week 2 of our new adventures in church

It is a rainy day in Georgia … and week 2 of our family’s new adventures in church.

My nephew-in-law and his family were in overnight and left first thing this morning.  He had been in St. Lucia for the last week helping build a church (manually digging and pouring footings for the church), preached a half a dozen times or so (including at a student assembly of 600 at a local school) and distributed Bibles.  A local pastor is looking to build a church, Bible distribution and radio facility … all of which BC has a great deal of hands-on expertise at.  He ha initially been scheduled to preach and teach at a preacher’s conference in Egypt this week … but the Egyptian authorities (Muslim) used the threat of swine flu to shut it down.

They live in the mountain of western North Carolina and oftentimes the best prices for airfare are out of Atlanta.  So I am blessed with the opportunity of being airport transport.  Usually going and coming.  But this time it was just pickup late Saturday night.   The ride is about an hour from the airport to our house … I do my best to debrief him on his trip during those 60 minutes.

Anyway, they left the house before we did headed for a local church that is one of many that supports him in missionary work and Bible publication and distribution.  They headed out in suit and tie and all dressed up.  We later headed out in jeans and button downs/sweaters.

But I’ll tell you something … despite the differences in our appearance … our hearts were in the same place … and I do indeed love that 27-year-old brother, my niece and their two young children … they have indeed given their lives to Jesus.

We are currently a blended family (KJV … NASB … NIV) and we do indeed love each other dearly.

I have observed a few more interesting characteristics of the new church this week that you can add to the list from the prior post:

• On rainy days, the guys who direct parking lot traffic carry around armloads of big golf umbrellas for families to use that have failed to bring one.
• This is ONLY week 6 for this satellite campus … and there are two packed services every Sunday morning that indeed do require parking lot volunteers … not that either of those are to be construed of the Spirit or the Lord.  Too early to tell …
• When you pick up the young ones from Sunday School, you get a little brochure with four brief devotionals you can do with your child throughout the week to reinforce the Sunday School lesson.
• Child security … when you check your child in for Sunday School … they get a computer label and you get a computer label … when you come to pick up your child they better match (I can only imagine the day the kid’s decide to swap labels … even though they are on their backs …)
• CD copies of the sermon (yes, today’s sermon) are available to all for free in the lobby as you leave.
• Yes, they do have a café/coffee shop … the central campus actually has a Starbucks.  I haven’t checked it out yet … bringing my cup of coffee into worship may take a bit of personal adjustment.
• The electronic/digital age is alive and well … Monday night’s the Sunday sermon (and my wife and I have decided it is really more teaching than preaching) are available at the church website to view from a video perspective or you can download the MP3 version and a PDF worksheet (with far more detail than what you get Sunday mornings … it is intended as a guide for small groups).
• Offering time is rather different … the ushers go to the front of the church with a stack of baskets then walk back up the row giving a basket to each row.  In other words, the offering is being collected on every row at the same time.
• Even though it is a satellite campus, there is a campus pastor, a worship leader and team, etc.

So I am going to a satellite campus … yes, that’s the one where the sermon is broadcast into the other campuses from the central campus.  While that is where I am at, for me personally the jury is still out on the concept.

Yet, there are a couple of plusses I sense in this situation … the preacher is indeed an excellent teacher … and so we are getting the benefit of an excellent teacher at what must be bordering mega-church size at the central campus with a somewhat small church community of a few hundred at the satellite … a planted satellite where many moved from the central campus to Flowery Branch campus as volunteers.

Some of you folks that have been reading here for the last five and half years are probably thinking, ‘You know, I think Bernie has written about every one of these characteristic he says are a part of this church.’  And you would be right to think so … God does have a sense of humor.

While I’m not sure what the lesson is yet … maybe it would be more truthful to say I’m not ready to say what I think the lesson … I do believe the Lord is teaching me and more than likely correcting me.  (And I’m not talking about the current sermon series.)

I will not attempt to defend myself … but in this moment I do sense I am where God wants me.

If indeed some of this conversation has peaked your curiosity about this church, here is the link to 12Stone™ Church - Flowery Branch Campus.

Abide IN Christ Jesus, His love and His words … our hope is IN HIM ALONE!!!

So how was your day at church today?

Father's Love Letter

This has been around a few years ... but it is comforting to hear for the first time ... or to be reminded again and again ... how much the Father loves us.  Enjoy and be encouraged!!!

There are several free audio, video and print downloads of the Father's Love Letter at:
http://www.fathersloveletter.com/index.html
 

Going to church … again … after nearly 7 years

Nearly seven years ago, just before Easter, I walked away from institutional church taking my family with me.  Both my wife and I sensed a calling out of the institutional church we were in and into Christ.  What we were experiencing within the four walls of church was destroying our faith and destroying our family.

