What are you looking for?
So I was going to start writing about a pity party someone was having that travels in my circles but isn't directly involved with my life. We all have pity parties, for whatever reason. We feel sorry for ourselves and want others to feel it too.
It's tough to read about because I see someone who is looking for something that doesn't exist this side of Glory; the perfect church. I spent 3 decades away from church and my excuse was that I didn't much care for the way Christians treated other Christians. I was right about that. I was wrong to blame the church.
Churches are made up of flawed human beings who make mistakes. To me, it's one of the things I've come to cherish about my church. Not everything works out right all the time. Sometimes it just makes me know I have a home where I worship. And sometimes, something pretty sweet comes out of the mistake. Last week, we sang a song that has extra music to it that's not in the hymnal. After the second verse of the hymn, the pianist stopped when the music in the hymnal did. We didn't. We sang, and for once it actually sounded sweet because there was more and we didn't let a little thing like no music keep us from singing a hymn most of us knew. It was one of those moments that made me love my church.
I look at life through a different lens these days. I'm less about being perfect and proper. I see church not for what it looks like on TV but for what it is. It's imperfection gathering together to worship the Perfect. It's us understanding we can't do this without God. Are there little cliques in my church? Yep. Is there gossip? I never hang around long enough to hear it but I'm sure it happens.
Church is the lady smiling at me because I'm always afraid I'm gonna drop the communion tray on her lap when she wears white and bringing that same lady a yellow rose off the bush that used to live on the east side of the building and came back to life in my yard last fall. It's coffee with my buddy at Grounds when he has the time and I do too . It's going to the Rescue Mission. It's telling someone that's having a bad day "God bless you" and really meaning it.
Church is praying not only for the boy in a wheelchair who is facing yet another surgery, but also for his mother...and meaning it. And being grateful for another church who is helping this woman out by painting the outside of her home for her while she's caring for her son in the hospital. That's church on steroids. That's the big "C" church; that universal body of believers.
Want to see a better example of church. Look at the statements of family members whose loved ones were killed while studying God's word in His house. They forgave! Through the anger and the pain, they followed Jesus. Most of us will never understand the crosses they have to bear, but brother, that's what God's grace looks like. They're praying FOR the man who hurt them.
Evil showed up. Evil lost. That's church.
Church is the church showing love to a young lady who lost a baby before it was born. I know her pain but not to the extent she suffered it. We had only found out that day the ex was pregnant and later on that day, she had a miscarriage. It hurt. I know her hurt. I can empathize with her and told her that it gets better. But I'm not the right one to minister to her. That's why the Lord put ladies in the church and they gave this young woman today the most important thing she needed. Lots and lots of love! She needed church today and the church showed up BIG.
My church was being the church.
Is there politics in my church? Of course. Are there more than two people involved? Then there's always gonna be a certain amount of disagreement. Are people involved? People are people...they get stuck in their ways. Tastes in music vary. There are denominations that don't allow pianos or organs. There are those that if they'd had their way throughout history, would still have us singing Gregorian chants. We sing a song every Sunday morning that is literally 300 years old. It works. Wouldn't change a note. But then some of the new worship music is pretty good. Change sometimes is difficult. Several hundred years ago, a man named Martin Luther nailed a manifesto to the doors of a church in Germany. With that one act, combined with others, the big C church changed. Our little c church sometimes changes too. People come, people go, but the thing is that sometimes we forget that it's not about us individually. It's about us, broken as we are, just coming together to worship God and to share this journey with one another. God has a way of showing all of us that His church is bigger than an individual. He can meet the needs of the congregation to suit His purposes and each of us is a part of our church not for our own purposes, but for His. I refer to it as my/our church sometimes, but never forget we're just the individuals who make up His church.
We're a small group of people at First Baptist and like every family, we have our faults, but by and large, it's because of them and because I believe that God can use each of us, that I think it's so good to be there. We're nowhere perfect, but none of us will ever be this side of Glory.
Finding that perfect church.....well people have been lookin' for Bigfoot for years too with no luck.
So why don't you go to church? I quit going because someone made me mad. I used religion as an excuse to not worship God, to just let God be who I wanted Him to be and missed out on a good part of my life lived the right way. Did I believe in God? You bet. Did I know God? Absolutely not.
