Bah Humbug! I don't want any gifts for Christmas!

You heard it right. I really don't want any gifts for Christmas, that is, unless they are truly gifts. So what is truly a gift you might ask? I can tell you what it's not. It's not something bought haphazardly. It's not something I already have and it's not something the giver feels "obligated" to buy. It really is not anything particular that can be purchased, but it can be, and most of the time it is not a gift card.

The gifts I want for Christmas have to have two special things deeply entrenched in them; love and thought. Many gifts given each year are given out of love for the person who is getting them but are given without much thought. That may sound harsh, but if you doubt that statement, check out the return lanes the day after Christmas and/or do a Google on how many gift cards were purchased and given away. On the other side, a gift can be given that has taken a lot of thought, but didn't have much love in it. An example of that was the binder I got today from a local bank that was delievered to our office on Tuesday. They didn't bring it for me but for "the office". In fact, they didn't bring enough to give everyone in the office , but since it was Friday and no other agent happened to be there today, I got it. No love, just advertising.

What I desire is both love and thought. If I'm going to get a gift, I want the person who gives it to me to be giving it to me out of their love for me. I don't want them to feel obligated because I gave them one, because I work with them or because they "have to" (you know what I mean there). Similarily a gift filled with thought, tells me the giver made effort on my behalf and it reinforces the notion that they love me.

A gift that meets both those criteria, is truly a wonderful gift. If you're honest, you've received some of these types of gifts and you enjoyed them more than the rest. These gifts can be expensive or cost nothing at all. (like the ones that I used to get from my kids) It can be something the giver made or something the giver bought. That part doesn't really matter. In fact, it can even be a gift card if that gift meets those criteria. However, I'd prefer receiving a note in an envelope stating something along the lines of "This entitles you to a Free meal at one of the following restaurants...(several restaurants listed). You pick the date and I'll drive." Or, "This entitles you to 5 car washes at my house. I've noticed, that you're car gets real dirty. I'll wash your car for you", or "A meal at my house" etc. Those kind of gifts mean more to me because it in essence says, "I have thought of you, and because I love you I want to take care of you and/or spend time with you.

The truth is, I don't really need any material possessions. I'm at a point in my life that if I really want or need something, I balance it all out and just get it. God consistently meets all my needs and my wants are either attainable now or in the near future and with a little hard work and a saving plan I can get those.

So, I guess the question for today is, What do you really want to say this Christmas with your gift giving? Will your gift say it?

Just a few Christmas thought for you to ponder.

Now, if I could stop being so lazy, I could be a giver like that too.

Conversation, The Lost Art

The invent of the internet has brought about a myriad of social sites such as Facebook, My Space Twitter and You Tube where people interact with quick snippets, punch lines and a never-ending assortment of initials and symbols. :), lol, jk etc. etc. etc. It's as if the whole world has forgotten how to actually have a conversation. In fact, a blog post like this is about the closest one gets to having a real conversation anymore. Which is why most of us wait anxiously for someone to post a comment on what we write.

I don't know about you, but I long for the days when we could sit down and have a real conversation where friends got together and talked about real subjects with real concerns. I long for deep conversations that delve into the depths of a subject rather just bantering back and forth on material that is full of more fluff than substance.

The invent of social media has really been a blessing as it has allowed people to keep a glimpse of the lives of friends and family from large distances, but it has so simplified the relationships that it seems to have been a replacement for meaningful ones that are full of real questions that ask more than "how are you" and statements like "hope all is well". Both are good, but can never really be addressed well through a quick note on Facebook.

The Lord has designed each of us to long for real relationships. Of which, I have been blessed abundantly over an over with. It is because of these relationships that I am where I am in life right now as many have guided me and assisted me on my journey. But, it's also because of these relationships that I long for more. I long for more imput. I long for long conversations and I long for real conversations.

Traditions

Monday night at our home church gathering I tried to begin digging into what or who we are and why we exist in this form of ministry. I did so because of the questions that we were asked at the board meeting at the Nazarene church. Questions like: "How do you plan to reach new people for Christ". (If you know how let us know). "Why can't you do the same thing within our church?" "Why do you need to start a new church?". "How will you be different?" etc. etc. etc.

As we had our discussion, I think we came to the conclusion that the traditions of that church stood in the way of allowing for new ones to be made. We have a hard time imagining our pastor standing up front and asking questions to the body and to just keep asking them until they are answered. We can't see the vast majority of the people being comfortable with sharing their lives in front of the group. To hope that the people would feel free to pray out loud for those around them is a waning desire. For us to be intimate in our conversations would be extremely difficult. It's not that all the things in that church are bad, mind you, it's just that because of the nature of people to be people of habit, it makes it hard to try new things. To turn the ship, so to speak, is much easier in our setting as a new ministry, than it is for the old ship.

We are at a place that we are beginning new traditions and hopefully, not being so attached to them that we cannot ditch them if we need to. We don't have the "old guard" saying "that's how it's done" or "how it's always been done", preventing us from exploring new methods, practices and systems.

