gotchya! a while back, cyn and i had some mice in the house...there was an opening in the back wall of our front closet...thanks to some traps and some excellent handy work by my father-in-law, we are now mouse free. thanks tim
ever happened to you?
The First Stage: We begin going to a church, exciting, thrilling, love Jesus, the church is exciting, all things new.
Second Stage:
We begin getting involved, learn behind the scenes things, feel
privileged to know the church staff and leaders more personally, we are
totally excited.
Third Stage:
We see things you start to question, the thrill of the big church
meetings wanes, as it seems more and more predictable, the leaders seem
more human now and not as special as first.
Fourth Stage:
We start to get tired of serving in ministry. It seems routine now and
we only see it as fueling the big meeting that we don't really like
anymore. The leaders we once were in awe of now seem not only normal,
but there is a suspicion of self-serving vs. serving the church in
their motives. We lose excitement and wonder if church is even
something we should be part of. We grow more disillusioned by the day.
Fifth Stage:
Total disillusionment, begin feeling bitter towards church leaders, and
wonder why people don’t question things more. We sit in the big meeting
and feel very alone. We look at the crowds around us and don't feel
like we belong anymore. Is church just a produced big meeting? We are
tired and it even angers us to see excited new people joining the
church as we now know how it really works and how they too will
eventually become tired like we are and see church is a program and
organized religion.
Sixth Stage:
We silently drop out of church. We read the Bible and early church
history and see that they didn't have bigger weekly meetings in the
early church. We read "house church" literature and begin thinking this
is the real New Testament church. We get excited about really doing
church the right way and not the big organized way. We find a few other
disillusioned Christians and either form or join some sort of small
house church gathering. We want it to be simple and not "organized" or
programmed or big, but pure like the early church. Everyone all sharing
together, true community will happen here, unlike the bigger programmed
meetings.
Seventh Stage:
Fairly quickly, we realize it isn't too easy leading people. Even in a
small house church. People don't show up, or you have people dominating
conversations. There is the same bickering, some gossip, people
whispering to others that they are not happy with how the meeting went
etc. We sometimes try to sing worship songs with ten people and it
feels very odd. So you don't try to sing anymore, but do secretly miss
the corporate singing that happens in a larger group. Eventually we
find the same disappointments in the smaller house church that we did
in the bigger programmed church, but at a different level. We get even
more disillusioned, as we realize that even the key leaders (including
ourselves) and the people of the house church are just as messed up as
the big church leaders and people in those churches.
We also feel subtly uncomfortable that the house church feels a bit inward focused. It would be weird to have non-Christians break up the intimate dialog and prayer we have taken such a long time to establish together. But we know something has to be done, as we keep thinking about those who don't know Jesus and that our house church might not be the best place to invite them. Plus dealing with little kids running around every week during your meeting certainly limits your full engagement into the Bible discussion. We get more disheartened as our 4 year old knocks the entire strawberry shortcake dessert onto the kitchen floor as he was trying to get at it early before it is served at the house church.
Eighth Stage:
We stop going to any church of any kind. We forget it all. Watch a lot
of TV. Play video games. We go see the Dukes of Hazzard movie.
Ninth Stage:
We begin missing other Christians, and regular fellowship. We do some
introspection and eventually deal with the disappointments and high
expectations that we had. We begin a new level of maturity and thinking
about the church and church leaders.
We start thinking about our options. We don't want to go to a preaching-driven church that just has everything revolve around the senior pastor or the preacher, as that subtly creates passive spectators who depend on the preacher to "feed" them weekly - rather than maturing as Christians whom should primarily be "feeding" ourselves (since we aren't infants anymore). We don't want to go to a hyper-Reformed church where we feel guilty all the time and get caught up in the everybody else is worldy and wrong but us mentality. We don't feel good about the seeker-type of churches where everyone is so happy, the music is hyper-cheery and we fill in the blanks in the notes they give out. That excites us for a little while, when we fill in the blanks, because it feels like you are really learning. But after a while we see the stack thickening in our Bibles that we stuff them in and realize that we have never even looked at them since we filled them in. We look at our notes that we filled the blanks in on, and can't remember a single thing from these sermons, even the one from two weeks ago.
Tenth Stage: So,
we slowly go back to our original church that we at first felt good in
because of the overall vision and mission that drew us to it in the
first place. We find that the leaders do admit freely to you there are
weaknesses and flaws and mess ups and ego issues, but still try their
best to blend both the bigger meetings and smaller home meetings for
the purpose of the mission. They try to be organized, without being
"Organized".
It's not perfect, but we begin to enjoy and even more appreciate the benefits and momentum of the church. But now we get involved with more realistic expectations of what church is and understand the leaders are just like us, trying their best to serve Jesus. We become happy again with a balanced life and imperfect church family all serving on a mission together.
originally posted by Dan Kimball on his blog.
the age-old debate debunked
i have this friend that owns a pizza place...today i was there with another friend that was drinking a "pepsi", at least that's what it said on the plastic cup he drank from. the reality is that the owner had run out of pepsi, and got a box of coke syrup from a friend of his and hooked it up. he has done this before, and no one has ever caught on, so i think this settles the argument. you can't really tell...
what?
is it just me? or is avery pens playing a joke on us? on this pen i have, on the bottom it points out that it has two tips, one on the top and one on the bottom, then on the other side it says the same thing in spanish, but i could swear that i have heard "puntas" used as a swear word in spanish...? can i get a little help on this one...
p-shirt
last night i got up to answer the call of nature...and while it was 4am i was just awake enough to be able to tell the sound i was hearing while relieving myself was not normal. i resolved myself to believe i was okay and that there wasn't anything out of the ordinary going on...mostly i convinced myself of this so i wouldn't have to wake up any more than i already had...so i finished...you know...peeing...and went back to bed.
this morning cyndi wakes me up with..."why did you put your shirt in the toilet?" to which i responded..."i didn't" to which she responded..."then how did it get in the toilet?" to which i responded..."i don't know, maybe when i took it off last night i dropped it on the toilet thinking it was closed." to which she replied..."i think you pee-ed on it!"
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