It wasn't until I finished reading the Bible the first time that I came to know that. "God helps those who help themselves" sounded so Scriptural and when I read the Bible, I noticed it wasn't there. I wondered what else I'd been wrong about, and brother, did I find out.
Today during Joys and Concerns time, I gave a praise for my church family. That's the guy I have coffee with sometimes, or the guy who I went to help and wound up spending more time just talking to him than helping him. It's the ladies of the church loving on someone, or knitting scarves, or helping with our food pantry, or passing out clothes on a Saturday. It's the guys of my church cleaning the parking lot. It's those who pass out hot dogs in the summer to strangers on a Tuesday night in the neighborhood. It's that sense of community that I've never known before and I'm so grateful for.
"I'm spiritual, but not religious." is crap. Christ called us to fellowship together. If you believe this statement, or you identify with it, you're living a lie. Christians aren't meant to do that, any more than we're meant to church-hop, seeking that one perfect church that thinks everything we believe and hold dear is right. I've seen this too. Again, they're searching for something that doesn't exist this side of Glory. Only when Christ comes to be the head of the Church Universal will we be that one perfect Church.
On this side, we're stuck trying to figure out if the Earth is 5000 years old or billions of years old. We're stuck with accepting that God's time isn't our time. His ways aren't our ways, and we're stuck trying to figure out if no instruments belong in church, or just piano and organ, or if having a full-blown worship band is the ticket. We're forced to choose between open communion or closed communion where only those who the elders of the church are certain are worthy believers can partake. We have to decide those things for ourselves, and find a church where our gifts are needed and we feel we belong.
It's why I look past the petty politics of church. I don't like certain things about the politics and I'm not alone in that, but I'm also mindful that God puts people where He wants them. I know for a certainty that He led me to First Baptist and it's where I belong. I'm a part of a family of people who have stuff in their lives just like I do. We come together once a week to be a place where that young woman could come and get what she needed most. And when I was down, to get what I needed most. We get fed spiritually. We walk away on Sunday better than we did when we came in, if only for the experience of worshipping God together. As I said above, the sweetest music I heard in this church in years came with no accompaniment. Just people who knew there was more than what was published in the hymnal and undaunted by the lack of piano and did so out of their love for God and a heart to keep going.
That's my church.
It's tough to read about because I see someone who is looking for something that doesn't exist this side of Glory; the perfect church. I spent 3 decades away from church and my excuse was that I didn't much care for the way Christians treated other Christians. I was right about that. I was wrong to blame the church.
Churches are made up of flawed human beings who make mistakes. To me, it's one of the things I've come to cherish about my church. Not everything works out right all the time. Sometimes it just makes me know I have a home where I worship. And sometimes, something pretty sweet comes out of the mistake. Last week, we sang a song that has extra music to it that's not in the hymnal. After the second verse of the hymn, the pianist stopped when the music in the hymnal did. We didn't. We sang, and for once it actually sounded sweet because there was more and we didn't let a little thing like no music keep us from singing a hymn most of us knew. It was one of those moments that made me love my church.
I look at life through a different lens these days. I'm less about being perfect and proper. I see church not for what it looks like on TV but for what it is. It's imperfection gathering together to worship the Perfect. It's us understanding we can't do this without God. Are there little cliques in my church? Yep. Is there gossip? I never hang around long enough to hear it but I'm sure it happens.
Church is the lady smiling at me because I'm always afraid I'm gonna drop the communion tray on her lap when she wears white and bringing that same lady a yellow rose off the bush that used to live on the east side of the building and came back to life in my yard last fall. It's coffee with my buddy at Grounds when he has the time and I do too . It's going to the Rescue Mission. It's telling someone that's having a bad day "God bless you" and really meaning it.
Church is praying not only for the boy in a wheelchair who is facing yet another surgery, but also for his mother...and meaning it. And being grateful for another church who is helping this woman out by painting the outside of her home for her while she's caring for her son in the hospital. That's church on steroids. That's the big "C" church; that universal body of believers.
Want to see a better example of church. Look at the statements of family members whose loved ones were killed while studying God's word in His house. They forgave! Through the anger and the pain, they followed Jesus. Most of us will never understand the crosses they have to bear, but brother, that's what God's grace looks like. They're praying FOR the man who hurt them.