Seven years later I have no regrets.  While what we envisioned occurring when we walked away from that church (NOT the church) did not play out exactly as we expected … I have no doubt that it did play out as the Lord knew and intended.  Apart from the institutional church, He has worked within us in ways that a ‘selfish bride’ would not allow.

The vision we get of the Bride, the body of Christ, in Scripture is one of a spotless and wrinkle-free Bride that will be holy and blameless.  In that sentence, the two key words are “will be”.  Jesus gave himself up for His Bride and is loving, sanctifying, saving, nourishing and cherishing Her into that holy and blameless   (Ephesians 5:22-33) … pure … state for the marriage of the Lamb … His marriage.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.  Then he said to me, "Write, 'Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'" And he *said to me, "These are true words of God."  Revelation 19:7-9 (NASB)

Right now … in this moment … she is not quite that bride.  To expect such … as I typically do … is an unfair expectation.  To expect her to be moving and progressing toward the Bridegroom and making herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb … better said being made ready as the Bride by the Lamb … should be an expectation of all believers.  To expect the institutional church and her God-given leaders to be equipping and moving the saints toward readiness (maturity and the fullness of Christ)as the Bride (Ephesians 4:11-16) is not optional.  On these points, I remain fully convinced, convicted and more than likely outspoken.

So this past Sunday, my wife, my teenage daughter and my young grandson ventured back into the world of institutional church … to join my somewhat married daughter and two granddaughters in their adventure and journey with Jesus.  I have sensed a conviction to venture back in for months … but without agreement with my wife.  This is not about her control or my control.  I have long respected her gift of discernment and in many ways she is so much wiser than I.  We move in agreement … or we don’t move.

When I ventured into the conversation this past Saturday and explained the choice and some of the reasons why, it became apparent almost immediately that we had reached consensus.

In this moment, I have no expectations of perfection for this church … and no personal aspirations in this church.  Both those realizations are biggies for me … I am here as a family shepherd … a shepherd responsible for the faith and spiritual nourishment of his wife, his children and his grandchildren … a shepherd following the leading of the Good Shepherd and doing all he can, including laying down his life and giving up and denying self, to make sure his family sheep enter thru the ‘door of the sheep’ and into the one flock under the One Shepherd.  Lord, help me … in my strength I will continue to fail …

Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.  I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture …  I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.  John 10:7-9,14-16

Some specifics … and you will note I am walking into a church that seems on a number of fronts to do many things I have written in opposition to over the last 7 years.

The home church was started in 1987 …

The church we are attending is a satellite church that is a scant 5 weeks old …

They have two services every Sunday morning …

The parking team, in neon yellow t-shirts, use rainbow feather dusters and Star Wars light sabers to direct traffic …

The worship music is modern … praise band oriented … no choir (Laugh if you like … but in the lobby, they have a full basket of ear plugs in plastic wrap).

The weekly message is delivered over the big screen to the satellite church from the main campus …

My grandson (along with my two granddaughters) is going to Sunday School …

My daughter is going to youth group on Sunday night … if 8 kids can even be considered a youth group.

Jeans is the standard attire for all … including the pastor

The church is 30 minutes away from our home.

When reading Scripture during the message, the pastor mentions book, chapter and page number … because every chair has its own Bible … one they repeatedly say you should write your name in and take home if you do not have one.

I have found no denominational affiliation …

They believe the tithe is new covenant also … Lord, help me overcome.

All that said …

The message series we have entered into is on Family Life and is extremely convicting … to both me and my wife.

The people are very friendly and welcoming.

And I am not relinquishing my role as family shepherd to my family sheep.

Time and the conviction of the Holy Spirit will reveal to us if we are where the Lord wants us in this season of life … your prayers for me, my wife and our multi-generational family as we seek to love, obey and follow the Lord are indeed greatly appreciated.

The comment lines are now open.

constrained by the flesh … I don’t think so

Be forewarned … I began reading another Major W. Ian Thomas book last night – The Saving Life of Christ.  If it’s anything like the last one I read, The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me, this book will be bound to inspire a few posts in the coming months.

The first inspiration comes from the book’s introduction titled ‘Meet the Major’.  Major Thomas made a decision for Christ Jesus at the ripe old age of 12.  By the time he was 19, his life was full of activities he was doing for Christ:  missionary, street preacher, Sunday School worker, Crusader’s Bible class leader, InterVarsity Fellowship leader, founded a slum club in the East End of London, etc.

Read and consider his words of insight, “Out of a sheer desire to win souls, to go out and get them, I was a windmill of activity until, at the age of nineteen, every moment of my day was packed tight with doing things … Thus by the age of nineteen, I had been reduced to a state of complete exhaustion spiritually, until I felt there was no point in going on …”

Have you ever gone thru such a season of busyness for the Lord?  How did it end?

