We make decisions and life choices based on what we think the truth is.   The truth is important, but sometimes we mistake facts for the truth.

Imagine three people – three people from the mid-1800′s – before TV and radio, from a time where people may not know more beyond there own isolated experiences. The first person lives on a small tropical island. The second lives in the artic circle and the third lives in a desert region. Each of their beliefs of what the world is like is colored by their own life experiences. The person from the tropical island has no knowledge of the snow and cold that can occur in other climates and the others have their own limitations based on their own experiences. The world is not just like what their limited experiences tell them.

We can’t let the known facts interfere from our knowledge of or faith in the truth. And how do we find the truth?  Do we look beyond ourselves to the truth that has been left to us – to the Bible and to the Holy Spirit, or do we continue to base what we think the truth is to a few facts picked up by our experiences?

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. – John 16:13

There may come a time (or times may already have passed) where our knowledge and faith in what the truth really is make a difference.

When you or someone you know face a life-threatening illness and all the facts line up to say terminal; do you want to rely on those facts or what the Word and the Spirit say?

When God tells you to do something and it seems impossible that everything can line up to make it happen are you going to believe the facts of the circumstances or are you going to believe God?

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. – Matthew 24:24

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

I have heard of several tragic deaths today; including two women that were friends of mine. They were neighbors. Their kids were about the same age as mine.  We went to the same church for several years.  This weekend their lives were taken from them.

Tomorrow (really this morning) many of us will go off to play church while we ignore that there is an adversary that seeks our ruin.  An adversary that seeks influence over others – that causes tragedies – that will take from us unless we remember we are in a struggle.

How much of the tragedy that we see occur every day happens because the enemy found someone to influence?  How much more would we be in prayer and intercession for others if we thought that the enemy was roaming about?  How would we see corporate worship differently if we really saw what was happening spiritually all around us?

Pray for your family, your friends and whoever God prompts you to pray for.

Now these are very rough ideas, but these are a few things that I have thought about.

1 – A network of churches (congregations) working with a common purpose. Many churches have ministry ideas but not necessarily the resources or all the personnel to complete the mission. Why not join forces in common goals? (We are working on this – see http://www.facebook.com/midgachristian )

2 – We have all these buildings. Why not work on ways to invite the community in to use them. Let’s build relationships with those in the community. If you have a gym or playground start working on ways to let the public use your space rather than ways to protect the area. Make rooms available for groups to meet bin from scouts to neighborhood watch – look for civic organizations that need space. Give classes for people in the area – if you have entrepreneurs in your church see if they can give a class in starting a business, use rooms for free exercise classes or Zumba or whatever else you can think of. Do it for free – these aren’t to raise money but to build relationships with people.

3 – There are neighborhoods to take back and every one of these neighborhoods have churches in and surrounding them.

* Pray against the dark spiritual forces which are heavy in some areas.
* Pray for the Holy Spirit’s influence to come on these same areas.
* Pray for the people in these areas.
* Exemplify the love of God to these people.
* We can’t just pray and wait for spiritual change – we need to be out in these areas. Ideas – Street clean-ups – Every congregation needs to adopt some streets near them and take responsibility for them – clean up the debris, clear overgrown empty lots…..get volunteers to spend one weekend a month doing this and while you are doing it take time to meet your neighbors – some of them are you and some of them are people desperately looking for God whether they know it or not.
* Assemble a group to raise money to buy a rundown property in the area – fix it up – sell it to someone – do it again.
* Help people in your target neighborhood that need help with their homes, the sick and the elderly that may be having trouble maintaining the home before it becomes a major problem.

4 – The churches need to become ministry centers – places where people come to in time of need. maybe one church in an area needs to have a food pantry, another a clothes closet, another something else while all the congregations in that area gather the food and the clothes and whatever other resources are necessary to stock for those needs.

5 – I envision a Christian ministry center eventually – a place where people can come to when they need to get back on their feet. A place for families that have fallen on hard times to be healed and restored. A place to train or retrain those that need it.

Is there anyone else in Macon that wants to become involved in being the hands and feet of Christ to our area……………if so, please contact me.

What if our idea of Christianity extended beyond Sunday morning service and Mid-week service and choir pratice and dress rehearsal and our men’s group and our women’s group and what we focused on extended beyond the churchyard?

What if we joined together?

What if territorialism wasn’t a factor and we cared more about brand new souls in the Kingdom than where the current ones are going to next?

What if there was money to reach out rather than most of it being gone after paying for buildings and salaries?

