"church is boring"

"Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as always God discovers Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.”-AW Tozer

"Church is boring!" , came the response from one of our sons who shall remain nameless.  

While questions of what level of nerve it took to even utter these forsaken words came to mind, the honestly of these words rang so much louder!  

Hmmm...so church is boring.  

This is certainly not the first time parents or church leaders have heard these words, but too often the inaudible rebuttal to this thought is "fine!  We'll just spice it up!"

We treat religion and worship like we treat our food.  When it loses it's flavor, we add some spice.  When that loses it's flavor, we add some more spice, and many more different varieties this time.  

If you are like me, you have been guilty of adding one, or five more spices to a dish that were never in this lifetime intended to be added, and the result is far south of appetizing. 

Don't we do this with church though?  I'm sorry, but how many more different varieties of one song do we have to sing for us to get the same buzz, taste, affect, fill in the blank?

Have you ever noticed that most complaints about a worship service could be completely extinguished if we remove the WIFM (what's in it for me) factor?

I have a tendency to only go to the best movie theater around.  I want the plush chairs, with the extra leg room, and the nicest speakers, with the best 3D, with the least commercials, and oh, by the way, I also don't want a lot of people there. 

My way, my will, my entertainment.

And this lifestyle inevitably leaks into my worship.  

Still not buying it??  I have been going to church since I was a baby and still every week look at how people are dressed even now.  I dare you to be that brutally telling and say that our entertainment lifestyle does not leak into our worship.

But my worship is truly what I make of it.  Not how it is made for me.  Don't like church?  Heart change is required.

Whether I realize it or not, whether I think about it or not, I enter into the Holy of Holies when I worship.

"And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus."--Hebrews 10:19

I dare to stand in the very presence of God, cloaked in the blood of Jesus, and I am bored.   We need a heart change. We need to strip away all that is naught and see that He created us for Him, and not His things. That worshipping Him, is the summit of the Christian life. At that point, we are now ready to be useful to Him, and He can Finally, find pleasure in His will through us. 

As a full people, we must empty ourselves ever before the Holy Spirit finds vacancy in our lives.   I must die to my present self, and Christ must live through me.  

So to my son, 

"Yes, church may be boring right now. But look to that boredom not as a result of God, but as a result of the Fall.  Move all expectations out of your mind.  See you depravity before your creator.  Walk in awe as you pass through the curtain, rent in two, for you, and throw yourself at the feet of the Holy of Holies, pouring all of your cares upon Him, for he cares for you. 

With the heart of David, dance for your God, and serve Him with unwavering obedience.  For He has saved you from yourself.  And He is head over heels in love with you."

"For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end."

Psalms 48:14

Powerful?

Beautiful, handsome, cute, adorable, loving.  All words commonly used to describe a family.

But, how about strong?  How about powerful?  Now there's a word.  Powerful.  Powerful.  I have never really thought about a family being powerful, that is, until I opened the garage tonight to find that our eldest had written a message for me on a box.  

"Powerful Family"

At first it was cute, then it was challenging, until it became telling.

We are a powerful family.  But why?  What makes us a powerful family?  Is it a bond, a commitment, a love, that makes us powerful?  

The Kennedy family was powerful.  How about the Bush family?  They were powerful, weren't they?  And then of course Paris Hilton and her family.  The Kennedy family, the Bush family, the Hilton's.  All powerful families.  But what kind of power abounds in our family? What kind of power should we seek with all of our heart, our soul, and our mind.  What power do we seek at the forsaking of all others?

It is the one who is powerful that makes us powerful.  My beloved Yeshua said he must go so that one who is better for us must come.  And man, did he make an entrance! 

....WOOSH!!!!!!!

In that first church, flames adorn heads, miracles abound, equality among believers exists.

Powerful.  

Are we a powerful family?  Are you a powerful family?  

We have so much stuff to pour out of our daily lives to even make room for the Holy Spirit to reside in our family.  So much TV, Facebook, cell phone time takes up the space and occupies the time God so graciously gave me today to give back to him.  But I waste it.  We waste it.  We squander it away, daily, and become so much less than we were intended to become.

