Tag Archives: Church

Home is where the heart is

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Photo: Meredith Farmer on Flickr

I remember planning my move to this beautiful place and my new future with Big Mack and I was so excited. I was excited to move back to the Okanagan; I was excited to be a part of a whole family again; I was excited to live in a house with a yard; I was excited to give my sons a new dad; I was excited to quit my job and become a stay-at-home wife and mom; I was excited to spend time writing music. There’s only one thing I wasn’t excited about.

I hated the idea of leaving my church.

My church was my home. It’s where I wanted to be. It was filled with people who cared about me, people who prayed for me and listened to me when I needed to talk. It was people who held me accountable and people who stretched me and taught me to reach out for God’s truth… to get to know Him better. It was where I belonged. It was my home.

I’d visited Big Mack’s church a few times during my visits with him before we were married – maybe 3 or 4 at most. I remember comparing it to Valley Church – my home church since I became a Christian in 2005 – and feeling completely underwhelmed. I remember thinking the music was lacking and the congregation was stifled and I remember disliking the preaching I did hear simply because it wasn’t Pastor Owen. There was some social awkwardness too… or maybe it was just me. I was, after all, attending where Big Mack used to go with his now ex-wife and, well… it just wasn’t MY church.

Ugh.

I remember mulling it over. I remember asking Big Mack if he would consider moving to something a little more vibrant. I remember wanting something different… I remember saying I couldn’t feel the Holy Spirit there. I remember praying about it and I remember God telling me to stop looking at church with an expectation to be served but, rather, to look at it as an opportunity to serve others and trust in Him.

This is right where he wanted me.

I am so grateful to the Oliver Alliance Church community for embracing me wholeheartedly, for welcoming me into their lives and into their hearts, for including me in their social engagements and for caring for me and my boys through the children’s ministry. I am thankful I have been given the opportunity to serve with the worship arts ministry and that I have been encouraged and prayed with and loved on and lifted up.

I am so completely ashamed at the terrible attitude I once held about this great group of people. As I have come to know many of them – even just a little bit – I can tell their hearts are genuine, their faith strong and true. I can tell they love my Jesus as I do.

I still have close relationships with Valley Church through songwriting; my co-writers are there and I have been meeting with them about once a month since I moved here. And I always take in a service there when I’m in the city on a Sunday… I am even still asked to sing with the worship ministry there on occasion. What’s beautiful, though, is I now have a new church family and all those things I thought about Oliver Alliance before were completely wrong.

So wrong.

It’s funny how our perceptions change. I think God changes them. Where once my poor outlook clouded my vision to where I couldn’t see the Spirit moving in that place I am now moved to tears in worship and humbled by the inspired preaching. So often Pastor Jeremy manages to preach on a topic or scripture passage I was just reading or contemplating the day before, confirming to me that God is very much still at work.

As Christians, our church becomes our family. They are an extension of us – the body of Jesus. We cannot function well without those vital relationships. We must allow ourselves to fall under the leadership and guidance of a pastor and a church body for our own well-being and growth.

I’m so grateful that God put me right where I am. My heart is here.

Organized Religion: Parental Guidance Suggested

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Photo: bradjward on Flickr

I have been thinking about so much stuff lately… my mind is like a circus! I’m not even terribly certain I can put into some kind of reasonable sense of order the things I want to share with you today, but here it goes anyway:

According to canadianchristianity.com’s The State of the Local Church 2010, “Weekly church attendance has dropped from about 70 percent of the Canadian population in the 1950s to 20 percent today.” Yet fully three quarters of Canadians claim to be Christian according to Wikipedia.

