Real Church Life

This is a quote from a book I am reading, Forgotten God, by Francis Chan

The church is intended to be a beautiful place of community. A place where wealth is shared and when one suffers, everyone suffers. A place where when one rejoices, everyone rejoices. A place where everyone experiences real love and acceptance in the midst of great honesty and brokenness. Yet most of the time this is not even close to how we would describe our churches.

Without the Spirit of God in our midst, working in us, guiding us, and living and loving through us, we will never be the kind of people who make up this kind of community. There is no such thing as a real believer who doesn't have the Holy Spirit, or a real church without the Spirit. It's just not possible. But what is possible is that we would individually and corporately quench and hinder the Spirit's activity in and through our lives.

As for me, I am tired of talking about what we are going to do. I am sick of talking about helping people, of brainstorming and conferencing about ways we can be radical and make sacrifices. I don't want to merely talk anymore. Life is too short. I don't want to speak about Jesus; I want to know Jesus. I want to be Jesus to people. I don't' want just to write about the Holy Spirit; I want to experience His presence in my life in a profound way.

AMEN

RADICAL FAITH

In our American churches, we have for the most part missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable. The words of Jesus are not comfortable and not easy. They are radical, demanding, and difficult.

In Luke chapter 9, Jesus said that His followers may not have shelter, that they were not to delay to say goodbye to their family or to bury the dead. In Luke 14 He said we have to hate our families, and we have to carry a cross, and we have to give up everything in order to follow Him. In Mark 10, Jesus told a very promising potential follower that he had to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor before he could follow Jesus.
Even Jesus’ call to His disciples in Matthew 4, “Follow me” was pretty radical. It meant they were to abandon their comforts, their careers, their possessions, their family and friends. Jesus was calling them to abandon themselves, their dreams and desires, their plans, their security, everything they knew to follow Jesus.

Do you and I take the call of Jesus seriously? Or have we rationalized it, explained it, and watered it down until it has little impact on in our lives? Maybe we have taken the radical Jesus of the Bible and made Him into an acceptable Jesus that is compatible with our American dream version of Christianity. A Jesus who allows us to indulge in American materialism, who doesn’t mind lukewarm followers, who doesn’t expect us to actually give up our comfort or our careers.

Many Christians are concerned with balance, with not being extreme. It seems to me that Jesus is calling us to be extreme.

WARNING: I recently read the book, Radical (Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream) by David Platt and my usual zeal has been upped a notch. Future blog posts may be extreme.

this stuff never happens to me

I just experienced a miracle. We have a had a sweet single mom and her 3 year old son staying with us this month. She HAS to be back in New Orleans by Tuesday for legal reasons. After a lot of praying and discussing, we were able to make arrangements for a friend who is going to Houston for Father's Day to take her there, and friends from New Orleans to pick her up.
That was Monday. As of today, everything began to fall apart...on both ends. It was still a possibility, but beginning to look pretty hard.
I had to buy a few things, and was in Walmart, trying to concentrate on coffee and cake mixes, but thinking about what to do. I considered that I would take her to New Orleans Monday, but I have committed to take another friend to two doctors appointments in Dallas on Monday. I have been praying about this all day, and I know others have too. As I was trying to figure it all out, I asked God to just work out SOMETHING to get these precious people home before Tuesday.
Suddenly I ran into an old friend that I have not seen in a couple of years. She asked what I have been doing, and I told her...everything. She was very concerned and began to offer suggestions. Finally, she said, "What if I just write a check for plane fare to get her home?" REALLY? She said she understands how hard things can be for a single Mom and she wants to do this to help out.
I am so so so thankful for God's provision. He provided what was needed in a very unexpected way. And I am so thankful for my generous friend who was willing to let God use her in this way.

Lessons from the Giant Sequoias

Last week we were in Yosemite and had the great thrill of seeing the giant sequoia trees. These trees are so huge, it is hard to believe they are real. Some of them are actually as tall as a 26 story building, taller than the Statue of Liberty. We were in awe.



