religion

A lot of people that I’ve met recently have shared with me their frustrations with “organized religion.”  A lot of them have been burned by religious institutions, let down by religious leaders, conned by selfish congregation members.  This is just so saddening to me.  I want to take people who have experienced “church” in this way and bind up their wounds.  I want them to see that the church is a body of broken people, and that we can’t put our hope in anything but Christ! People will let us down, churches will do the same.  My theory is that the hurt is more amplified within the church because its just a whole lot of broken people under one roof.  Let’s strip it down: what does our God think about religion?  What is pleasing to him?  Won’t that be the kind that is most pleasing to us as well?  

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27, NIV)

Light bulb moment…So that’s what God wants?  He wants us to love each other, look after those who can’t provide for themselves.  He wants us to bind together in a community as a “salty” people that preserve his goodness in a crooked and perverse generation.  He wants us to shine out his love like stars in the milky way, that each person that he has created will recognize his goodness and love. As a body of believers, we should give freely, love deeply, act justly, and above all, remain connected to our source, our Heavenly Father.

Now that’s what I call church.

risk assessment

I find myself weighing out decisions for so many areas of my life lately.  I came across this quote from C.S. Lewis that appears in  his book The Four Loves.  I feel like it pretty much sums up how I feel about making decisions, about taking action on a life I can be passionate about.  Passionate is what I want my life to be, but if there is one thing I have learned, it is that passion is not safe.  It is not comfortable.  But steered by and surrendered to the Almighty God, it is oh so good.

There is no safe investment.  To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  

Here’s to living a life that is full of vulnerability, full of pain, full of growth, full of passion. Here’s to the abundant life that I was created to live…even in the midst of a fallen world.

I’m Off!

Tomorrow morning I am heading out to Vanguard University in southern California.  I will be there for the next few days.  I’m meeting my team, learning more about the ministry that lies ahead and preparing for life outside the US. 

Tonight I had a sweet commissioning/prayer time with my family, along with the Chesney and Burt families.  We had some time to share about the different ministries that 5 of us will be embarking on in the next few weeks.  It was so sweet to be surrounded by fellow believers, senders, and those going out into the mission field.  I was reminded of my calling, refreshed and am ready to minister out of “overflow.”  That is, my ministry is the result of my love of Christ, my desire to know him and make him known in this world.  Wow.  What a great way to spend my life.  Thanks to the support of everyone, I can share the love I know with others.  My gratitude is so deep.

David Chez read to us tonight…words of refreshment, of preparation for the mission field from Luke 10: After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.

 

Prayers for myself and other missionaries that I met with this evening:

Megan Chez- headed to Argentina with CSIDE bright and early tomorrow morning, will be there until July 3

Morgan Burt- also going to Argentina with CSIDE…

Julie Chez- flying to Tanzania with two other women from First Pres Bako on Friday

Amy Kelly-my dear lil sis will also be going to San Salvador (same locale as myself) with Teen Mania within the week…it would be sweet if we ran into each other over the trip!

My team-communication/language barriers…I get the feeling that there are very few bilingual participants…pray that my nerves will be calm and that the HS will flow through me as I try to interpret/translate.  It is very taxing and nerve racking to think about being a main source for communication!

 

Thanks for the prayers….more to come soon!