Church...praying

Church is pretty counter-cultural in a spiritual sense. Althoung we must engage with our culture, we also need to be aware of the spiritual forces and dynamics that drive those cultures. With this in mins it is imperative that we prayerfully engage. God obviously desires to engage culture through the missional thrust of the Church.

We must seek God. We must discern. We must be wise. We must be active. To do all this we must be praying. The Church must be praying - You must pray. I must pray.

Let us devote ourselves to prayer.

Counter Cultural - be an individual

Young and old gather round...

All around us a battle is waging. Many sub cultures surround you, pulling you into their 'life choices' - fashion, music, attitude, character...

Where are you headed? What choices are you making? Your choices mould who you are becoming. What will you become?

Be an individual - you are made in the image of God, and you are made unique. There is only one of you and your life counts for everything! The question is...

...Will you be an individual who chooses for themselves, or will you let yourself be pulled along by whatever somebody else says is'cool'?

It's hard to be yourself sometimes, but take it from me, when you can be yourself you don't need to worry about fitting in anymore; you don't feel the pressure to keep up with everyone else. In fact you may find that people are drawn into your way of living.

I'm not following the crowd that seeks to make me just like them - I'm following Jesus. And d'you know what?

HE WANTS ME TO BE MYSELF - and I'm loving it.

follow Jesus.

love God. Love others.

Live Free!

Church is...3 - loving

If the Church is to love God and love others then the core purpose of Church is to love! Yet, many experience that the Church is not unconditionally loving. Many have experiencved conditional love and exceptance in their experience of Church - this is a diminished view of the love God has called us to live and show. I've heard it said that True love waits, but in this context love does not wait - it just gets on with loving, in thought, word, and ultimately, in deeds.

It needs to be said that there are many floowers of Jesus and Churches that show amazing lives and communities of unconditional love. Yet as people look at the Church in the West this is not the most prominent image of Church seen. We need to be transformed from the heart out into the community.

Look at Jesus lifestyle: He loved the crowds by feeding them with words and with food; he loved the leper by approaching them, talking with them and healing them; he loved women through respecting them; he loved kids by giving them his time; he loved his disciples by disciplining, teaching and releasing them; he loved the world by serving, saving and sacrificing himself; he loved God through obeying him; he loved.

As God's Church we have much repenting to do for our lack of love. We have lacked:

Love for the lost - if we really cared about the lost our perspective would not be so individualistic or insular.
Love for God - we live our faith in our way (it's my life!) rather than in Jesus' way (He is THE Way!)
Love for each other - many churches are filled with people who love others when "they play ball" and fit unspoken rules and expectations.Love for God's word - our words have somehow become more vocal than God's inspired, Spirit-breathed word.

We need to repent. we really need to turn back to God and BE the Church that Jesus died to send into the world. We need to get on our knees and pray that god's mercy touches our hearts afresh. We need to let go of all the 'church' baggage that's got us bound up and be freed to follow Jesus as unconditional lovers of God who unconditionally love ALL people, even when they are different, wrong, right, or down-right strange.

Follow Jesus - Love God - Love others - with no conditions

Stop and think - participation

Very quickly... how much participation do we allow God in our lives? Is he at the core of life walking with us? Are we expecting him to 'catch up' with what we're doing?

God wants to play a BIG part, not a BIT part.
God wants full control, not just a little permission to move when I want.
God wants to give us HIS dreams for our lives, not just bless OUR dreams.

It's easy for us to sing and pray "Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my soul, I live for you alone" - much harder to live that out. We need God's help if that is our heart-cry. We can't 'go it alone.

May God's participation in our lives be absolute. M\y be be Saviour AND Lord. And may we participate in the fulness of relationship with him.