Bleeding out…

Just this past Sunday a couple visited our church.  They still go to our former church (spiritual formation/transformation church).  We were once in a small group together, and we really enjoyed time with this couple.  They have two children who are getting old enough to go to the youth group.  I commend these parents, they are involved with their children and followed them to the youth group.  This is where they have discovered enough problems to begin a church search just to see what else is out there.  The complaints I have heard are that the message and all the activities don’t always make any sense.  Things are disjointed, and the gospel is not clearly being taught through the activities and fluff.   There are so many distractions.  Apparently, one Sunday, the youth minister was speaking and there was a video playing in the background.  It was people falling, crashing into things, and getting hurt.  The mother could see no reason for this, and thought it wasn’t funny at all.  The parents have also complained that the youth room is often littered with trash because these teens will not use proper manners and clean up after themselves.  I recall the youth didn’t go to their church time with bibles and the girls often wore inappropriate clothing.  Rarely, were teens ever in “big church” with the adults.  We are so happy we are no longer there, it sounds like it is as bad as I thought.

 

I am so giddy, and I have high hopes.  I love to see people leave that environment.  I spoke to my pastor when I saw them at church, and let him know our past with this couple.  He knows many people have left that church including our family.  He’s always seeing people visit from my former church.  He commented something like this, “you’d think they’d try to figure out what they are doing is wrong since they are bleeding out.”   Yeah, you’d think.

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A Pastor’s Comments on Nouwen

My husband asked an assistant pastor how to handle a suggested Nouwen book in our small group meeting.  One of the first questions I heard from him was, “was it an unqualified recommendation?”  In fairness, people do sometimes read and recommend books, but they don’t always agree with everything in the book or everything from that author.  Unfortunately, this was actually qualified in that the book was recommended excitedly and whole heartedly.  The man in our group shared several concepts openly and offered to let two women in the group be the next ones to read it after someone else outside the group finished his copy.  I believe he even suggested that Christians should read it, and I am sure he said it was his favorite book.  We shared some of our thoughts with the pastor, that the man seemed to really like the book and was sharing it. I did mention the comment the man made stating that the book opened an idea he hadn’t thought of, that Jesus himself was a “prodigal of the Father” because he left and came back. The pastor’s eyebrows twitched a little bit, and he shook his head, “no.”  

The pastor’s advice was not to go all out after this man.  He said that we should actually bring this to the attention of the small group leader.  He suggested we share why we see problems with the author and that it’s not someone we’d recommend reading.  He said that many don’t have the same level of discernment, and some don’t subscribe to the strange teachings but also don’t know the problems with an author’s entire body of work.  He said to assume the best about a person at first, and just trust the leadership.  However, he did say to keep paying attention and if this keeps coming up, to bring it back up again to the leader.  It can also be brought up to the pastors in leadership of the church.  He suggested further we truly befriend this man and if the opportunity arises, we can share with him carefully the problems with Nouwen and why we wouldn’t recommend it as a solid book for Christians to read.  

This is a very big difference than what happened at our former church when we brought up books and teachings that were questionable.  The pastor here acknowledged the teaching from Nouwen was bad (if it indeed was what we were saying it is…he’d never read it before).  He mentioned how many people read popular authors, he has been given books from church members of such authors.  He said how he has personally tactfully told people how the author is in error and he’d suggest they never recommend the book without some qualification.  He personally had quoted authors from the pulpit he doesn’t agree with, but he says he intends to always qualify those quotes as true as far as he sees it but the author has other comments or ideas that are not in line with scripture.  And reading works that are questionable can be a learning experience, but it must be qualified as such.  He says he’s sometimes shocked at what members in our church recommend for reading on facebook or in person, saying that he often wants to say, “What?  Haven’t you been hearing sound teaching in our church for years?  Why would you recommend that book?”  

At least he acknowledged us, and was kind.  He did seem to be bothered by this problem and suggested a way to deal with it and not ignore it.  He actually thinks the leader in our group likely hasn’t heard of Nouwen, and may have no clue about it.  I find this to be a very good thing.  It’s much different than the “oh, that author is recommended and used by many pastors…and we might not agree with everything he says but he has good intentions.”  That was our former church, and that was unacceptable squashing.  We weren’t told not to be divisive, but to proceed carefully.  