It used to be that families attended church out of tradition or a sense of moral obligation. It was considered normal and a sign of being of good character. Many people grew up believing they were Christians simply because their parents took them to church and they knew all about the gospel message. Nowadays our society has shifted away from church attendance. Our social and religious norms now include questioning every practice and every principle in order to make our own determinations as to their validity based on own own moral values. It’s not that I think there is anything wrong with this questioning… quite the contrary: I think questioning is a good thing; it allows us to really contemplate and develop conviction in what we believe and why. It allows us to seek hard after our purpose and meaning in this life. And I truely believe we’ll find the answers if we are open to them:

For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. [Matthew 7:8; Luke 11:10]

Having said that, the current lack of church attendance has led to a growing number of people in our country who have never even heard the gospel of Christ nor read anything from the bible. It has also led, in part, to the prevalence of what I’ll call selective Christianity – the acceptance of parts of the message but not all of it.

The Rejection of Organized Religion

I hear it said all the time: “Oh I don’t believe in organized religion.” Or, “Oh I believe in God, but not in organized religion.” “I’m very spiritual; I have my own beliefs.” It has become trendy to reject the major religions of the world and embrace new-age principles and eastern philosophies instead. Many people in this world seem to have developed their own sense of faith that borrows a little bit from each religion or faith system to create whatever works for them.

Here’s my question to those people: “How’s that actually working out for you?”

Photo: amanky on Flickr

I hear people claim Christianity but then also claim they don’t go to church nor do they need to. Okay, that’s true I suppose… you can confess faith in Jesus Christ, pray to God and read the bible without ever setting foot in a church. However,  the scriptures do say Christians should meet together for several reasons:

The Bible tells us we need to attend church so we can worship God with other believers and be taught His Word for our spiritual growth (Acts 2:42; Hebrews 10:25). Church is the place where believers can love one another (1 John 4:12), encourage one another (Hebrews 3:13), “spur” one another (Hebrews 10:24), serve one another (Galatians 5:13), instruct one another (Romans 15:14), honor one another (Romans 12:10), and be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32). [Source]

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I go to church because I adore being there. If there were more services I’d attend those too… in fact, I also enjoy listening to sermons I download on iTunes and still others I watch on YouTube. I receive devotional messages to my email and I have even been known to stay through both services at my church on a Sunday just because I wanted to be there. Some people describe me as a very religious person, but I just love hanging out with like-minded people and growing and serving with them. Plus, I feel like I get a lot out of going, too. The pastors there are great speakers and my church friends are like family to me. I want to know how to apply all that wisdom and knowledge to my life; and I find that doing so makes my life easier, more joyful and more peaceful.

The truth is, I don’t actually consider myself religious at all. I consider “religious” to mean adhering to a set of rules, reading prayers written out by others, standing when told to stand, sitting when told to sit, forcing a set of guidelines and dragging yourself to a room full of other equally unenthused people doing the same things in the hope of maybe being chosen by a holy God to receive salvation upon death. I simply consider that I have a personal relationship wtih the living God… I talk to Him… I hear from Him… I want to know Him more. I want to know His plan for my life… I want to live that out.

I want, more than anything, to be who I was created to be.

The only reason I’m writing all this down is that my heart aches for all those people out there who are hurting or who are seeking for a deeper meaning to their life. I am convinced we are created by God in His image; our spirits know there is more – we were created to know our creator! Why do you think people spend so much time considering and seeking the purpose of life? All the while they are being bombarded by messages about how evil the church systems are, how corrupt and how dangerous organized religion can be and even just how uncool it is to accept that there is any possibility that the bible might actually be the true, inspired Word of God. So where does that leave them? Floundering to intellectually create their own god using selective Christianity or some other philosophy or faith system.

So going back to my earlier statement, there is a growing number of people in our country who have never even heard the gospel of Christ nor read anything from the bible. In fact, am going to bet that many who reject the teachings of Christianity and the bible have never actually read it nor heard it preached in any way.

Parental Guidance Suggested

If you’re a parent you might, more easily, see where I’m coming from on this one. But if you aren’t a parent, that’s okay… if you had parents you might also be able to track with me here.

