Where Does the Church Live?

First of all the word "Church" is horribly tainted and misunderstood. The idea of congregations or "Churches" (which is the wrong use again) have become very territorial even within the same fellowship. Where you go to Church (wrong use yet again) is a little too overblown. I don't mean questions of faith or the gospel, I mean where you park your car on Sunday.

I look at the writings of Paul and I don't see this territorial attitude. In fact, Paul was the king of traveling and visiting congregations. He kept up with people by name and longed to see them.

So why do various church leaders at various levels get heartburn when members visit other congregation or activities with other Christians. What real ownership is it right for them to feel? They don't own you, they aren't in charge of you. Am I wrong to think that the worship center (notice I didn't say Church or Church Building) is a means of convenience usually associated with where you live? The Church is the body of saved believers and thus transcends geographical boundaries and certainly is much larger than where you worship.

You're thinking that this has to be the most obvious and pathetic topic. You're thinking you already know this. I challenge you to look around a bit.

There is such a huge benefit to Christians collaborating and sharing their lives together. Worshiping together is one of the greatest bonding experiences there is though not the main purpose. To do that you have to meet up with people and worship somewhere. I think it's great for individuals to seek out other Christians, friends, activities on their own. This means they'll wind up at a congregation somewhere and worship and one of them might not be at their usual congregation. Why is that bad?

If being gone on a Sunday or Wednesday night at your home congregation so you can visit friends at another congregation or spiritual activity is wrong...then I guess my allegiance is to the brick building and my human leader. But it's not. It's 1st to Christ, then to my fellow Christian brothers and sisters (see commandments regarding God and your neighbor)...and maybe I'll choose to work with a leader in the church if it benefits my overall Christian walk. I don't follow a human, I follow Christ and no one owns me but Him.

Now don't get me wrong, human leaders in the Church (not the building) plan things, oversee certain things as they should. They have my full support...until they put a cage around the membership and get mad when they leave the nest for one night. Christians in the new testament had a global attitude and were part of something much bigger than a street address. Let's not discourage the Church from living each day as close to one another as possible. That might mean a little travel from your usual parking spot on Sunday or Wednesday.

That might mean the guy "in charge" of your age group might get a little heartburn. I pray they'll finally see themselves as a facilitator of the gospel and good works, not a dictator. We need to see the church as God sees it. As One.

Living Off The Land

I'm going to continue to edit this particular blog as time goes on. So you'll have to check back on it since it will slowly get buried under more recent blogs.

I've started mentally keeping track of how you could live off of what is readily available or that you could find around town. Everything from food to toilet paper.

So here goes the list of what I have so far:

Food: Peanuts from Santa Fe Restaurant readily available just inside the front door.

The guys at the mall always give out free samples of that chicken they call "Cajun". I once ate at Chic-fil-a, was still hungry, so I went over to them and sampled all that chicken. Then I wasn't hungry anymore.

Drink: Chocolate shakes are free to kids at Boomerang if you color a picture.

Also, I saw a guy walk into a McDonals with McDonalds cup that had to be soooooo old. He walked in, refilled his drink, and walked out. Now that's stealing. But it sort of fits the topic.

Clothes: You could stalk a "Red Box" clothes drop off point or dig inside one.

More to come....

Lottery

I have to admit that for a guy who doesn't believe in gambling, I've given this a LOT of thought. Mostly while I'm driving in the car where most of my open thinking occurs.

So here it is.

Say I win $175 million.

First rule: Do not make anyone rich, including myself. That will ruin your life.
Second rule: Get rid of it before anyone notices.

So I'll have to do the following:

1. Have an attorney pick it up anonymously. Do not appear on TV especially.
2. Pay off all of my debts.
3. Anonymously pay off family debts.
4. Create an organization to oversee and use the money to any number of ideas I have for community and religious charities. Let's face it, money is power and to not use it for the benefit of mankind would be crazy. It would be an excellent opportunity to do something amazing.

And never tell anyone.

That's the perfect scenario. Is there a human alive that could stick with such a plan? I don't know. Every time I get tempted to buy a lotto ticket I cringe at the thought of loosing everything I've worked for. A weird thought to have when most people see it as an opportunity for gain.

So I'll try not to dwell on this much anymore. But it's a cool thought. But then reality hits...it would really shake things up. I don't need that.

What's In A Name?

