Here I Go.....

Ok so, it's 5:00AM and one of my little ones needed something! Ugh why couldn't it be 1:00AM?! Then I could have gone back to sleep but now I am awake so I guess I will troll onto Facebook and see if any of my exciting friends have been up and about while I slept. I stumbled upon a post that so resonated with me that I not only shared it on my own page but I posted a rant and began to unleash all that I have been feeling lately and quite honestly for years. Typing it all on my little phone made it seem longer than it was but I realized that it was turning in to a blog post. A post of things I need to say and have wanted to say for a while. So start by reading my little post and even the article that riled me up this early Tuesday morning and then meet up with me... 

 

Amy Franklin shared a link.

7 minutes ago

This is about so much more than youth groups but about the state of the church. Why do we feel the need to make ourselves seem so appealing? Jesus didn't and the early church didn't. Spending time and money on sprucing up a Sunday morning o...r night service is a waste and its selfish! When will we wake up and realize that if we want people to know Jesus and not our empire we need to get out of the building and live on mission! Not serve people but live out our mission of making disciples by loving them in word and deed. The church today is so whack and yet we just keep allowing the elite few to lead us on down a path of comfort and complacency. I reject that and I pray I never stop! I think I'll finish this on my blog....See More

What's so uncool about cool churches?

I always assume only my family and closest friends read this and know who I am but I feel the need to set this post up a bit for the off chance that someone else reads this. So, here I am 35 years old married to a perfect for me man and raising two children. I love Father God and His entire family (at least I think I do. I am certain about loving Father God and I am trying to love all His kids too.) I grew up in a typical spirit-filled church pastored by my parents in a small town in New England. I was a good church kid who had her problems but overall I didn't get into much trouble. I went to Bible College where I learned how to pastor and how to love people. You know, studied it in books and such. Then off we went, Rob and I, to serve in churches. We found ourselves feeling really out of place. Time and time again we felt like failures as we would leave a place after a short time but then we realized....we weren't failures we were just trying to wear a tacky Lycra suit that wasn't designed for us to wear. We found ourselves rejecting what church had become. All this talk about buildings and fundraisers and mission statements and growing bigger and council meetings and better sermons and bigger salaries and shinier faces and blah blah blah it had made us sick. Literally! I found myself so out of sorts that I believe it played a role in the depression I experienced when it all came to a head. SO we walked away from it.....ministry as a career.

Ok, so I shared all that because I want people to know that I am not some angry anti established church type crazy person. I grew up in the church and I tried to embrace it all- so much so that I chose a career in it. A career that I was willing to do for free at times because I so believed in it.

But today I say- ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! If I could scream this I would! ENOUGH!

Enough of ruining the image of Christ's Bride! We have prostituted ourselves out so much that I wonder if we even resemble the girl He fell in love with! With our fancy songs and our slick creative media driven teachings and our fun hyped up kid's programs trying to convince kids that Jesus is fun when really He is hard and messy and dirty (and full of LOVE). With our sign up sheets on ways to "serve" and our making it easy for people to feel comfortable and millions of wasted dollars on salaries and programs and buildings and garbage! Did we learn nothing from the early church?! At least we could have learned something from Schindler's List.....STUFF DOESN'T MATTER! PEOPLE DO!

If we want these things then fine but can we stop acting like they are in place to draw people in. They are in place for us! For our enjoyment and comfort. I take my kids to VBS and I let them have fun dancing to those songs and I hope somewhere in there they grabbed hold of a nugget of truth but if I leave it at that I would be wrong. That was fun and entertaining but I need to make sure they know that following Jesus is about going where it's uncomfortable and showing love. It's about dying to yourself and living unto Christ.

I believe this yet I struggle with my own choices. My desire to move into a house with a yard so I can have more space and time with my family as opposed to purposely living in close proximity with people so I can have a close up look at what people's needs are and be available to meet those needs. It's always going to be a struggle. Our comfort and our desires will always be there hollering and grabbing for our attention. I just pray that the church is a catalyst in helping us stay focused and holding us accountable on what really matters. Sadly, that's not the message I am hearing or seeing.

I want to be part of a group of people who study God's Word and spend time at His feet worshipping Him. A place that we come together to encourage each other and challenge each other to live out what we are reading. A group of people who say we need to make sure other people are experiencing this same love and freedom that we are and then partners together to do so. A group that pools their resources and gifts and touches the world around them without getting bogged down in the extras. To me, a building, a paid leader, sign up sheets and comfortable settings are not needed when you live this out.

[My little disclaimer: I am not personally attacking your church. I do not imagine to have it all together. I do not think church is bad, just broken. I do not think your church is not doing some good. These are my beliefs. I LOVE THE CHURCH- if we are talking about the church as being people not a place. I am not a trouble maker and I want people to like me, but this is my blog so it's my little corner in this world to express myself. Be nice.]