Photo: ryk_neethling on Flickr

As a parent, you know things. You know about life, you have experiences to draw upon, you have wisdom you’ve gained from years of living. You want to impart that wisdom and that insight to your children so that they might have a successful future. You want to provide love and guidance; you want to set boundaries and discipline them. You want them to grow up to be people of good character. So you love them with all your heart and you provide for them and you give them good things and you set rules for them to follow. You insist upon certain behaviour else you will implement certain consequences. You want to teach them that there are natural consequences of their actions while not allowing them to feel the full brunt of their mistakes. You want them to make it to adulthood, after all.

If you’re a parent you know your kids better than they know themselves. You know what way they’ll respond to certain circumstances; you know how to best encourage them. You know when what they need is more love vs. more discipline. You know when they’re tired, when they’re hungry and when they’re just grumpy. You want to give them everything they need – they don’t need to ask for those things – but you want to teach them to be grateful for them. You want to give them many of the things they want… unless of course you think getting what they want will be a detriment to them. You want them to talk to you. You want them to open up and share their hearts with you… what’s going on in their lives. You want to know how they feel and what their struggles are. You want to help them. You also want them to ask for what they want, even if you know what that might be.

Do you see the parallel here? Can you see God as a loving father? Can you see the bible as something like the written memoirs of a loving father for his children, grandchildren and generations to come?

Only it’s way better than that.

Kids need love, discipline, boundaries; they need to explore their environment, learn and grow. They need someone to guide them and direct them and someone to keep them in line. A loving parent looks only to help them be the best human being they can be. God wants that for you. He wants you to be his child and He wants to father you, hear your heart, help you grow and become everything you were created to be.

We reject the notion of organized religion because we are told that once we’re adults and out of the care of our own parents we should not be accountable to anyone or anything. But God is our Father. He’s the God of all creation who fashioned you together with all your beautiful intricacies and a specific purpose.

Are you living out that purpose?

Maybe you need some parental guidance from your Father.

Life In The Kingdom Starts Now

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This weekend has me filled with a renewed excitement about my faith, my church, my life and my ability to relax in the middle of the craziness. Tomorrow marks the launch of a ten week series on Life In the Kingdom that will include Sunday sermons, a book study and weekly small groups. I’m hopeful this shift of focus will help put my faith right back in the centre of my life where it belongs and that I’ll gain valuable insight and inspiration to live it out every day no matter what my environment or circumstance.

Today is a day of preparation for the upcoming 10 weeks. It’s a day of prayer and fasting and I also have the privilege of being a part of the worship team that will be leading our congregation tomorrow, so today we get to rehearse, which is just a big bonus for me. This morning’s biggest challenge was getting up and not pounding a giant mug of coffee with cream and sugar – probably my biggest vise. Instead I’ve opted to get through the day drinking herbal tea. I was surprised how relaxed I was about it… I’m usually just mean when I don’t have my coffee, but I guess God’s in the house ;)

It seems the last few months have seen me get busier and busier as I delve into some areas of exploration in my life. It’s good to take a step back and spend some time focused on what really matters. I’m grateful for the opportunity.

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Anniversary Weekend

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August 14th was our 4th wedding anniversary. We were married on the anniversary of our first date, 5 years earlier, so it’s really easy to remember yay! This year big-man surprised me with a lovely overnight away to the most unusual spot: The Silver Reef Casino just outside Bellingham, WA. I actually think it’s technically in Ferndale, but that doesn’t really matter. You might think that sounds like an odd plan, but for us it was perfect.

It was a simple plan: son at the mother-in-law’s, drive down Saturday morning, enjoy some spa treatments, a little gambling, a nice dinner and some more gambling and more spa treatments, and then back on Sunday. It was very well planned and I have to give props to big-man. He’s never been good at surprising me with anything. In 9 years he’s never managed to actually surprise me on my birthday, Christmas or our anniversary. This, at least, he had planned entirely up until about two weeks prior when he finally broke down and told me the plan haha… yeah, we’re still working on the *surprise* element of gift giving.

