So I really am trying to actually blog this round. I have been somewhat busy. I am learning several things about ministry that I never knew existed.
The biggest thing I am learning is that there are bullets in ministry that, no matter how hard you work to dodge or matrix your way around your going to get hit. Despite what I wish ministry could focus on,(nothing more than the great commission), there are several other things that play into these factors. Some of the things are baptism, communion, doctrine, ministries that are okay, all of these and then some are the list of nuisances that come along that you have to take a stand on. I started this blog so that I could outline what I would do as a church planter, should God ever have me do such a thing. Why I expected it to be easier than this is beyond me, but truthfully I did. I thought,"I can go build up a church that follows the bible, has God as the head, and doesn't worry about the little stuff. These are just some of the current lessons I am facing in life.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Hurricane
Well its been about a week since my last post. I really wanted to make sure I had something I thought was important to say. About five days ago I was really starting to see a realistic perspective on where God is possibly leading me in life. I wanted to focus on exactly what he has for me, and the song,"Hello Hurricane" by Switchfoot kept playing in my mind. I also use twitter, so on there I posted,"Hello hurricane...you can't silence my love." No big deal really just what I was thinking at the moment. Later one of my good friends sent me a tweet back that said,"What if His love is the hurricane?" I read this over and over because at first it seemed as though my friend was just trying to mess with me. Then I began to think," Maybe he is right." What if God's love is the hurricane, sent in to mess things up because you are loving something else more than him. I was completly dumbfounded. Yes I over think things, but this was different.
So what if God sometimes sends in his love to say,"Woah, slow down turbo." Even if our other love is what we believe to be him. Example, say that you work in a church in a specific ministry. You have a meeting, you plan goals, you work out problems within your ministry. Then say you are living that ministry out, and it just doesn't seem as though God is anywhere around. What is the problem here? The problem is most likely your relationship with God. Sometimes we get carried away in the little things of God that we over look why we do what we do, and who we do it for. I have heard pastor after pastor tell me that it is so easy to confuse sermon study with quiet time. If your personal relationship with God takes a back seat to your ministry, then its not your ministry that you have to look out for, and fix, it is your personal relationship with God that you need to concentrate on. God does some pretty out there things sometimes. Remember whenever he had this guy build a massive boat, collect animals from the entire earth, and then told him that everyone should believe and was invited in? What about the twelve guys who had their fishing career radically changed whenever God said,"Follow me," and the did? Sometimes God goes radical to get our attention. Maybe he really wants us to follow him. We easily forget that he can see everything about our life, and as a christian, he can tell us what we should do with our life. We need to just make sure that we always remember that God can be the hurricane.
So what if God sometimes sends in his love to say,"Woah, slow down turbo." Even if our other love is what we believe to be him. Example, say that you work in a church in a specific ministry. You have a meeting, you plan goals, you work out problems within your ministry. Then say you are living that ministry out, and it just doesn't seem as though God is anywhere around. What is the problem here? The problem is most likely your relationship with God. Sometimes we get carried away in the little things of God that we over look why we do what we do, and who we do it for. I have heard pastor after pastor tell me that it is so easy to confuse sermon study with quiet time. If your personal relationship with God takes a back seat to your ministry, then its not your ministry that you have to look out for, and fix, it is your personal relationship with God that you need to concentrate on. God does some pretty out there things sometimes. Remember whenever he had this guy build a massive boat, collect animals from the entire earth, and then told him that everyone should believe and was invited in? What about the twelve guys who had their fishing career radically changed whenever God said,"Follow me," and the did? Sometimes God goes radical to get our attention. Maybe he really wants us to follow him. We easily forget that he can see everything about our life, and as a christian, he can tell us what we should do with our life. We need to just make sure that we always remember that God can be the hurricane.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
This is where i am coming from.
Thank you if you read my blog last time. As I have told several people, that will be the outline of a church should God choose to let me plant one. It all seems very basic doesn't it? I mean last night in the youth group I help lead our youth pastor Ryan went over the basic principles of why we do what we do as a youth group. Afterwards I went up to him and asked him if he had read my blog becaue he had gone right down through it as our youth group mission statement. This is really going to be an exciting year. God is showing me something so big that there is know way for me to fully comprehend it right now.
Whenever Ryan came in as our youth pastor he brought with him this really cool idea of having small groups, where the leaders would all take anywhere from 5-10 kids at the end of the night and go deeper. We also went to band concerts, football games, etc. I had a fantastic group of guys. They had almost nothing in common except they were in the same grade. I thought,"This will be cool, its like a mini youth group." Which is what it was. We had a blast and so many awesome conversations. I was even excited(kinda proud) that i was one of two groups that actually was able to stay together into the next year. The other of which was my now wife's group. With our second year of small groups came a mass of changes to our group. One guy stopped wanting to come to church, one guy went to another church, and one guy was moved to another church. I was initally very torn. I was losing my group, but more importantly, my group was not at our church. This also meant that I would most likely be getting a new group this year. Well through so much prayer, and so many fantastic conversations with other leaders in our group, and church leaders in other places. God showed me just how selfish i was being. God was about to reveal something amazing.