Evil showed up. Evil lost. That's church.
Church is the church showing love to a young lady who lost a baby before it was born. I know her pain but not to the extent she suffered it. We had only found out that day the ex was pregnant and later on that day, she had a miscarriage. It hurt. I know her hurt. I can empathize with her and told her that it gets better. But I'm not the right one to minister to her. That's why the Lord put ladies in the church and they gave this young woman today the most important thing she needed. Lots and lots of love! She needed church today and the church showed up BIG.
My church was being the church.
Is there politics in my church? Of course. Are there more than two people involved? Then there's always gonna be a certain amount of disagreement. Are people involved? People are people...they get stuck in their ways. Tastes in music vary. There are denominations that don't allow pianos or organs. There are those that if they'd had their way throughout history, would still have us singing Gregorian chants. We sing a song every Sunday morning that is literally 300 years old. It works. Wouldn't change a note. But then some of the new worship music is pretty good. Change sometimes is difficult. Several hundred years ago, a man named Martin Luther nailed a manifesto to the doors of a church in Germany. With that one act, combined with others, the big C church changed. Our little c church sometimes changes too. People come, people go, but the thing is that sometimes we forget that it's not about us individually. It's about us, broken as we are, just coming together to worship God and to share this journey with one another. God has a way of showing all of us that His church is bigger than an individual. He can meet the needs of the congregation to suit His purposes and each of us is a part of our church not for our own purposes, but for His. I refer to it as my/our church sometimes, but never forget we're just the individuals who make up His church.
We're a small group of people at First Baptist and like every family, we have our faults, but by and large, it's because of them and because I believe that God can use each of us, that I think it's so good to be there. We're nowhere perfect, but none of us will ever be this side of Glory.
Finding that perfect church.....well people have been lookin' for Bigfoot for years too with no luck.
So why don't you go to church? I quit going because someone made me mad. I used religion as an excuse to not worship God, to just let God be who I wanted Him to be and missed out on a good part of my life lived the right way. Did I believe in God? You bet. Did I know God? Absolutely not.
It wasn't until I finished reading the Bible the first time that I came to know that. "God helps those who help themselves" sounded so Scriptural and when I read the Bible, I noticed it wasn't there. I wondered what else I'd been wrong about, and brother, did I find out.
Today during Joys and Concerns time, I gave a praise for my church family. That's the guy I have coffee with sometimes, or the guy who I went to help and wound up spending more time just talking to him than helping him. It's the ladies of the church loving on someone, or knitting scarves, or helping with our food pantry, or passing out clothes on a Saturday. It's the guys of my church cleaning the parking lot. It's those who pass out hot dogs in the summer to strangers on a Tuesday night in the neighborhood. It's that sense of community that I've never known before and I'm so grateful for.
"I'm spiritual, but not religious." is crap. Christ called us to fellowship together. If you believe this statement, or you identify with it, you're living a lie. Christians aren't meant to do that, any more than we're meant to church-hop, seeking that one perfect church that thinks everything we believe and hold dear is right. I've seen this too. Again, they're searching for something that doesn't exist this side of Glory. Only when Christ comes to be the head of the Church Universal will we be that one perfect Church.
On this side, we're stuck trying to figure out if the Earth is 5000 years old or billions of years old. We're stuck with accepting that God's time isn't our time. His ways aren't our ways, and we're stuck trying to figure out if no instruments belong in church, or just piano and organ, or if having a full-blown worship band is the ticket. We're forced to choose between open communion or closed communion where only those who the elders of the church are certain are worthy believers can partake. We have to decide those things for ourselves, and find a church where our gifts are needed and we feel we belong.
It's why I look past the petty politics of church. I don't like certain things about the politics and I'm not alone in that, but I'm also mindful that God puts people where He wants them. I know for a certainty that He led me to First Baptist and it's where I belong. I'm a part of a family of people who have stuff in their lives just like I do. We come together once a week to be a place where that young woman could come and get what she needed most. And when I was down, to get what I needed most. We get fed spiritually. We walk away on Sunday better than we did when we came in, if only for the experience of worshipping God together. As I said above, the sweetest music I heard in this church in years came with no accompaniment. Just people who knew there was more than what was published in the hymnal and undaunted by the lack of piano and did so out of their love for God and a heart to keep going.
That's my church.
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