I want to have a powerful family.  

Imagine what that would even look like?  Not the perfect family; the powerful family.  All members devoted and driving to serve God alone.  How awesome would that be?  I can't force it into existence.  But I can certainly encourage it and pray it into existence.  As a matter of fact, I think I'll do just that.  I'll pray it into existence.  Let's see how powerful we really can become.

"God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile.”

AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God

raising that white flag

 

A week or so before Christmas, we asked our kids what they wanted for Christmas.  I expected to hear years worth of catching up in the toy department.  This did not happen though. 
Actually, this is what I heard...
..................ummmm..........hmmmm............uhhh........

Later that afternoon it struck me.  I just witnessed someone who does not know how to accept very well.  I ask what you want, you tell me what you will accept, and I will buy it. 
This is usually how our gift giving goes.
But this day, we had little accepting. There was more tendency to surrender to an unproven benefactor, putting their trust in what we found best to give, rather than to accept our offer and dictate what would please them the most.

A consumer accepts.  We as consumer accept. By definition, a consumer never surrenders.

We are called to surrender to God, but we find it more palatable to accept. To accept means that it is on my terms, in my time, on my mark.
To surrender is usually at the very last moment, that moment that just doesn't feel right.  It could have never have felt good on any battlefield to hoist the white flag.  I can imagine as the white flag is being hoisted in the air, officers, lieutenants, sergeants, and soldiers are all desperately thinking of a last ditch effort, some cunning ploy, some way out that will not lead into surrender. 

Surrender is not a good feeling.  Surrender is generally not a good option, and yet the only option. Many games of monopoly this Christmas break have taught me that it is not in my kids nature to surrender.  11pm, 12am, with a lonely Baltic Ave against the rest of the board, with hotels!  We will not surrender!!

But surrender eventually we must.  How much better to surrender now, and fall naturally to our knees after death, than to be forced to our knees in the next life.  Imagine the horror.

Acceptance is a fleshly focal point.  Surrender is a Holy focal point.  Get the difference. 

If you are sitting in a crowd or a room right now, look around.  Of all the people in the room, one of you will be the next to die.  It's not morbid, it's true.  Who is next?  Is it you?  It could be. 

Have you accepted?  Or have you surrendered?  Ask a person at work, a family member, or an enemy.  Chances are you will get a truer answer.

“How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of "accepting" Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.”
-A.W.Tozer, The Pursuit of God

White Flag-Chris Tomlin
http://youtu.be/9fL-TwKzkCk

going through the motions...

Walking around at work today, I saw two adolescent girls pushing around their younger, permanently wheelchair bound brother.  At first glance, my heart went out to them.  I cannot imagine the daily struggle.  

But as I continued to watch, I saw the two girls start playing around and running fast through the aisle, all while pushing their younger brother's wheelchair.  The wheelchair crashes into a rocking chair, and the girls quickly spin around looking to see if their parent witnessed the foolishness.  Apparently not caught, the girls giggle, and the brother is not happy that his feet now hurt.

The evidence begins to pile up that these girls are acting out of duty, not out of love.  Going through the motions and completing the daily chore of pushing their brother's wheelchair, from the outside looking in, has taken residence where love should reside.

Having children in our own home from literally all walks of life have also shown to display signs of going through the motions.  Playtime together becomes a duty or a chore, instead of an act of love and interest.

 

 
 
 

 

The desire to force a relationship and love is clearly absent the Holy Spirit.  Oh!  We need that Holy Spirit!  

I read the other day where a very well known author was quoted saying, " I cannot make anyone fall in love with God; I can only arrange a romantic date."

How many wheelchairs are we pushing around today all for the sake of having too, or because of responsibility. Oh! How we should do so out of love!  Don't you see that Jesus himself is that difference between work and wanting to?  

The void, the so evident void, is to only be filled by the moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  The Holy Spirit fills when we are emptied.  We are emptied when we have surrendered.  We surrender, when we see that all is lost.

