greggandcyndi

freedom

there is a symbol at the center of the idea of our freedom as citizens of the U.S., it is the statue of liberty. it was given to the United States by France in 1885. one of the unique things about the statue is she is holding a tablet containing the text "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), it commemorates the date of the United States Declaration of Independence, the date the U.S. declared its freedom. in the declaration, we were communicating, once and for all, our freedom and our independence from the Kingdom of Great Brittan.

could you imagine the U.S. calling up the brits and asking them to take us back? that would be wierd. what would be the point? if we did, would we have to give back the statue? nevermind whether the French would actually want it back. if we called up the brits and told them we wanted to be ruled again, utterly dominated, mostly because we all want their accents, i am positive we would have to give back the statue, because the statue is the symbol of the freedom we have and the freedom we as a country give. we would have to give it back.

so what about the cross? do we have to give it back?

there is no doubt as U.S. citizens we take for granted and take advantage of the freedom we have. it is interesting to learn that many europeans now despise us as america because we seem so conservative, but the radical muslim world hates us because we are so liberal and immoral. either way, we treat the freedom we have as citizens of america as less than we should. in the same way, we neglect the freedom we have as citizens of the Kingdom of God.

more than 2 and 1/4 centuries ago we gained our independence from the Kingdom of Great Brittan. how long has it been since you gained your independence from the Kingdom of this World, and became a citizen of the Kingdom of God. and do you take your freedom seriously.

so many times i have gone back. i have forgotten my freedom, or worse, used my freedom to revolt. check this out:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery-Galatians 5:1

if the Kingdom of God were the same as the kingdom of this world, all of us would have been hung for treason by this day in our lives, and we would have had to give the cross back; but this is one thing that can never be taken from us.

glenn packiam told a story about immigrants in the early years of our country. he talked about how people would come to this country and when the officials would ask them their native language, they would reach back and get a piece of scripture in their same tongue and hand it to them saying, "no one can ever take this away from you."

the cross is something no one can ever take away from you, not even you. the cross is a gift given permanently by the only true giver. let us, with every breath we have, cling to the cross and never, in our hearts or actions, try to give it back.

imploding influence

the very first lesson we were taught on our first retreat as school of worship students was, "there are not secrets."  everything done in the dark will be brought to the light.  the overseers for the church released this statement:

November 4, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Life Church
Colorado Springs, Colorado

We, the Overseer Board of New Life Church, have concluded our deliberations concerning the moral failings of Pastor Ted Haggard. Our investigation and Pastor Haggard's public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct.

The language of our church bylaws state that as Overseers we must decide in cases where the Senior Pastor has "demonstrated immoral conduct" whether we must "remove the pastor from his position or to discipline him in any way theydeem necessary."

In consultation with leading evangelicals and experts familiar with the type of behavior Pastor Haggard has demonstrated, we have decided that the most positive and productive direction for our church is his dismissal and removal. In addition, the Overseers will continue to explore the depth of Pastor Haggard's offense so that a plan of healing and restoration can begin.

Pastor Haggard and his wife have been informed of this decision. They have agreed as well that he should be dismissed and that a new pastor for New Life Church should be selected according to the rules of replacement in the bylaws.

That process will begin immediately in hopes that a new pastor can be confirmed by the end of the year 2006. In the interim, Ross Parsley will function as the leader of the church with full support of the Overseers.

A letter of explanation and apology by Pastor Haggard as well as a word of encouragement from Gayle Haggard will be read in the 9:00 and 11:00 service of New Life Church.

this is an extrememely sad day.  the secrets committed in the dark have been brought to the light and a huge part of me wishes they hadn't. 

listen to me.  if you have never listened to me before, listen now.  you need someone in your life that you can tell absolutely everything to.  you need to get this.  don't skim over it.  get someone now.  and be completely honest.  don't leave anything out. 

shortly after we moved here, pastor ted was preaching from 1 samuel, from the story about saul losing the kingdom and about how david was going to be chosen.  ted talked about how if saul had done what is right, his destiny would have been fulfilled, but since he disobeyed God, his ministry and future would be given to someone else.

ted referred to jimmy swaggart.  he talked about how he was still annointed, he still spoke the truth in a powerful way, its just that noone listens to him.  his ministry and future has been given to others to accomplish.  he quoted jimmy as having said, "who could jimmy swaggart tell?"  and ted said he should have told anyone, the mailman, anyone.  and now...we see that ted should have told someone.