What if we all considered ourselves ministers of the gospel?

What if we exemplified the Love of God?

What if we took back caring for people rather than abdicating that job to the government?

What do you wonder what if?

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Galatians 3:26-27 (21st Century King James Version)

²⁶For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

²⁷For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.

If you are a believer then you are a child of God.  As a daughter of the King that makes you a princess in the Kingdom of God.

I wish you to know that no matter what your past, that you have a father now, a daddy that loves you.  I really believe that His heart hurts when He sees that you don’t understand who you are.

You are a princess, and yes He knows that you are flawed, that you are human, that you make mistakes.  But make no mistake that as a princess in the Kingdom that you deserve so much more than what you are looking for at times.  Your Daddy has a grand plan for you if you will allow it to come to pass and not try to bring it to pass for your own flawed designs and efforts.

Look to God to fill the holes in your heart.  They won’t be filled by some guy that talks and talks and promises you his heart but all he has in mind is using you.  Don’t you know that you are special. Don’t you know that you are made for a purpose. Don’t you know that He not he has your best interests in mind. Players come and go, but the same one that asks you to be a princess in His Kingdom will never leave you.

He sees His potential daughters walking the streets and giving away themselves for money or maybe just a slickly turned phrase from the mouth of some guy.  He sees them trying and trying to fill a lack in their lives with guys that want only sex and give only abuse in return.  He made them for someone else special and He watches them give themselves away to those that don’t really care for her.

He asked you to come into His Kingdom and be a princess, stop settling for less than the prince He is preparing for you.

The last few weeks I have had a bit of spiritual confusion going on.  Have had  since we shut down LifeQuest Church a couple of months ago.  I had felt spiritually homeless since then.  On August 7th God gave me the City on our Knees Vision ( http://www.facebook.com/cityonknees ) which I was working on till I ran into some roadblocks getting timely event permission from the city.

Last Sunday evening I was invited to a tent revival going on in Unionville where I discovered them carrying out what City on our Knees was to be plus a lot more (though I now believe that maybe City on our Knees is to possibly be something slightly different – waiting to hear about that). Well anyway, what they were doing there fell all along into what I have felt God calling me to do for a long time.

BUT, by Friday night I was actually a little irritated and probably a little upset with God.  I saw what was going on here and how they were living my vision bigger and better than I had seen it…and well I started having me a little pity party about becoming a spectator then rather than a visionary.  BUT, earlier that night a pastor had spoken about God’s deliverance from the cancer he had been diagnosed with.

On Saturday God had sent me back to the tent meeting, this time to inquire about two things. The first of the two was personal and I won’t go into it here.  The second was about us and our vision being sidelined and not wanting to be a spectator in ministry.  After talking to Pastor Fambro, God showed me something else.

He brought me back to the message the other pastor had given on Friday night, the message about deliverance from cancer.  God reminded me that he had also delivered me from a diagnosis of cancer – a diagnosis that the doctor was 100% certain of and that God healed me of. I will give my testimony of that at another time, but what God was showing me was that scar was my God Scar and I am in a way privileged to have it.

It is there as a reminder.

A reminder at times when my faith may want to waiver.

A reminder that God is able.

A reminder that God still heals today.

A reminder our God loves us.

In Genesis 32:25 God touched Jacob’s hip – I have a God Scar where he touched me….as a reminder of Him.

Notes from a sermon delivered at LifeQuest Church on Feb 14, 2010

I have written a couple of non-fiction books but I always toyed with writing fiction – which is really to say just a good long story. As I have thought about this I have wondered how the elements of story relate to us in everyday life – the life we could have and whether there is something there to help us find a better story.

Most everybody loves a good story. We watch stories on TV. We pay money to buy and read books. We pay money to go see movies and then even more money at the concession stand to make it a better experience.

When we were kids we would beg our parents or grand parents to tell us a bedtime story. There is something deeply ingrained in us as humans that craves a story.

Take a look at some of the stories in the Bible.

Judges 4:20 – Sisera was exhausted and soon fell fast asleep. Jael took a hammer and drove a tent-peg through his head into the ground, and he died. – That is a death worthy of a scene in any horror movie you might see.

1 Samuel 18:25-27 (New Living Translation)

he told them, “Tell David that all I want for the bride price is 100 Philistine foreskins! Vengeance on my enemies is all I really want.” But what Saul had in mind was that David would be killed in the fight.