I believe in traditions. I just believe that traditions are something that we must carefully examine to determine if they are traditions that are Biblically based or traditions for traditions sake. We've all heard the story of the woman who always cut off the end of the ham when she cooked it. Her daughter asked her why she did it and she said, I don't know, my mom always did that. So she asked her mom and she said the same. Finally the great grandma was asked and she said because her pan wasn't big enough. Trivial story, but so are some of the traditions that we hold so dearly in the church.

May God grant us wisdom as we seek to discover all that He has in store for us.

Mindlessness

I don't know about you, but I often find myself sitting here reading the computer screen searching for who knows what simply to take up time. I don't know if it's my way of escape or my excuse to not do things that should be done. Anyway, I'm going to try and be more faithful with my time.
Be praying for me in this.

A Man After God's Own Heart

For quite some time now, I've been praying that I can be a "man after God's own heart" like it was said about David. I've always had this impression that to be that kind of man meant that I'd have this sense of love and "Godliness" that would be greater than anything. I'm sure some of that is true, but am becoming more convinced that to truly be a man after God's own heart is to be a man whose heart is consistently broken. The heart that God has is a heart of love for His children and the truth is, many of His children are in rebellion. Many of His children do not respond out of love to others. They don't seek His face or humble themselves before Him etc. etc. etc.

When I say "they" I often mean "me" as well. I think some of the disappointment that I have in people is the direct result of my heart being more like Christ. It aches for people to "get it" and move beyond the pettiness of life and move toward Jesus. I believe that I should still be praying for God's heart, but am not real sure that I am ready for all that truly entails.

God help me and us all.
Blessings.

10 Conclusions

I had a restless night last night as I played over and over the meeting that we had yesterday with our church board. (See last post) I came to a few different conclusions. 1) The board was and is overwhelmingly supportive of what God is leading us into. I'm excited for that. 2) We in the church are possessive of others. We claim people as our people, our church etc when in fact none of that is true. It's God's people, God's church. 3) We tend to think of the church as a local thing rather than a global thing. Instead of church universal (body of Christ) we think of Church located at 123 Main st. 4) We should call this a mission or ministry rather than a church to avoid the confusion and the competitiveness. If we say we are going to start a ministry, people are excited. If we say we're going to start a church people get defensive. 5) Buying into the vision is important. Our pastor has been sowing the vision of a new church start on the northside of Defiance for 10 years now. If people feel like we're competition, then mayby they haven't bought into the vision. 6) A vision empowers people to take chances on God. If it doesn't, then it's not a vision it's just another marketing plan. 7) The "sinners" aren't the ones who gave Jesus the most problems it was the church. Not, necessarily out of meanness, but rather out of zeal for the Lord. Change is hard. 8) Somehow, the church universal needs to begin to understand how to work in symbiotic relationships. Much like a flower and a bee need each other to survive, the different congregations need to discover how they can partner up and enable the other to survive and thrive. We need to discover how we can be a resource for each other. 9) Success should still be defined as helping someone get one step closer to God. 10) Prayer is THE most important thing we can do in this process and we must find ways to guard our prayer times, encourage prayer times and teach others the value of prayer.

There's 10 for now.

It Has Begun.

As many of you know, part of my DNA for many years now has been to start a church. Well as of tonight it is official. Dawn and I have begun a church in our home. We actually started several weeks ago but were trying to wait to speak to our current church board to make it "official". Our pastor has known about it the whole time, as well as, several people in our community, thanks to the Nazarene grapevine. We spent about an hour and an half trying to share and explain what we were up to with the board. The majority were very supportive. There is some obvious anxiety as this town is littered with past church splits. We are doing our best to communicate with those who around us that this is not a split, but rather a birth. We are actually discouraging people from joining us as we are attempting to not be a twin of the modern church but rather something else. The toughest part, however, is figuring out that elseness. To get an idea of our vision for this ministry (I prefer that name over church as we are all part of the church) take a couple of minutes to read Isiah 58. It lays out what we are to be like as followers of God.

The reality is we don't really know what we are supposed to do which is actually quite freeing. It's freeing as we realize that if we are to be "successful" in God's eyes, the only eyes that matter, we need to be totally dependent upon Him and His leadership. (success: someone making one step closer to God) It takes all the stress off of me. I simply am trying to take God at his word and trust him. My prayer used to be "God give me the vision" implying the big picture, but it is now "God, just give me the next step" I won't move until until I know it. Our small ministry group is meeting once a week and is spending the majority of our time in prayer and testimony of what God has been doing during the week. By the way, it's pretty sweet being this simple.

Some reasons for starting another church(George Barna):
1991- 35,000,000 people in U.S. not attending weekend church service. 2004- 75,000,000 not attending. 2007- 100,000,000

53% of American Adults do not attend church (means that around 8,000-10,000 people in our town do not attend if stats carry over to here

By 2035 half of current churches in current form will be closed.

These are some of the stats, but the main reason is I'm one of them. Though I grew up in the church and it's current form, I find myself wanting more from the body of Christ and knowing that the church should be more. I began noticing the changes in ministry 10-15 years ago but could not figure out what was happening. I still don't really know, but am willing to allow God to help me figure it out.

I will keep you all up-to-date on what is happening but earnestly plead for your prayers.

Anyway if you for some reason thought, I wonder what God's been up to? Have no fear, He's still working!

Blessings on you!