bought a canoe when we moved to WV. We spent a lot of time together canoeing and recovering from the hurts and pains of ministry. We started talking about maybe starting a canoe livery or better yet a canoe ministry or a church using canoes as a main part of their outreach. Then the seed started to grow, a church that uses the outdoors for outreach.

During the recovery years, I continued to hear from God and see that while cell-based churches are good, house churches really are better. House churches are closer to NT churches than either cell-based or program based, and God kept speaking to me about a church using the outdoors to reach the lost.

In 2007, we met a couple who had a lot of the same interests as we do and the more we got talking, we realized that we all were called to do an outdoor ministry. So in the summer of 2008 we started meeting unofficially.

The premise behind ODC [Outdoor Church] is that we will operate as a House Church and we meet on Sunday Evenings at 5:30pm 3 times a month. On the fourth week, we call that Adventure Week. We will go hiking, fishing, canoeing, camping or some other outdoor event. My goal is that as we collect offerings, that we will have enough money to buy 10 canoes, and with these canoes we can offer free canoe trips. We are hoping this will open the doors to meeting and building relationships with the people who hate a traditional church but love the outdoors.

Our normal house church meeting includes a relaxed atmosphere with relational connecting, an opening crowdbreaker question, worship, biblical group discussion, personal ministry time, more relational connecting with food.

The Outdoor Church was started with the belief that people in our area of West Virginia love to hunt, fish, hike, camp, etc. but they may not like church. Our goal is to speak their language, the outdoors, and hopefully be able to build a relationship with them in the outdoors and show them God’s love, and maybe they will want to be a part of what God is doing in our county. We live in a rather rural area, maybe 20,000 in the entire county, so our target area is the entire county. I’m hoping and praying, that as our church grows, we can start a house church network of The Outdoor Church. Multiple house churches throughout our county.

You can see the Outdoor Church website here.

Easter Sunday

I, like alot of folks bought into the whole Easter thing, that is to say this particular Sunday was "better" than all the rest of them. I bought into it for a very long time. Wearing my best suit,
taking part in a special service and all that goes with that.

Over the past several years I have come to realize that all that stuff is just for show for the most part. The show has to be great for the once a year attenders right?? Side thought... what attracts people is what keeps people and what attracts people must be Jesus. Not some stage show. We must present Jesus and only Jesus. To do otherwise is to say, Jesus is not enough.

I am quite sure how one lives Monday is a whole lot more important to Father than where you spend Sunday Morning...

The bridegroom cometh

Brothers and sisters;
I don't often do this, seems too much like self-promotion to me, but my intent is to promote Jesus and Father ... included is a link to the final story in the Lenten series I've been covering as part of my job, and the message and correlations between our position as a waiting bride with Christ as the bridegroom is just too sweet not to share. On a side note, as I waited yesterday for the service to begin, the woman seated next to me asked, "Where do you go to church?" Without missing a beat, I responded, "I don't have a 'home' church, it's wherever two or more are gathered..." Thanks for the help with that dilemma weeks ago. I pray you will be blessed or will share with those who need a blessing...
In love and service,
Dawn
http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1527744.html