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Small group and Henri Nouwen

We were tootling along just fine in our schedule at small group last night, when, as far as I’m concerned, a grenade was dropped. One man, prominent in our group, mentioned a book that he said, “is the best book I’ve ever read.” Uh oh. It’s not the Bible, so what could it be? A book on the prodigal son by Henri Nouwen. He’s reading it, and will pass it on to the eager next person in the group. Another woman wrote the title down. I sat there, quietly taking it in. Now I have to proceed carefully. The man is not a bible study leader nor pastor. He’s also not necessarily tainted because he likes this one book. I do think, however, that we need to figure out how to address this so I am carefully taking advice from people I respect. I will not go in guns blazing, but I do not believe we should ignore this. My husband was proud of me, I am usually blasting away when I see a problem. I’ve learned. There is wisdom in silence for a time while we gather information and carefully present the problems with Nouwen.

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I don’t understand how, when, or why selfishness became the “Christian” position.

I opened up my facebook on October 14th and this is what one woman had to say:
“I don’t understand how, when, or why selfishness became the “Christian” position.”

She continued:

“I’m just finding very frustrating that in this whole 99% debate, the “Christian” voices all seem to be saying, “I work hard for my money, therefore it’s mine, and I don’t wanna share, and if the 1% are richer than you, it’s just because they worked harder, so they deserve it more.” It’s just so opposite the teachings of Jesus, and so opposite of how I feel about the world, as a Christian. It makes me sad. Jesus told his followers to pay their taxes, and the only time he ever got really pissed off was at people profiting off of religion. ”

My response:
” I don’t think it’s greed necessarily. Saying that I work for my money and don’t want to pay MORE taxes than I already do is not greedy. And assuming the Christians out there expressing this don’t give to charity is wrong. We actually are struggling, have sought some help. We’ve not gotten help from government programs like we have from who? Christians. I don’t think all the the 99% people are arguing the same things. I think some would actually be able to sit with about the same signs as the tea party people. It depends on who you talk to. I was just talking to someone yesterday who is not a 99%er, and may not be part of the teaparty, but she realized we’re all looking to the wrong solutions. The Church SHOULD be providing more and is NOT. That’s the problem, the government cannot solve it, corporations cannot solve it. I fear for MORE taxes affecting charitable giving.”

I continue:
And I knew this was going to happen a few years back. I began to hear the attacks on the rich from the Obama campaign, and I knew there was going to be a fight between poor and rich that didn’t exist in the way it does today. I find that many of the things that weren’t a big divider before are becoming so now. It’s all part of the plan, I think (whatever that plan is I don’t know…but I think it is part of it). Not that I think there’s a big “left wing conspiracy” but that yes, in the hopes of creating a bit of chaos before an election, we must have some class division. The bible itself mentions in proverbs (I think, I’ll have to look it up) you no work, you no eat. (very loose and free translation, forgive me). Now, I’m not assuming the 99%er crowd doesn’t work. Just that the concept that getting to have some prosperity from hard work is NOT a sin.”

Another facebooker responded:
“Christ said in Luke “Blessed are the poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven” and tells the rich young ruler to give away everything he has to the poor before he can follow him. Christ told everytone to pay their taxes, in a time when a tax collector could take every penny you had if he wanted to. Christ never said pay your taxes until you feel like you’ve paid enough, he said look Caesars head is on this coin, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. So take your dollars, and give to Washington what is Washington’s. Aren’t you blessed to live in a day and age when there are laws that keep a tax collector from walking into your home and taking every penny you have? Praise be to God! And actually, A LOT of the 99%ers leave the protest to go to work, one of the faces of Occupy Wall Street is a public school teacher who is there all evening, sleeps there 3 or 4 nights a week and has not missed a day of work since this started. Most people I know here at Occupy Portland do work and they are not there 24 hours a day. And the ONLY person I know at occupy Philly who does not have a job outside the home is JA (the original poster) and I would argue that to say see doesn’t work is insulting to billions of christian women who have devoted themselves to raising children in a home fo Faith for the last 2 millenia!”