As we walked through the grove staring at these giants, the biggest living organism on earth, I began to see some great object lessons.
The first fact that amazed me was the size of the Giant Sequoia cone.



The cones are about 3 inches long, smaller than the cones of a lot of other pine trees. That was pretty amazing in itself...to think that these giants began as a tiny seed hidden inside a small cone. Sugar pine cones can be as large as 18 inches, and the Ponderosa pine cone is about 6 inches long. From the smallest cone grows the largest tree... The cone is also very dense. They don't crumble when they are stepped on. The seeds are very well protected deep inside the cones. Squirrels and bugs chew and the cones to release the seeds to grow new trees. Without them, the seeds would remain unusable. Those little critters are needed for the giant trees to grow. Just like the little annoyances that come in life, that God uses to crack us open so that His life can grow.

As we enjoyed the trees, we noticed that almost all of them had damage from fire.Fire is an important element of the giant sequoia’s ecosystem. Naturally occurring fires create openings in the forest, allowing young giant sequoias to establish themselves. Without fire, there will be too many small trees and bushes that will reduce the likelihood of giant sequoia regeneration.


Do you see the easy application? We need the fires in our life. The big trials and difficulties that burn out the junk and make room for growth. These giants took my breath away, and I also left Yosemite with a lot on my mind.

Finally whole, dancing with Jesus

We meet together for Celebrate Recovery every Thursday night, and we have become family. Last week, one of our C.R. family became very sick. Mendi Krey had asked to share her testimony at Celebrate Recovery last week, but she became sick on Wednesday and was in the hospital on Thursday. She passed away early Sunday morning.
Last night, her husband Arcy shared her testimony and I want to do my best to share her story as her husband told it.

Mendi’s mother ran away from home when she was 16, and Mendi was conceived shortly after. Mendi was a child of a child, and had a lot of insecurity and neglect to deal with during her early years. When she was 9, she decided she could not take the hard reality of her life any longer and she ran away from home. She continued to try to get out of her difficult home life until she was finally put into foster care. She was adopted when she was 11, and finally found love and security in her new home, although she was always haunted by the insecurities from her early life.

Arcy met Mendi when they were 19, when Arcy saw the glow on her face and asked her to dance. They were married a year later. During the next years as they raised 3 children, they struggled in their marriage until, after 15 years, they made the decision that, no matter what, they were both committed to make the marriage work. They spent 10 years undoing the damage they had done, and rebuilding their marriage. Both Mendi and Arcy were Christians, but had trouble finding a church they felt at home in, where they could serve. Finally, they followed their daughter to Cottonwood, where they became members. Mendi had suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis for years. One leg had been amputated a few years ago. She struggled with constant pain, and was frustrated by the limitations that kept her from serving her family and the church like she wanted to, and frustrated that she could no longer dance with her husband. The last conversation that Arcy and Mendi had, Mendi asked Arcy to help her stand and hold her up, then move his hips. She said, "Now we are dancing."

Last summer, when we began to announce the start of Celebrate Recovery, Arcy immediately became a part of the volunteer team . Mendi joined us when we began in October. Although the first week, she was unsure about it, by the second week, she told Arcy that “they could not make her leave”. Since then, Mendi has been a best friend and a mentor to many of the women in C.R. She was been excited and enthusiastic about what God is doing. A few months ago, Mendi began to post a word of encouragement every morning on Facebook, and to send a text message out to her friends and family sharing a word from the Bible. We use the term “our C.R. family” a lot, and I think that Mendi was the first one to use that. God brought Mendi and Arcy and their daughter Toni to us. God has woven the hearts of the C.R. family together in a unique way that is so precious. As we gathered for our Celebrate Recovery meeting last night, we celebrated that Mendi that God had done a great work in Mendi’s life, that we had come to know Mendi and become a family, and that now she is dancing in the presence of Jesus, fully “recovered”.