I don't want to complete a task or fulfill a duty any longer, absent the love that is supposed to abound in me.  I want my children to see, not always hear, the love that pours from my every movement, revealing that my God is love, and beckons us to love, not to just go through the motions, Isaiah 1.

David said,

“My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.--Psa. 63:8”

Let this be my life also.

Life isn't meant to just be lived, but intended to be loved.

us

2002 was a difficult year...  It was a year that began with much sadness and hurt.  It was a year that two lives were meant to find each other, though at the beginning of this year, they never thought it was possible.  You see there was this young man, let's call him Jon, he was working hard to keep a home, stay in school and work two jobs.  He and another had ended a life together that he thought was meant to be forever... And not too many miles down the road was a young lady who was doing the same.  Trying to figure out the workings of being a single mom to the cutest baby boy in the world!
  And so these two both sought employment at GOLD'S GYM! The gym offered free child care for the young lady and great 2nd job hours for the young man.  And so the path of these two finally came to a crossroads at the end of August in 2002... Fast-forward to July 2003, Jon and Bethany are married and 10 years down the road is where we find our lives now! Happy, hectic, house full, and lovin it!

Who we are now has change so much from who we were in 2002...and we changed even more 2011...God opened our eyes to so much that need to change in our lives in the summer of 2011, and even more so in November of 2011, and even more so in December 2011, then 2012 was a whirlwind of awesomeness and in 2013 we began a new journey that added two new loves in our life that were "made in China" (our adoption journey blog: www.bringgaryhome.blogspot.com )
And we find ourselves now on this journey that is so unpredictable! So unpredictable because it is no longer a life "we" are planning out, it is no longer "our" goals we seek to achieve or our "home" we are trying to build.  It is unpredictable because we are surrendering "our" EVERYTHING to the hands of our Father.

We hope to blog about our journey and be open, real, and honest about ups and downs, falls and setbacks, glorious triumphs, and ugly failures. (for me(Bethany)there have been so many ugly failures and major "unholy" acts, but it has been now that I see those times as me trying to do everything on my own and by my own hopes to help myself somehow... finally letting go of the tight grips of control daily/ hourly/ by the minute, though I stumble, I pray that each day becomes quicker that I don't get up on my own, but that I fall at my Savior's feet.)

"the language of love"

I can speak just enough Chinese for Chinese people to not understand a single word I am trying to say. 

 

It is not that I haven't studied or practiced.  For what's it worth, I have given speaking Chinese a lot of effort.  Too true is the phrase, "Do not confuse effort with results".

 

It is here that I find myself.  

 

I have so much I want to say in Chinese.  I want to express and convey emotion that only a Mandarin dialect can provide.  I want to fluently speak with the boys that I love so much in their native tongue.  I want to speak Chinese.  And so, I will continue to practice.

 

Love language can be very similar.  If not respectful and appreciative for differences, we can receive the love we are looking for and never even know it, because it comes by a path we are not even looking for it to come. 

 

We have had some struggle with positive communication with one of our loves. We want to hold, hug, and show our son the physical affection he deserves.  We want to show him the affection he should have always have had, and rarely received.

 

There has been some success, but all too often, failure to peak the moment with physical affection seems to prevail again and again.

 

But then there are mornings like this morning when our son disappeared to his room for about thirty minutes.

 

As he came back down the stairs, we asked where he was, what he was doing, and why had he been gone for so long.  

 

"Come see", came the sheepish reply.

 

So we went up the stairs to find that our 14 year old son wasn't doing anything you would expect any average teenager to be doing in his room alone.

 

We walked into the room and found that he had not only made his bed, but made the three other beds his brothers sleep in.  He cleaned around and under the beds.  He swept the floor, put away clothes, and cleaned the closet.

 

He was so proud and expected nothing less from us.  We showered him in praise!

 

Some people have a light bulb moment.  I had more of a stadium lighting moment.

 

"Maybe our child shows love differently than I do", was my epiphany.  

 

Genius, I know.  

 

What a time for worship and to call upon the Holy Spirit to tie our family together, using many different languages of love, all blending and standing independently at the same time to create this beautiful entity, our family.