David was delighted to accept the offer. Before the time limit expired, he and his men went out and killed 200 Philistines. Then David fulfilled the king’s requirement by presenting all their foreskins to him. – David had to really want this girl to readily agree to give the King 100 foreskins for her!

There is the story of Tamar and when she pretends to be a prostitute to expose her father-in-laws deception to himself. David having an affair with Bathsheba and having her husband killed.

There are stories fit for disaster movies – a worldwide flood, the 10 plagues of Egypt – all the water turning to blood, frogs. Lice, flies, dying animals, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and the first-born die.

There are a lot more stories, you should read it sometime.

But lets look at our stories-

Every story needs a main character – 1^st we will assume that the main character of our stories is us. If the main character of your story is someone else then that’s a problem right there. I’m not saying that other characters in your story aren’t important – you can influence the direction of other characters if they let you, but your most influence is over your own direction.

There is another element of character that you have a great degree of control over and this is characteristics of a person – these include you mannerisms, how you carry yourself and think about yourself and how you react to other people and circumstances.

Setting – this is place and time – the place of your story takes place where you are and you mostly have control over this during the course of your story. You will make choices that determine where the place of your story occurs. So unless you are like the survivors of a plane crash like with Oceanic flight 815 in Lost or some other major event where control of this element is forcefully removed from you – then you have a lot of control over this.

Before we move on – lets talk about scenes – we spend much of our days in ordinary settings in ordinary places – but think about movies you have seen. How many times have you seen the scene of the movie where the ordinary conversation takes place in something just a little more unusual like the roof of a building. Or why do people go to fancy restaurants or something else scenic for something like a proposal – they are trying to make something memorable – something that helps us make memories of our stories as we live them. Go do things in your life as you live your story that make them more memorable.

Time – You may think you have little control over this but you have more than you think – you can’t control that time happens during your lifetime but you do have a degree of control over when certain things happen. Let’s say that you know that there is something you are supposed to do – something like confronting a friend about something. You have control over when and if you confront the friend. Doing that when you are supposed to has the potential to influence both of your stories and has all kinds of implications – does the confrontation affect both of your friendships – do you put it off so that what you are confronting them about occurs again and it causes something disastrous to happen in your, their or other people’s stories – or do you do it when you should so that it has the best effect.

To recap so far we have looked at the basic elements of setting and character of story.

So we have a character you in the setting of here and now …..

Is anyone here totally happy with your story so far – I hope not!

Think for a minute – what do you as the main character in your story want??????

Next, the character must want something – In story the character may or may not know what that is when the story starts. This is where ignition incident occurs. Something must happen to us that propels us along. If you are happy with your story so far you aren’t going to be happy when the ignition incident comes along – If you aren’t happy with your story – look for the incident or create an ignition incident yourself.

Let’s say that you are overweight and want to lose weight (I can relate to that) and you aren’t inspired to do so. Create an ignition incident to inspire you – go look in the mirror without any clothes on for a while and really pay attention to how your body looks or go to the doctor and see what he tells you about your weight and what it will do to your lifespan.

Do you feel called to minister to a certain group of people – then do something that puts you in contact with that group of people. If you feel called to speak then volunteer to speak. Do you want to minister to the homeless – well you won’t do it sitting in your living room wishing – light a fire under your butt, get up and do something that causes you to contact them.

If you think you want to be a Doctor – get the grades you need in school to get into Medical school – it won’t happen wishing and watching House every Monday night.

Many ignition incidents happen beyond our own control.

There is a local charity called Jay’s Hope that exists to improve the quality of life of children battling cancer and their families. It was started by a woman that lost her child to cancer – that was her ignition incident though – what started her on her mission to help other children and families.

There can be health issues, family issues, job or financial issues, friend issues – all or any that can serve to start an ignition incident in your story.

And this is where the meat of the story comes in – the conflict – the struggle as we reach to overcome what our goal or what stands in our way.

Here is the story today as many see it:

1. A Character: You.

2. That wants something: To be fulfilled.

3. And overcomes conflict: Jesus came to fulfill you, either to make you happy, or to provide the things that will make you happy on earth. But you have to be good, you can’t sin. You have to get up and have your quiet time so you can be the person God designed you to be.

1. To get it: You should be happy, and if you’re not happy, you aren’t doing religion right, or you aren’t a good enough person.