“Yes, it’s true Erin, it was because the rich young ruler wouldn’t admit he was a sinner and imperfect. He knew the man’s heart. IT was not about being rich or poor. The society he was living in was much different than our representative form of government. And because we DON’T have to pay those taxes yet, we are free to express frustration with people trying to get more taxes to redistribute the money people have worked and saved for. The bible contains many examples and exortations to work and to save…how the ants are wise in saving for the winter. Yes, I know many work…they have to pay for the things they find to be important for them just like those of us who don’t happen to agree with their particular philosophies.”

Other facebooker replies, “I would suggest you read ANY of the Church Father’s on that passage, you seem to be taking your interpretations from 20th Century America and ignoring what 2 milllenia of Christians have believed that passage to mean. it is the height of American Prosperity arrogance.”

To this I replied, “I know many are trying, just like tea partiers, to make America better. They are expressing their freedom to speak. Some are downright crazy, but I’m sure that’s not all. The squeaky wheel syndome, I guess, when it comes to media attention on that. But I do think there is much more going on than just the tax issue. Biting the hand that feeds you is only going to hurt our economy. Regulation itself imposed by our government can often have consequences beyond which we cannot see today. Every law has many consequences we do not count on. All the best intentions, but this could turn out to be pretty ugly for us regular families relying on jobs…because those corporations are the ones that hire most of us. And they are the ones that support even the government with the current taxes they have. So when the economy is bad, even govt. workers suffer. More taxes on the corporations, more regulation…it has to be WELL thought out and looked at. Because no one is going to give the people better when they are giving more to the government. The tax burden is always passed on to the public.”

And I added further:

“Jesus names several commandments, and that arrogant man claims HE met them all perfectly. It was about HIS sin, it’s in the text. Mark 10:17-31 in context. It’s about him “trusting in riches” not in God. He thought he was perfect enough, and could not give up what he truly trusted in. It was not about giving up riches, it was about giving up his misplaced trust.”

Other facebooker reply:

“i interpret scripture in light of Christian Teaching and Tradition, I do not rely on my own intellect to interpret God’s Word, because I am not equipped to do so. If you feel that you know more about scripture than the Church Fathers, that is fine, I do not.”

My reply to the attitude given:
“Hey, I got my teaching somewhere. I didn’t make this up whole cloth. And I’m not attacking JA for her opinion directly, nor you.”

Original poster:

“If you look at some of the numbers, it’s downright scary. We are in a recession, and the super-rich just keep getting super-richer. Meanwhile, hard work isn’t enough anymore. Our parents’ generation told us to go to college so we could have a better life. They said, don’t worry about the loans, you’re investing in your future. Then, when the job well dried up, they said, Oh, too bad, I guess we were wrong about that whole education thing, have fun with your debt. Yes, I should take responsibility for my own choices (even though the pressure to go to college when I graduated from high school was insane). But when student loan interest rates keep rising, and you can’t just take a job at McDonald’s because it doesn’t pay enough to make loan payments, let alone pay rent, and people are dying because they can’t afford health insurance, yeah, I think I am entitled to be a little ticked off at the establishment.
And frankly, I’m tired of the argument that Christians should be helping by giving to charity, not supporting social programs, and that churches should be the ones feeding the hungry and housing the poor. Why on earth do you want all that responsibility? Can your church afford the millions of dollars that national social programs cost? Mine can’t. And as much as this nation pretends to be a Christian nation, if we were supposed to run the entire social safety net based on the tithes of church-going Christians, it would be woefully inadequate. The entire country – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, Pagan, you name it – needs to work together to make things better.”

My response: (and what I meant by own community is it’s own responsibilities within the body)
“Each church has it’s own community, and my church does work very hard to help and meet as many needs as it can…but Jesus also mentioned the poor will always be with you. He was seeking people to follow Him, and to serve when they could. The focus was on serving Him first, then meeting the needs within the body, then beyond. And trust me, JA, I am aware that church people are NOT perfect, and not all “our” ideas are perfect. As a Christian, I do know there IS selfishness, and greed…many examples. But I do think the bible does provide the Gospel despite us.”

Original poster said:
” I don’t want to play the Bible verse game. For every verse you find praising posterity, I can find another condemning wealth. That side-steps the whole point. The point is the general attitude portrayed by “Christian” pundits in the media: That somehow, poor people deserve to be poor, and that they are stealing from me if they need help. Which is decidedly un-Christian.”

