DISQUS

Love your new site!! :-)

Been there many times...

Our current culture, including believers, have lost, or never understood, "the fear of the LORD". We also have a watered down idea of what is sin. I've been to churches that don't even preach on sin or the sin nature of man. How can this be? How have we come to "rationalize" sin? God's word very explicitly explains sin and how God deals with sin. We live in an age, very much like Babylon, where anything goes. Nothing is right or wrong, everything is acceptible. We've lost our ability to hear, or have chosen to ignore, what God says about sin. Why? We don't want to hear it - we want to be our own gods - live life our own way and we don't want to feel "guilty" about anything - and, I'm not talking about the world - I'm talking about believers... We should be making a difference in the world; how can we, when we're no different than the world...

Hi Joseph

I think the important thing is our "motivation". Most things are inherently good but if they become a "desire gone crazy" then we end up worshipping that object. Does that make any sense? The desired end is to make room for God in our lives and anything, absolutely anything that crowds Him out, is an idol or something that we're worshipping other than Him. Look at the commandment about "no other Gods". It's a fairly straightforward commandment and God doesn't really give us an explanation of it, except God says to have no other Gods.

Here's an example from personal experience. I'm a perfectionist. Being that way isn't necessarily wrong. I think God wants us to give our best. However, when the desire to be perfect goes way beyond what's normal or what God intended, then what we're possibly doing is worshipping that feeling of power of being in control. In doing that, we're saying to God - we don't trust you to be in control of our lives. We shut Him out. It's definitely hard to release the hold on that kind of powerful feeling one has of being in control.

I think this was a great post Ben. Not sure I'm making any sense. :-)

Umn... We just studied over the past several weeks that whatever we fear is our god. Fear itself is not the god; the object of our fear is the god. The question was raised whether fear itself is an idol or the bond that attaches us to our idol. It also mentioned that God knows fear is our default mode. Look how much is said in scripture about fear. Kind of blew me away to realize that we're actually worshipping the object of our fear instead of worshipping our creator who told us to be strong and courageous and to fear not for He is with us forever...

No matter what one believes about past and present wars, how I wish everyone could understand the depth these men and women have sacrificed, and are continuing to sacrifice, for us.

and i thought understanding Christianese came by "osmosis" what was i thinking...

Hi Gloria

I'm impressed - you are getting brave. :-) Love the new
website. It's very, very nice. Can't wait to see how
it all evolves.

Priscilla

Great job on the new website Jessica.
I really like the colors! Very nice.

Priscilla

So, how's the coffee at Panera?? Oh, I'm surprised it took 10 min. to make it to church - must have hit all the lights. :-)

I don't believe glorifying God has anything to do with whether we're financally sound or not. Or whether life is good or not. I choose to glorify God because of who He is, not because of what He may do/or not do for me.

The Piper video is excellent (try showing that on Wed night Ben. That should elicit some response.)

I also agree with a comment made before that "we need to be careful of passing judgment on people who we decide haven’t “suffered enough” for Jesus". Who are we to know what people have "suffered" through - even the wealthiest of us. I believe each of us should be wise with what God has given us. All our "gifts" come from Him and Him alone. I think He'll hold us accountable as to what we did with what He gave us.

I wonder what Denny's score would be... Maybe i can get him to take the test...

Get this Heather: According to the test i'm 48% Melancholy and 30% Choleric. :-)

I must admit, and i know i'm really dating myself, I do remember well, Hendrix, Joplin, Creedence etc. Not sure if it was a rock rebellion just the music we listened to at the time. Had never heard of christian music during that time-frame. I've been a piano teacher for many years and I've always, always introduced my students to every form of music genre out there. It didn't mean I or the students had to like it all. But I wanted them to learn about it.
Personally, I really like jazz and some forms of rock. I even like classical music. I just don't like one type of music all the time.

I’m making some headway on KCC’s new website now. (and NO you can’t see it yet…)

BUMMER...


My brother is a graphic designer and is currently working on our corporate identity design (logo, letterhead, signage, business cards, etc).
(and NO you can’t see it yet either…)

DITTO BUMMER...