While not clearly as ambitious as Major Thomas, I went thru such a season also for about seven years.  What I experienced in the end I would probably describe as an absence of Christ Jesus and spiritual depletion … I knew something was wrong … something … actually Someone was missing.  Ian realized the same thing and one night got down on his knees before the Lord seeking guidance … seeking answers.

Look at what he received in answer to those prayers, “I can honestly say that I had never once heard from the lips of men the message that came to me then … but God, that night simply focused upon me the Bible message of Christ Who is our Life … The Lord seemed to make plain to me that night, through my tears of bitterness: ‘You see, for seven years, with utmost sincerity, you have been trying to live for Me, on My behalf, the life that I have been waiting for seven years to live through you.”

Can you relate to his conclusion?  Have you experienced such a revelation?

Paul came to such a realization and revelation.

… we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  Philippians 3:3-11 (NASB)

 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.  Galatians 2:20 (NASB)

My opinion … sometimes we seem to believe that as men we are limited in where we can go spiritually by the power of the flesh … we believe and act as if we are constrained by the flesh … and we teach others the same … shame on us!!!

Sometimes I think we prefer hang on to the rubbish, as described by Paul, versus embracing the indwelling life of Christ.

Scripture tells us that if we will abide IN the Son, keep His commandments, know Him and abide IN His love, then the Father, Son, the Spirit of truth and the words of Jesus will abide within us. 

And you want me to believe that those four divine powers living IN me are incapable of overcoming the power of my flesh?

Sorry – I’m not buying into that.  Our Lord, not our limitations, is the One who should rule and guide our lives.  Sounds like our faith is suffering from surrender, submission, dying to self and Lord issues.

"Why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”  Luke 6:46 (NASB)

Look … I’m not saying the battle between the flesh and the Spirit is not an all out war … but Who do we believe is victorious?

By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  1 John 2:6

In one of His final conversations with the disciples, Jesus tells them that the one who believes IN Him will do greater works than Jesus … actually pay close attention … Jesus is still the One doing the work.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, THAT WILL I DO, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I WILL DO IT.  John 14:10-14

Constrained by the flesh?  I don’t think so.

Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.  Colossian 1:25-29 (NASB)

Your turn?

Currently The Saving Life of Christ By Major W. Ian Thomas see related

Is sinless perfection possible?

Apart from Christ, my answer would be ‘Absolutely not!’

In fact, for years and years, I would have simply offered an unconditional ‘No!’

And I really don’t believe that sinless perfection is to be a goal of the believer … it’s an outcome … not goal or objective.

But I do believe that sinless perfection for a believer is possible IN Christ Jesus.

Not a sinless perfect life mind you … One and One Person alone has done or will ever do that.

Does all this seem contradictory to you?

I believe sinless perfection is possible, not by man’s striving to be righteous, but instead by a man’s full and complete surrender and submission to the Lord.  For an individual, that sinless perfection finds its beginning in total and complete … emptying of self.

Note what John the Baptist said:

Therefore there arose a discussion on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purification. And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him." John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent ahead of Him.' He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made full. HE MUST INCREASE, BUT I MUST DECREASE.  John 2:25-30 (NASB)

Please note Jesus drives the increase, which in turn drives the individual decrease. 

The question and issue becomes ‘How do we respond?’

More of that same decrease point is made in a verse we looked at recently.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, HE MUST DENY HIMSELF, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but WHOEVER LOSES HIS LIFE FOR MY SAKE will find it.”  Matthew 16:24-25 (NASB)

Denying oneself and losing one’s life for the sake of Christ Jesus sounds like total and complete surrender.  I like how the KJV puts the following regarding Jesus …

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of NO REPUTATION, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:5-8

But the victory is not in the decrease … but in the increase … the ‘fullness’ as Paul describes three times in his letter to the Ephesians.

These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, THE FULLNESS OF HIM WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL.  Ephesians 1:19-23 (NASB)

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, THAT YOU MAY BE FILLED UP TO ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD.  Ephesians 3:14-19 (NASB)

All the fullness of God …

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, TO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE WHICH BELONGS TO THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST.  Ephesians 4:11-13 (NASB)

Do you believe that if a saint has matured to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ that he or she will be sinful and disobedient before God?

That verse suggests to me that a saint has become totally emptied of self and in the place once occupied by self now abides the fullness of Christ … Christ living IN and THRU the saint.

Please understand … this is a result of the work of God IN a man … NOT the outward striving of a man.

Also please note that apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are all to be leading us, as shepherds, into that maturity and fullness of Christ … they are to be building up … NOT tearing down … both the saints and the body of Christ.

 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, THE SUMMING UP OF ALL THINGS IN CHRIST.  Ephesians 1:7-10 (NASB)

Of course, all this talk of sinless perfection may not be realized until the fullness of times … but some scripture certainly does seem to suggest it could happen when a saint experiences the fullness of God.

So, what do you believe?  Is sinless perfection possible?