My response:
” I personally was making that point about the “bible verse game” myself in quoting the ones showing prosperity itself is NOT an evil. What is wrong with people is not an opinion about how our government handles this, it’s about sin. And yes, you have a point in that greed is not okay. Pride is not okay. The problem is with sin and NOT with whether you support one political agenda or another.”

Original poster:
” And if a “Christian” is railing against the lazy welfare leeches who steal his tax dollars, I have a REALLY hard time believing that he is going to let his tithe money support them, either. That’s where the “Churches should be feeding the poor, not the government” argument really breaks down for me.”

My return:

“I do think it’s possible that if I heard someone arguing that way when someone is in true need, not just purposely not working and “working the system” we would agree.”

Original poster:
“No, prosperity itself is not evil. But the love of money is the root of all evil, and the fact is that in the United States, very few people get rich without exploiting somebody else to get there. And the Bible says that it’s harder for a camel to fit through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter heaven and Jacob sent his sons to ask for food from Egypt. It’s okay to need help. But because we have this mindset that working hard to earn everything we need in life is the only good thing, we are tricked into not even accepting help when we need it.

My response:

“Yes, I do not think when needed help is above us. We’ve asked for it. But I don’t blame corporations NOR my government because I have need a times. Sometimes we cannot HELP our circumstances, and sadly, sometimes our circumstances are a result of our poor money management. We have experienced both…
We do have a bit of pride and don’t LIKE to accept help, we’d rather be the ones giving actually. But yes, we’ve accepted help and no one in the church has ever suggested (to us anyway) there is anything wrong with it.”

Now, I know my ping pong with these women was not the best, but I did try to redirect a bit. The original poster was dead set on saying Christians are selfish. True, we can be selfish. Some of those who represent the church aren’t actually Christians anyway. But it wasn’t about defending the church for me. It was about trying to explain they are using the bible incorrectly. Note how they picked out verses to say the rich in America should pay more taxes. Well, it doesn’t say that people should pay MORE taxes in the bible, just that we should pay the taxes asked of us. And the point of the mention of money is often to draw our attention away from money and toward Christ. Money is the root of all evil because people pursuit it rather than Christ. Whatever solutions we come up with for America are likely going to be practical and political. Using scripture to back us is dangerous and better be used correctly. I think, if we look at our nation, a large part of the failure in the country is greed within the hearts of individuals and families, not just in the hearts of CEO’s. It’s evident we’re going through more than just a readjustment, people really have a wrong idea of the bible, and the meaning of Christ’s words.

I hope I did something good in engaging others in this topic. I do feel it might be a fruitless effort! These women only want to use Christ as a means to an end. It’s just the same with many.

I do know the church cannot be the “social justice” branch of the world either. I do think some of the jobs our government does would better be handled by the church if and only if the church follows it’s role given by God. I do not believe the church is in the world to make it a better place, though I do think because of the church, God has blessed the world in many ways. I think those who are true believers do, because of Christ and His sacrifice, often do wonderful things and reach out to help those who live and work around them. It’s the natural goodness that comes from the heart of God. But, it is not a mandate for us as believers to fix all of society. Please correct me where I am wrong, I do believe the first place the church is meant to serve and help is within it’s own body. Going outside is secondary.

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We Like Sheep

I’m starting to mull over people who attend church and how they follow after.  I admit, I’ve blindly followed at times.  I want to be lazy, I want to sit and relax.  I want to just eat and not study.   I clump with others at times, and this causes problems when I line up with the wrong crowd.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that people react and run.  If things are revealed to be wrong, we can leap wildly in the other direction.  In college, I recall a man who went from a charismatic style church group straight into Wicca, and then into another church group.  He jumped from one thing to another, or the guys I knew who jumped from a controlling group into the gay lifestyle.  But it doesn’t even have to be that extreme.  I mean, it can be that one might jump from one denomination to another, or from one leader to another.    It is easy to abandon one whole set of beliefs or people just because of some bad things/bad people and not really think about why.  I’ve done it, I’ve seen it.