there will be others that will stand up and recieve ted's ministry, his influence, his future, and God will still succeed in his plans, but for right now, it looks as though ted haggard, sadly, will not be a part of it.

completely and totally unbelievable

it is completely and irrevocably inconcievable that pastor ted haggard had a homosexual affair and used methanphedamines, but today an email was released saying that pastor ted had admitted to some wrongdoing, but was not specific about what wrong was admitted to. 

i literally feel like i'm going to wake up any minute.  i woke up this morning and had to ask myself if i had been dreaming all the accusations.  it is just so unbelievable.

i am charging all those who read this to pray for pastor ted haggard, his wife and his 5 children (4 boys and 1 girl). 

i have never met and gotten to learn from, on a consistant basis, someone i respected more as a christian leader, teacher and pastor than ted haggard.  we know that what is revealed about his involvement in the coming days, will effect his influence and leadership in the kingdom of God.  we are praying, that even though a sin is a sin, that he was only involved in a minor and explainable way, so that he will be able to maintain a level of leadership and authority in the church.  this is a man far too wise to lose and to disappear completely from the church.

pray.  pray in the name of Jesus.  pray in the Spirit without ceasing.  mourn with those who mourn.  rejoice with those rejoicing.  pray.

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 messiah, jewish style

I was looking around online today…I know that in Jewish culture, boys were expected to memorize the torah, but I wanted to find a source that said that, so I knew for sure. In the process I came across torah.org, and came across this statement regarding the messiah and what he will do, and how to know who the messiah is…

There will come a time when a descendant of King David will be appointed as leader of the Jews in the Land of Israel; he will be wiser than King Solomon, and will possess a power of prophecy almost equal to Moses; he will successfully defeat all his enemies and opposition, politically and militarily; he will rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and will coordinate the return of Jews from all over the world to the Land of Israel; he will teach the world truth and wisdom, and will unite all of Humanity in the service of G- d. His efforts will eventually lead to the development of a world without famine, war, jealousy or competition; a world in which there will be an unlimited supply of resources available to fulfill every human being's physical needs and desires, leaving people free to focus all their energy on knowing and understanding G-d.

How will we know that a particular king from the House of David is actually the Messiah? Only if he successfully accomplishes all of the above; in other words, he will not have to perform any miracles to prove that he is the Messiah and we will not ask him to do so - he simply has to be a G-d fearing person from the House of David who understands and carries out all the laws of the Torah.

When he achieves everything mentioned in the previous paragraph(s) we will know that he is the Messiah

What do you guys think....

 

pornsunday

you should check out www.pornsunday.com and www.xxxchurch.com.  don't worry, they are safe...they're all about awareness and getting people in the church to understand the reality of porn and it's effects...like these facts...

• Number of pornographic web sites: 4.2 Million
• People who regularly visit Internet porn web sites daily: 40 million
• Christians who said pornography is a major problem in the home: 47%
• Breakdown of male/female visitors to pornography sites: 65% male - 35% female
• 30% of unsolicited e-mails contain pornographic materials
• Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.
• Porn revenue is larger than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises.
• US porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC at $6.2 billion.

modesty

cyndi recently bought me "modest mouse".  so far, i like it.  reading through the lyrics, i can see that they have a lot of questions and/or about God.  things like..."you wasted life, why wouldn't you waste the afterlife?"..."if God controls the land and disease, keeps a watchful eye on me, if he's really so damn mighty, my problem is that i can't see, well who'd wanna be?...such a control freak?"  thank God He let's us ask these questions.

this sunday at homewood is youth sunday.  i got to work with the band getting them ready and this is the image we're using for the background.  i had a good time making it look like the words were painted on the wall...anyway...just wanted to post.

sense of smell

why is God so good?  think about who we are.  think of what he has done.  it is clear that we, in no way, deserve the love of the infinite and all knowing God that has been forever and always will be. 

the world tells us to think so highly of ourselves, that we have rights and merit that is somehow worthy of acknowledgement.  some people live their entire lives to be acknowledged.  i have been that person.  but now i see the more i think of myself, not in terms of time or obsession, but in stature, the less i think of God, once again, not the amount of time, but worth.  have you ever heard the saying, "so-and-so thinks their ____ doesn't stink"?  i'm like that sometimes.  when i am that way, i am proving how little i think of God, how low i have put him and how far from the center i have pushed him.