But there is a problem with this story. First, it is a very selfish and it is a search for something that can never happen. Sure, you can have short-term fulfillment and I hope you do at times, but fulfillment as a feeling is temporary. We aren’t made for long-term fulfillment. We are made for satisfaction as we reach our goals through the struggle.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (Joh 10:10)

Too many times we look at this verse as though abundant life is one in which there is an absence of struggle, an absence of conflict and one in which God is a gigantic wishing machine that gives us the desires of our heart.

But that is not how it really is – the Bible itself is a story – sure it has 66 books from various authors – but overall there is a consistent theme and a point –

Here is the story from God’s view

1. A Character: God

2. That wants something: To be reunited with humanity, for their sake.

3. And overcomes Conflict: Sends his son to invite people (not force them) into a relationship through which mankind can be reunited with God.

1. To get it: And this will happen partially here and fully at a wedding in heaven.

We play a part of this story – the Bible may have stopped being written but the narrative story continues – we are part of the Part 2 there that God wants – the humanity He wants to be reunited with. We are the invitees – the ones being welcomed into a relationship with God.

And this is our real story…..

1. A Character: You

2. That Wants something: Was designed to be in relationship with God and others.

3. And Overcomes Conflict: Trusts Jesus, and walks in faith that he is going to fully reunite us with God. Shares that hope and faith with others.

1. To get it: This will fully happen in heaven. And until then we are able to account for the hope that rests within us and carry out the mission of God.

Our stories are meant to intersect with Gods and to intersect with the stories of others. Our stories aren’t just about us – the other characters in our story – me and you and everyone we interact with – they aren’t just bit players in our story – they are living their own story – and all of us are characters in the continuing story and narrative of God.

Image by Giara via Flickr

I was reading a blog at Out of Ur about Virtual Church – you know, the trend to put church services online.  And I do agree that while the main problem with a virtual church is the inability to relate to others, which is very difficult in an online church service, the discussion about it got me thinking. In particular this sentence got my attention – “And while internet campuses provide a great sermon delivery vehicle, and even allow you to virtually raise your hand in response, what they don’t do is allow you to be known and missed”

The problem I have unfortunately seen is people not being “known and missed” in a physical church – with real walls and real people.  The larger the church the easier it becomes for people to fall through the cracks. Real people with real feelings and real needs – their absence becomes unnoticed among the throng and when they may need some people from their church the most, their church fails them in their need.  It’s not on purpose or by any plan – it just happens.

Think back – see if there is someone that you have lost track of. Someone that used to be in your life every Sunday. You know what to do.

Steve

That was one of the subjects on twitter the other day – What do you think when you hear the word #Church (Ignore the # – it’s a twitter thing).  I didn’t see many of the responses but I was mulling over possible responses in my head.  As a partner in LifeQuest Church in Macon, I thought it was something that I should consider.

Personally for me it is something to look forward to.  Of course there are some exceptions, making sure that the media is ready to go is part of my responsibility and I have been up at 2AM early Sunday morning trying to get things right for Sunday morning.  But like other Christians I think that sometimes it becomes a responsibility; something that is expected of us rather than something we look forward to.  If we as Christians maybe sometimes cringe when we hear the word Church what is possibly running through the minds of others.

Is this possibly what may be running through the minds of certain people groups?

Teenager – Is church a place that is relevant to me. It seems like we learn about all those ancient guys- almost as bad as school but at least we don’t have tests.  Not my type of music. I can’t wait till I’m an adult and I can decide where I go and where I go probably won’t be to Church on Sunday mornings.

College Student -  Church, yeah I sometimes go with Mom and Dad when I’m home for the weekend. When I’m away at school I just never have the time for that. Church isn’t that important in my life right now.

Young Couple with small children – I was raised in Church.  I also believe my kids should be brought up in Church too – I want them to be exposed to religion even though I don’t always agree with the Church’s stand on certain issues.

Alcoholic, Drug User, etc – I have messed up too bad for God to want to have anything to do with me – and those Church people – they may come around sometimes like they want to help, bring a meal or something like that – but what I really feel from them is that this dirty filthy sinner better not get not to close to them. I think they come here to us sometimes so they can feel better about themselves without the likes of me dimming the door of one of their buildings on a Sunday morning.  Pretty much lets me know I was right in the first place – I’ve done too many awful things for God to forgive me.

Homosexual – Yeah – like I would go there. I have heard hate the sin but love the sinner enough. Hope that makes them feel better – I don’t think there is a church around here that I could walk into without sneers and snickers behind my back.  Such love of God these people exemplify.

What thoughts do you think of when you hear the word CHURCH??