I think the key is to remember that we people are sinners, our reactions can be prideful, can be sinful, even if we are right in realizing a bad church, a bad situation.  It is not wrong to point out the error, and to run from it.  When doing so though, I need to keep in mind where I am running to.  (this is not to say the church I am in is bad or that our family ran to something bad.  I don’t believe we have…just that it is very easy to react rather than to stop, pray, and think about things.  It is also easy to paint everything with a broad brush because I don’t see the whole picture).

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Church and Feelings

We have been attending our church now for well over two years.  We’ve been members for almost a year (I think, I’m terrible with dates etc, I remember how long we’ve attended because we started in January two years ago).    I enjoy the sermon, and the brief talks we have with people.  We do have some people we are getting closer too.  But, there is no excitement when getting ready to go to church.  It’s not that we ever regret going, we just don’t look forward to it here, unless we’re talking kids, they love it.

We still feel distant.  The sermons are solid, even it seems with the associate pastor.  He gave a sermon on “the law” yesterday, and it was one of the best I’ve heard him give.  Not an easy topic, and yet he hit it.   We are in this church because the preaching is solid.  We are in this church because it has no agenda in terms of promoting men’s books or pastors, it is not even about the lead pastor.  What I see in this church is strong teaching directly from the bible.  I see people who live their lives according to the bible as far as I can tell.

So, why the distant feelings?  I believe there are two definite and obvious possible reasons.  One is that it’s us, the other is that it’s the church.

I think we have been distant ourselves for self preservation.  We came out of a church with problems, serious problems.  I now think our former pastor was a bit of a bully.  I did not like the church being led by Warren, Hybels, and others.  The small groups were less about good true teaching from God’s word that any young church member could run a small group with just a meeting place and a DVD player.  Seriously.     We did learn there, there was some good teaching.  However, there was enough of the bad we had to get out.    But before we really opened our eyes to the problems, I need to say that we looked forward to Sunday.  We were going to church.  There were friends there.  I can think of some specific people, some awesome and wonderful Christian friends (some of whom are no longer there for various reasons, most left because they saw issues too).  We had fun there, we had fellowship there.  Despite all the problems, the goal for many of the people we were in fellowship with was to live the Christian life and was to honor God.  It’s just that the leadership derailed some of that, pushing people into manditory studies of Warren books, or preaching from simple formulas.  Not all messages were bad.   What really drew us back again and again?  The people.  We also enjoyed the music most of the time, and the pastor who lead music always read directly from scripture and included it in his worship sets.

We were also immature and not seriously paying attention, we were responsible for being in a place with bad teaching (again, not most of the time…it was good sometimes).  We didn’t really examine the Purpose Driven Life the first time around.  I understand that people were fighting in small groups over that book.  We were just immature, laughing at Rick Warren’s shirts and generally doing just enough to get by, we were in it.  This makes it hard for us to trust ourselves now, we know we bought it or ignored it ourselves.  We were not really in the bible in our own free time enough, we had a weak personal life with God.   We relied on church time and small group a lot for our own personal study of God’s word.   So, our own faults kept us blind.  Our own ignorance and laziness kept us quiet.

We also enjoyed all the extra stuff our church had for our kids.  There were carnival like events, soccer camps, VBS events that were more like summer camp than VBS.  There were concerts and more.  Most was free for our family.  Even without money, we could get.   Thinking back, that’s part of it.  We had some time when my husband lost his job, and really, financially, we struggled for years after due to his gaining a job with much less pay as we had bought our house when he was employed at a higher salary.  We kept having kids, and sometimes we couldn’t pay our bills.  Our car died, the church gave us an old but working car.  Our furnace died in the middle of the winter, we were struggling to buy groceries, the church paid the bill for the repair.  We were taken care of.  Our kids were taken care of, and were kept busy and entertained.  Our family was given fun in a time when we couldn’t afford it ourselves.  Our family was strong, and we had great friends too.  Our social standing as “poor” in the church didn’t mean anything except we were a couple who could be served.

Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t just take, we did give as Sunday school teachers, Awana leaders, and helpers in various capacities.  We tried to be there for the church, and even began to lead a small group with DVD’s and books for a while ourselves.