In the bible we read that the pharisees were criticized for paying attention to traditions and were more interested in being critical than understanding the real nature of the scriptures or the nature of God. This attitude concerns me as a Christian because I find myself surrounded by talk of technicalities and criticism of the denominational world. There is no doubt that when GOD specifies what HE wants that us mere mortals who are ants in his sight must make sure we "get it right". So the question is: How do we experience the love of Christ while maintaining a healthy dose of Godly fear so that we don't stray into post modernism or denominationalism?

Understanding that I feel this struggle you may now appreciate the first question on my quest to bring about clarity on many issues while examining my motives carefully to make sure they aren't based in pharasee-ism. The first of these missions we'll call the church naming reformation movement.

How trivial right? A name? Come on. Talk about modern day pharisees! Maybe not.

Names were very important in the bible. Each one had meaning and more often than not the bible let's us know the meaning. God even changed peoples names to better fit his plan for them or reflect some overall purpose. In the case of the church, Jesus purchased the church with his own blood. It's His. He is the head.

We are so concerned with identity theft today and I think Jesus might be feeling the same pain. What analogy could be more applicable? The overall church is the church of Christ...like as in logically it is his...and those within it are Christians. But good luck finding churches that even come close to claiming to be the possession of Jesus. Some have another man's name on them like "Mormon" or "Luther". Many are moving towards catchy up beat names like "Victory" or "The Rock". We have robbed Jesus of his own church by stealing it's identity.

You don't appreciate it when your bank account suffers loss due to identity theft. Your hard earned money is stolen. Just imagine how Jesus feels about his purchase being stolen and the identity changed. His purchase required days of torture and death. You'd think the least we could do is leave his name on what he bought.

In some ways the idea of church identity theft is rather handy. If his name isn't on it, it really has been stolen. There's a new guy in control. If you are attending a church that has the nerve to remove Jesus from the name of the church he bought, they'll have the nerve to do anything.

Call me a pharisee, but at least Jesus will recognize the name on the sign as his. There's a lot more to being a Christian than the sign out front, but can we start with getting that part right?

Jett Quotes

Days of the Week
We asked Jett to name the days of the week. It started off right. "Sunday.....Monday.....tomorrow....last week."

Halo Trash Talk
One of the funniest things that may wind up biting me is that Jett picks up on trash talk on XBox Live. We were playing last night and Jett saw an opponent coming up to me and he exclaimed, "Smoke'm dad". I guess that's not too bad.

Men's Room

A trip to the mall is where we begin our story. Jett and I visit the men's room and find that it's fairly full...but we find a spot. I have to go into a stall which leaves Jett right outside my door facing the wall so he can do his thing too. Jett has always been incapable of being quiet in the men's room which for those of you who don't know, men don't really talk to each other in the men's room. Some of his usual very loud questions are, "Are you done yet? Where's mama?" and the best "what are you doing?". So anyway it's very quiet even though there are 6 guys in there. Some time passes and I'm not done yet which means he's patiently waiting right outside the stall door. I'm amazed he hasn't said anything yet. Then in the midst of pure silence he says with a bathroom echo, "I love you dad". And from stall #3 with the closed door and sitting virtually side by side with 4 other men with only a thin wall between us I said, "I love you too, buddy".

Happiness Greed

So where does happiness come from? Unfortunately it comes from the realization that a situation has improved or changed. It rarely comes from noticing that everything is going well, hasn't changed and won't change soon. Why doesn't that cause happiness? Why don't we wake up each day so happy that tragedy hasn't struck? Why do we wait for good news, a new toy...new new new. To have new you must have old. And apparently old is bad.

I look at my kids and think that someday I would pay thousands to see them like they are today. Just to converse with them for 30 minutes and see their young faces, high voices and funny things that they come up with. I would stare at them endlessly in awe of how beautiful they are. But that's only because it would be so different than the adult version of them I'd be used to. That's so wrong. I want to appreciate them that way now. The closest I've come to triggering that feeling is when I've come back from a business trip after a week. The kids looked brand new. They flat out looked different. It was amazing. They might as well have been glowing. It was so great. I wouldn't change that feeling for the world.

When things appear to be going wrong or we get disappointed in our dreams we are often forgetting the dreams that have come true and that we are living right now. We've come to the end of so many journeys and received the prize at the end of the rainbow but we immediately look to the future as if it holds something greater. It's like happiness greed. Never satisfied.

I guess it's the American way and what we are taught from the beginning. I feel that Christianity tries to give us a clue in this area by encouraging us not to lay up treasures here on earth where thieves break in and steal and moths destroy.

I guess we need to realize that happiness is waiting for us to rediscover what we've already accomplished. It's a lot smarter to remember what you have than to go invent something new.