Whenever Ryan came in as our youth pastor he brought with him this really cool idea of having small groups, where the leaders would all take anywhere from 5-10 kids at the end of the night and go deeper. We also went to band concerts, football games, etc. I had a fantastic group of guys. They had almost nothing in common except they were in the same grade. I thought,"This will be cool, its like a mini youth group." Which is what it was. We had a blast and so many awesome conversations. I was even excited(kinda proud) that i was one of two groups that actually was able to stay together into the next year. The other of which was my now wife's group. With our second year of small groups came a mass of changes to our group. One guy stopped wanting to come to church, one guy went to another church, and one guy was moved to another church. I was initally very torn. I was losing my group, but more importantly, my group was not at our church. This also meant that I would most likely be getting a new group this year. Well through so much prayer, and so many fantastic conversations with other leaders in our group, and church leaders in other places. God showed me just how selfish i was being. God was about to reveal something amazing.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Its all about love
So i have noticed in recent days that i have a problem. I have to much to say and nobody to say it to. Therefore I decided to make this blog so i can say to nobody other than whoever may actually read this. So if you are reading this thank you because it does make me feel better.
Here lately the only thing that has been stuck in my mind is The Great Commission. Via my favorite translation, (ESV) it states;
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you, And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." -Matthew 27:19-20
Now at first glance that seems very simple. Go teach, and baptize. However, it does not show us how to teach them. Most will say, "Well Josh that is what the rest of the bible does." Which is true, but also begs another question. Why don't we study the bible the way we should so that when we are called to carry out this commission we actually can? Also, there are many ways to carry out this commission and teach these things so how do we do that? I know to many questions at once. I will take it one at a time.
Why do we not study the bible the way we should? I would say that most may not know how to do so. It's really nothing to be ashamed about. To be honest I have really just recently begun to answer the question for myself. To fully understand the magnitude of the scriptures we really have to dig deep into them and carefully, objectively look at what is there. That can be a big problem, "Look at the scriptures objectively?" Most of the people I am around day after day are people that have been in church their entire life. Yes I understand that I am in a small rural town in Arkansas so that is where my view comes from. However, when Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth," (2 Tim. 2:15) he was instructing Timothy to tell them, which in this case is Timothy's church, that everybody should read and study the scriptures. Most of the times we try to leave it up to the preachers to go in and break down what the bible says. We don't ever go back and look for ourselves and see what is actually going on. Its fairly easy to do this really just go back in your quiet time throughout the week and look at what has been said.
So then how do we teach as the Great Commission has said. The answer is very simple. First we love God, then we love people. That's it! That is what we have been called to do. Jesus plainly states this in Matthew.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul an with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."-Matthew 22:36-40
You know what Jesus is right, the ten commandments all either have to do with loving God or loving other people. I would reason to bet that if you looked at the laws in Leviticus they all fall under one of these two categories to. So Jesus when he came didn't radically change the rules for living, he just streamlined them, so that we could better comprehend what we needed to do. He is simply asking us to do everything we do with are life through love. Nobody ever said that doing this was going to be easy. Somebody somewhere back a little way in time said,"All you have to do to be a Christian is believe what Jesus did for you, and confess your sins to him and he will come into your heart." Now don't get me wrong there is quite a bit of truth in there. If you do these things he will come into your heart. your name will be in the book of life, but that means you are now saved from hell. I know several people that have made the profession of faith, but they have not gone any further than just that. In order to be a christian you should strive to be like Christ. Living your daily life loving Him and loving the people around you. That is really what we are called to do.
I am not trying to guilt trip anyone into wanting to be this way. I am simply saying if you lived your life this way, just think about where it could go. Loving God, Loving People.
Here lately the only thing that has been stuck in my mind is The Great Commission. Via my favorite translation, (ESV) it states;
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that i have commanded you, And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." -Matthew 27:19-20
Now at first glance that seems very simple. Go teach, and baptize. However, it does not show us how to teach them. Most will say, "Well Josh that is what the rest of the bible does." Which is true, but also begs another question. Why don't we study the bible the way we should so that when we are called to carry out this commission we actually can? Also, there are many ways to carry out this commission and teach these things so how do we do that? I know to many questions at once. I will take it one at a time.
Why do we not study the bible the way we should? I would say that most may not know how to do so. It's really nothing to be ashamed about. To be honest I have really just recently begun to answer the question for myself. To fully understand the magnitude of the scriptures we really have to dig deep into them and carefully, objectively look at what is there. That can be a big problem, "Look at the scriptures objectively?" Most of the people I am around day after day are people that have been in church their entire life. Yes I understand that I am in a small rural town in Arkansas so that is where my view comes from. However, when Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth," (2 Tim. 2:15) he was instructing Timothy to tell them, which in this case is Timothy's church, that everybody should read and study the scriptures. Most of the times we try to leave it up to the preachers to go in and break down what the bible says. We don't ever go back and look for ourselves and see what is actually going on. Its fairly easy to do this really just go back in your quiet time throughout the week and look at what has been said.
So then how do we teach as the Great Commission has said. The answer is very simple. First we love God, then we love people. That's it! That is what we have been called to do. Jesus plainly states this in Matthew.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul an with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."-Matthew 22:36-40
You know what Jesus is right, the ten commandments all either have to do with loving God or loving other people. I would reason to bet that if you looked at the laws in Leviticus they all fall under one of these two categories to. So Jesus when he came didn't radically change the rules for living, he just streamlined them, so that we could better comprehend what we needed to do. He is simply asking us to do everything we do with are life through love. Nobody ever said that doing this was going to be easy. Somebody somewhere back a little way in time said,"All you have to do to be a Christian is believe what Jesus did for you, and confess your sins to him and he will come into your heart." Now don't get me wrong there is quite a bit of truth in there. If you do these things he will come into your heart. your name will be in the book of life, but that means you are now saved from hell. I know several people that have made the profession of faith, but they have not gone any further than just that. In order to be a christian you should strive to be like Christ. Living your daily life loving Him and loving the people around you. That is really what we are called to do.
I am not trying to guilt trip anyone into wanting to be this way. I am simply saying if you lived your life this way, just think about where it could go. Loving God, Loving People.
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