So now, we’re members in this new church and we’ve avoided mooching.  This is a good thing, but it means we don’t feel the gratitude for all the help.  It means we’re not depending like we did in our former church.  We also avoid small groups because of schedule conflicts, but I also believe because of fear.  That kind of commitment, meeting together, is a risk.  What if small group is the same?  Sure, we might make some great friends.  We did in the former church, and I believe we did meet with brothers and sisters in Christ.  But what if we find bad teaching?  We’ve made a commitment in membership, and I refuse to just leave without a very good reason.  If there is error, we’d have to learn how to properly address it (not sure we properly handled the former church, though we think we did in some ways….).  It’s a risk to get close, to open up.  Not taking the risk though, it means we haven’t spent time with the members to really get to know them.  In fact, our church offers Sunday night activities.  We don’t attend.  We also don’t go to the Wednesday night things because our kids are in activities.   We miss out, and I think has made it harder to get to know people.

Yes, it’s possible it’s our fault, very possible.  What if it’s the church though?  They do reach out and offer all these activities.  They introduce themselves to new people.  They speak to us.  We’ve gone to some church wide events, but we still feel like strangers there.   We have not been invited to people’s houses for dinner, or even out to dinner.  I attended a women’s retreat, and it was okay.  I had my little one with me and she my priority.   One woman was exceptional in her contact, but we don’t really intentionally call one another or anything regularly, we’re just friendly at church.  We do have a few families we knew before we went to this church that we have deeper relationships with, but not the people who were there before we got there.

Some of it might be that the church building itself is basically a big sanctuary with a hallway and entry lobbies on two sides.  There are small classrooms, and is no  real formal meeting area besides.  There is not space to stand around and talk really, it’s clogged in transition time in and out of the church.  There’s no place to really sit and enjoy.   There’s no big kitchen (I think there might be a very small stove there), so meals are all pot luck and it’s mostly picnics.  There’s not a real “fellowship room.” The teen  Sunday school  room is used for this, but it seems there’s not really a place in the church to get together other than the sanctuary (which is more like a gym with a stage than an actual church sanctuary…chairs come up and it’s a basketball court).   People do chat there, but it’s not easy to just sit somewhere and really seriously talk.

So, our issue is trying to figure out what involvement we need to do in order to be connected to the people.  Likely, we need to find ways to be more involved.  We also need to be willing to serve.  I am helping with VBS this summer, that will at least put me with other women who are helping.  We really need connection to other families too, people who feel safe with a large family.  I know some of it is that my home is not really a hospitality haven, because we could be very active in inviting others over for dinner, which would be less intimidating than having people invite our large brood over.   Some changes can be made that are practical.  But if we make the effort and still feel distant, what then?  Good preaching, no fellowship in our hearts?  I still feel we’ve made a commitment…

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Persecution….

I have heard pastors mention that we in America have not experienced real persecution in recent years.  This is true as far as I’m concerned.  The reason given is much more ominous.    “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because  you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”  John 15 (18-19)

So, the pastor flips this, an obvious conclusion.  If the world does NOT hate a group of people, then maybe they are no threat to the world.  Maybe they are not like Christ, maybe these so called churches are failing.  This could be.  It may also be that the persecution is coming, and the church in America has just been spared for a time and will still be going through it one day soon.

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Like Eating Healthy for Once

Switching from a Purpose Driven church with entertainment to a bible teaching church may have a few effects, one of which initially is boredom.  This may seem unholy and wrong to admit, but it has happened.  We felt it in our house.  A dry feeling.  But like eating healthy food for once as a normal way of life rather than just once in a while, old habits are hard to break.

Exercise and eating healthy will be difficult for someone coming from terrible habits.  We want to drift back to the soda, we want to taste the sugary sweet candy.  We want to have french fries and greasy hamburgers with lots of cheese.  Why?  We’re addicted.  What do bad eating and exercise habits get us?  Diabetes, heart problems, early death.  We become fat and unable to enjoy life.

This is what happened to us at the previous church.  We enjoyed a LOT of cool programs.  Our kids were entertained.  We felt we were growing in the faith.  Yes, we did grow, but looking back, the times we did grow were when we insisted to study the bible verse by verse in small group.  There were some messages by the pastors that carried truth, so we did learn from those.  However, much was social, much was wrong teaching.  We ignored the problems for a while.  It caught up to us.  We began to see the problems.