when my nose has lost its sensitivity to be able to smell my own condition, it means that i have lost perspective.  how's your nose working lately?  why do i forget where i came from so easily?  it's like when you put on way too much cologne and after a while your nose is so completely desensitized that you can't tell how horrific you smell, and you walk into a room thinking you're the bomb, but everyone stays at least six feet from you at all times to protect their brain cells from dying.  this is the condition of heart i never want to be in, but somehow find on a somewhat annual basis.

vick's vapor breath-strips for the heart?  is that what we need?  is that what i need?  you see, remaining in a constant and consistent state of sensitivity and tenderness is admittedly an incredibly difficult feat to fulfill, but...when i think of how great that glory of God feels, it makes me want to admit how bad i smell, and plead with him to clean me up.

father in heaven, purify my heart and annoint my head with your sweet presence.  i ask for your forgiveness for when i think more of myself than i should.  you are so much higher than i, yet i put myself above you so often it hurts to think about it, but i think about it so that i will not try and hide any part of my failure from you.  thank you for your forgiveness and your grace.  may i be a sweet smelling aroma to you, and may i be molded to be more like your son Jesus Christ.  your son, your servant.

full circle

do you ever feel like God has brought you full circle?  well right now i am dealing with that.  when i first started out in ministry, my first full time position was as a youth pastor.  i have a bachelor's degree in youth ministry and adolescent studies and i felt called to be a youth pastor in my junior year in high school.  i love kids and definitely want to see them deepening in their walk, worshiping Him with all they have, and bringing their friends to Jesus.  the only problem is that when i started my first position, i didn't really know what i was getting myself into, i had really big dreams, and the church i started at just wasn't the right place for me to "start".  i was only their five months.  i will give a list of reasons and i will break them into "mine" and "theirs".

mine

• i was very idealistic, expecting things to just happen
• i thought that people would just follow me because i was the "youth pastor", i didn't realize i wasn't a strong leader yet
• i changed some things too fast without communicating well enough to get people on board
• i had unrealistic and previously uncommunicated expectations that my pastor would be my mentor
• i was a little hard headed and didn't receive criticism well, i would get defensive and feel attacked
• i was afraid of failure, when i said that failure is one of my values because of what you can learn from it

theirs

• when i did communicate my expectation to my pastor, that he have a deeper relationship with me, he told me i was on his "to-do" list and would get to me after Christmas
• my grandfather died two days before a big weekend youth trip.  when i told the staff about it, they sympathized, then encouraged me to prepare for the big weekend trip, when i wanted them to tell me to stay home.  i wasn't mature enough to tell them i was not going to go, and that i was going to take that time to be with my family
• as i was being hired, the entire worship band at the church got in a disagreement with the pastor, left the church, and i was not told.  i found out months later when i asked, "what happened to the worship band?"
• there was one leader specifically that was constantly undermining me
• there was a girl in an abusive relationship, and he intercepted a letter from the boy to her, and he shared it with the other leaders, and kept it from me.  the parents were a little confused, and when i told the leader if he did something like this again he would be removed, he said he was going to talk to the pastor and that i couldn't remove him
• this same leader cornered my fiancé, now wife, cyndi in the hall way while i was leading youth group and complained to her for a half an hour how if i didn't change i would be fired.  when i shared this with my pastor, the leader was not reprimanded

with all this having happened in the course of five months, i knew this was not the right place to start my ministry career or where i wanted to get married and start my family, so i resigned.  i believe the Lord allowed me to shift my focus to worship ministry and that is what i have done for the past three years.  but i don't think i ever really dealt with all the hurt from that first youth ministry position. 

while i was working at riverside umc in moline, i got to lead worship for the youth ministry, and i fell in love with those kids.  i felt myself wanting to be their youth pastor.  even now, i miss being with them every week. 

i say all this because God may be bringing me full circle.  i am talking to a pastor from mediapolis, iowa, about a youth pastor position their.  it is a community wide position, as it is a small town, and some of the churches share resources.  the pastor's name is john gaulke.  he has been highly recommended to me, by pastors that i trust, as a great pastor to work for and to grow under.  i know in the right environment i will thrive as a youth pastor again.  the reason that i am writing isn't so much to ask whether i should or not, but more to ask for advice for going back into youth ministry, and for your prayers.  i know that the nervousness i am feeling has to do with fear.  i had a real crappy experience last time, and i know that i am now having to deal with the hurt that i didn't deal with before, and i am experiencing some anxiety because of it.

so if you could pray for me as cyndi as we look forward to new ministry, and as we step out in faith.  all you youth pastor friends of mine are more than welcome to comment away, and if you're not a youth pastor and you have something to say, you are welcome as well.