Wow. I needed to read this right now! I'm a "doer" also. If I see it needs doing, I do - no matter how many "do's" are already in the fire. I believe God is speaking to me about the "doing" because a good part of the time, I feel the "doing" is what defines me. And I think God is getting ready to lead me on a new journey at this point in my life. And, I'm scared because "doing" is all I know. "Being" is something new, unknown, and feels awkward. Letting God define me is what my heart truly wants but it's like jumping off the cliff and not knowing if you're going to make it or not. So, let the excitement and the unknown of life begin as long as God is on this journey with me!

Finally, a logical explanation of "blogging". Soooo Ben, I guess the idea of getting together over a cup of coffee and 'talking & sharing' is outdated???? :-)

Excellent Heather!! I've already seen evidence of this in my nephews & nieces. You did an outstanding job of writing with this piece.

These are some of my thoughts, as I muddle through, on being knit together in the body of Christ. I wonder sometimes if our American culture is so geared toward independence, it's hard to grasp the concept of being "unified" in the body of Christ. We also want immediate gratification in everything - including the "perfect" church (which isn't going to be here). We're not willing to stick around and work things out with our brothers & sisters in Christ. Eph 4 really puts it out there about unity. What do you think would happen if our church had to go underground? We'd certainly get a quick/hard lesson in unity. Yep, there are frustrations when it comes to assembling together as a group of believers. But you know what, if we can try hard to keep Christ at the center, and get our eyes off of us, can you imagine the strength that would come from unity like that? Not to mention the fact that Jesus commands us to come together as a body. Since I'm not a real people person, I do struggle with this. It's probably a good thing that Jesus explicity tells us to do this, since this wouldn't be something I'd voluntarily do. :-)

I think this is a fair assessment of Barna's book. I think if we'd get "revolutionary" about Jesus Christ then we'd see miraculous changes in our churches. I believe this will come. Txs for reading the book.

Everything begins in our relationship with Christ. If it doesn't begin with Christ, what's the point? I remember, after letting Jesus inside, having a sense of some unwritten code in the church that I didn't understand. It was like all of a sudden, because I was a believer now, I wasn't supposed to have anymore doubts, fears, frustrations, goals etc. I wasn't supposed to "question" anything - especially churchy stuff. In other words, I felt like I wasn't supposed to be REAL anymore and that bothered me!! Because now, I had even MORE questions...

Many churches do have an "atmosphere of exclusion" and there is an “enormous us/them mentality" and unbelievers most likely will sense that. What can we do to make people feel truly welcome and comfortable? I think it helps if we're WILLING to be open, genuine, and REAL with people. I think presenting the gospel should be kept simple (for it really is simple) and not cluttered with our own personal gobblygook (sp?). Of course, this means we must be willing to get outside our own comfort zone with people. We have to be willing to take the TIME to establish relationships with people outside our church sphere. It takes a lot of work to do this... Are we willing to go there? It's a scary place outside of our comfortableness...

On the other hand, we've got to understand that not everyone will be receptive to "hearing" the gospel. What are we to do with this? Love them - because Jesus loved them and died for them too. They're not really rejecting us, they are rejecting Jesus.

Boy, this post you wrote Ben has many, many angles to it. This type of post would be a great discussion for a small group full of unbelievers/believers.

Does the gospel work or not? Is it really relevant to my life or not? If it is, then why can’t we preach it that way? Why are so many of us seemingly incapable of talking about Jesus in a way that doesn’t make Him seem distant and dead?

Do you think it may be that as believers, we also have a difficult time deeply believing the relevancy of the gospel to our own life and that Jesus does seem distant and dead even to us (except maybe for our ticket out of hell)? Just asking... I really do wonder if most of us have had a life-changing encounter with the person Jesus Christ...

Great story. Brought tears to my eyes. Even though we don't have children of our own, everytime I've had the privileage of working with kids, it amazes me to see their abandonment in worshipping Jesus. Makes you want to be a kid all over again!

We don't even want to go there... As Denny puts it, the kitchen is the room I must pass through to get to my car! Great story Heather.

Let the box breaking BEGIN! I'm ready. Great article Heather.