When we opened our ears and looked around, we heard the pastors preaching things that were not biblical.  Suddenly, the candy coating didn’t feel good anymore.  We realized the illness in our faith.  We were not being fed often enough.  Yes, there was service, we were served in many ways.  But the teaching was in error just as often as it was in truth.  We allowed the error to go on when we were blind to it, but once we saw it we realized we had to escape.

We eventually landed in a church where the bible is preached verse by verse.  We started out with some initial joy, because our worries about the former church were confirmed.  Still, we missed some of the trappings.  We missed the social time, many people were new to us.  We missed the upbeat music a great deal.  Still, the true spiritual food was making us feel better because our spiritual bodies were getting the right nutrition.  Now my children recognize the former church for what it is, and they do not want to go back to the candy.  We don’t either. 

Of course, we listen and are very careful, we do not want to believe the pastor without checking things out.  It’s kind of like reading the labels.  We want to know what’s going on at the church, what they are truly about.  Is the spiritual food healthy and true?  If it is, then we will see growth and not experience the physical illness.  The hard work put in (not works for salvation mind you, but the study of God’s word and prayer, the service to the body, and the support of those who go out and preach to others…or even maybe us going out some day when we’re prepared…these things are the hard things), will result in a healthy Christian perspective.  Staying on guard is important, reading for ourselves.  After all, it’s supposed to be our faith we’re working out right?  And as time goes on, what was previously boring is actually very exciting.  Scriptural study is not some mundane thing, it’s a wonderful joy to hear and read truth.

note:  If I am saying something wrong by winging it, PLEASE let me know here.  I know these are my human thoughts, not God’s words.

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The Church in America and Its Judgement

I think the time is here and past.  I am no one, not some prophet crying out.  I’m just a Christian lady, but I have to say this, I agree with those who believe churches in America are bringing judgement upon themselves.  I am not speaking of the true Church, mind you, though there is still a remnant here in our nation.  We will be walking through this judgement too, but it’s those who have twisted scripture and lied to us that will be judged, and those who want to remain in the lie that will be judged.  It’s going to likely cause more persecution for the true church actually.  It will be hard to find truth in all those mega church wanna be buildings out there.  It will be harder to find comfort for the souls sitting in those numbered chairs.  Sure, they’ll feel good on Sunday morning when they sing and raise their hands, but what of the rest of the week?  Numb to the decay in their souls?  Numb from prescriptions taken to hide the pain?  Numb from socials and planning and work to be done?

I know an easy way to numb yourself….screen time!   Meanwhile, our nation is being taken over and when we do wake up, we’ll find our liberty gone.  Those who stand for Christ and who really want to be Christians, well, we’ll be quite unpopular around here.  The Christian nation will become something else entirely.  Muslim, atheist, whatever…these will be used to futher judge.  There will be a time of seperating.  There may not be an America left for hiding.  We may be a small lot, we may be a secluded lot.  We may end up underground. 

Of course, this is just an opinion and I am not speaking from a direct knowledge of anything.  I do know feelings (and they cannot always be trusted)…but in my gut I sense a terrible darkness.  With all that’s going on in our government, and all that’s going on in the church, it’s like God has turned from our America and is letting it go.  So now there are Christians sitting in the USA who are going to have to cling to Jesus, read the scriptures, and pray.  We have to wait to see what else needs to be done.  We have to choose not to compromise.  We have to teach our children well, they’ll need the strength that only God can give to stand when tested. 

This is not the world I knew when I was a girl, it’s not the same America anymore.

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Time Passes and I Still Care

I still want people deceived by the teaching of my former church to wake up.  I feel like a cult is taking over American churches and I wish things could be different.  At the same time I do not wish to be numb and cold in my knowledge.  I cannot think of myself as better than those who are deceived, just blessed to have been pulled from it. 

It doesn’t matter where I go, I could be on a vacation weekend or floating around facebook.  I see the same kind of seeker friendly or spiritual formation churchiness everywhere.  Many times a person stands up to speak and be an encouragement to a group…and uses a catch phrase.  Often it seems like a pep rally on Oprah.  That’s when I know a church goer has bought into the “bumper sticker” church.  I sigh, and sometimes feel quite helpless. 

So then I just wait.  Sometime, it might be appropriate to tell a person the truth and point things out.  I pray for an opportunity and hope to not get the “what ever are you talking about you space alien” look when I do share.

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