 

We serve a complex God.  We serve a complex Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit, please mold our family into the vessel you require us to be.  Make us into that super complex living, breathing organism, called the Christian family, bent on only serving you, even to the dismay of all others.

 

It is only you we look to.  It is only you we live for. It is only you we obey. 

 

"For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end." 

 

Psalms 48:14

closet hand raiser

Can you hear the sound of the beating drums? Can you feel rhythm in the strums of the guitar strings? Does that sound awaken your soul? Does that sound awaken your flesh? The sounds blend together in a song; do you allow the Spirit inside be filled and praised or does your mind race with distaste and you become a ridged unmovable being?

Do you belt it out with ceaseless worship? Do you close your eyes and lift your hands in sweet surrender? Have you dared let go to the “what will they think?” or “How will I look?” Do you stare down the swaying movements or clapping hands?

As I think through all these things, I have to admit that I am guilty of not allowing my soul be filled with praise.  At times I have fought back the urge to raise my hands up to the heavens and allow myself to surrender…  I have been at fault to be consumed by those around me and not allow my soul to be consumed by the Holy Spirit.  In all actuality what does that even look like?? To be consumed by the Holy Spirit, full on worship of our Heavenly Father… I honestly do not know. 

I am a closet hand raiser… In the car in my “own” worship time I will shout out in praise with hands raised and in tears over what Jesus has done for me… Seriously TEARS!! (When is the last time you have wept over what God has done for us through His son?)  Why, when I sept into“church”, do I become shy/fearful/restraining/solemn???? (It is embarrassing to admit.)

“In essentials, unity.  In nonessentials, liberty.  In everything, charity.”- Phillipp Melanchthon

Why as “believers” do we feel it our duty to critique every single thing about the worship “segment” of the Sunday morning service?? Seriously, I have left the service, gone to lunch and just critiqued the entire worship time!

"The beat was off”; “that song was too hard to sing to”; “couldn’t worship to that song because it was sung in a weird key”; “Oh, what was that person doing up there singing a solo, they were horrible”; “did you see that person clapping??”; “umm, I think I need my hearing checked after today, can you believe how loud it was”,;“ok, so that singer was totally trying to bring glory to himself and not God, for real!”; “Really, a drum solo/guitar solo/horn solo/piano solo/violin solo/singer solo???" BTW, I am no one who needs to ever critique music!! I never know what key to sing in and I am so jealous of those special people who can actually harmonize!! BUT.. I all too often have fallen into the category of critiquing an or criticizing the worship service. UGGGH!!!

  It is up to you how you view the “worship” at your church.  You can view it as a performance or you can become a part of the worship by closing your eyes to all that is around you and make it between you and your Savior. It is about the HEART of worship… not the HOW. If you are involved in the worship you will not critique it as a performance and you will no longer view it as a performance. The ultimate problem and stumbling block of worship is SELF… The more that I remove my opinions and preferences the more I realize that it is my approach before my Father that matters. I realize it is not FOR me or about ME at all, it is FOR HIM and about HIM. Worship the way God made you to worship…not YOUR way but HIS way. Not for yourself to make you feel good but for HIM and HIS GLORY.
So thankful for the amazing gifts and talents God creates us all with.  They are all unique and individual. I am a music lover and I so appreciate the people God has placed in our lives to lead us into worshiping our Savior.

Dear Lord, I thank you for this day! I thank you for the love you poured out on this world through your Son.  Thank you for the sounds of music and for the boldness of those who use it to lead others in worshiping your name.  I ask you to forgive me for making it about me all to often and forgetting WHO it is about.  I love you. I pray this in Your Name, Amen

“I Firmly believe that the moment our hearts are emptied of selfishness and ambition and self-seeking and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will come and fill every corner of our hearts; but if we are full of pride and conceit, ambition, and self-seeking pleasure and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. I also believe that many a man is praying to God to fill him, when he is full already with something else. Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray that He would empty us.  There must be an emptying before there can be a filling; and when the heart is turned upside down, and everything that is contrary to God is turned out, then the Spirit will come…”  -D.L. Moody