So here’s how it went…

We left our place about 8:00am Saturday. Given we’re up daily by 5am, that was no big deal. We had coffees in hand and a few things packed. It was a beautiful morning so we took off without the front panels on the Jeep (we have a hard top 4-door Jeep like this one where the top pieces just above the front seats come off independently from the rest of the hard top) and left them at home (more about that later).

Here’s how it looked coming in to Vancouver from the North Shore:

And this was me all excited taking a pic of myself – yep I’m a big dork:

We then proceeded to accidentally follow Granville all the way in to Richmond instead of switching over to Oak to get on to Hwy 99… oops! So we had a nice little tour of Richmond before we finally hit the last stretch to the border. At the border we hit the duty free for big-man’s necessities (read: booze & smokes) before we got to join the 90-minute queue of travellers trying to navigate their way to the U-S-of-A.

Anyway, after the 90 minute wait, lots of pee-pee breaks, the odd tweet and some good quality time, we were through the gates and on our way. We stopped for a quick breakfast at Jack In The Box and then arrived at the hotel at about 11am. Perfect timing.

Actually, the timing was good. They had our room ready even though check-in wasn’t until 4pm or something. We had an executive suite on the top floor so there was a little extra security – you had to have a key to a 6th floor room to get the elevator to go there. Big-man had even managed to get the hotel staff to pick up a bottle of sparkling wine he knew I’d like and a long stemmed rose and have them leave it, with a card he sneaked in to them, on the bed in our room. Nice touch.

Pardon the bottle of tequila. That was from the duty free. Newest favourite drink is Blue Agave Full Throttle with tequila *mmm*.

So 11:30am Saturday the first item on the agenda was a couples’ massage at the spa. It was good. The massage itself was good, anyway. The guy who was working on me started talking about how he divorced his wife for her putting her cold hands on him to warm up. A little inappropriate given it was our anniversary, but whatever. The Silver Reef is certainly not high end, despite what they’d like to think. At least the price isn’t high end either lol.

After the massage we shared our bottle of sparkly. That’s all I’m saying there…

Around 1:30 we went for some lunch at Panasia. The thing we started to notice about this ‘resort’ (and I must use the term lightly, it is actually a hotel and casino in the middle of a series of fields on a native reserve…) is that no one knows anything about anything that isn’t part of their job. The hostess knew nothing about the beverages offered, nor did she know anything about the voucher thing we got with our room key. All she knew how to do was seat people at the table. The server on the other hand, knew about the beverages and the voucher, but didn’t know what came with our food. We ordered a spicy duck dish that was supposed to come with little pancakes to roll it up in and she was very shocked that we would imply there should have been something else. No harm done. The food was okay. Not great; but okay.

After lunch I quickly threw $150 in the toilet. Well, I might as well have done so at the rate I lost it at the casino. At that point I wasn’t having much fun, but big-man was enjoying himself, so we stuck around. When he was up a little, he gave me another $100 which I promptly handed over to the 4-card poker dealer. My excuse is that I was training for Las Vegas when I go to Blogworld next month. Meh. Truth is, I was training my self control from that moment on. I draw the line at $250 without winning a single hand.

Big-man made up for my losses at the tables and we got all prettied up and went for dinner at the Steakhouse.

Big-man, having spent many years in the restaurant industry in both the front-of-house and the back-of-house, was excited about table-side food prep. We ate Caesar salad (prepared tableside), he had a pepper steak (prepared tableside) while I had a lobster bisque and, for dessert, we had bananas foster (you guessed it, prepared tableside). Big-man bitched about the wine service (his glass emptied twice without being refilled promptly or, better still, beforehand), but over all he’s just a tough cookie to please. I thought it was fine.

After dinner we returned to the casino where our final tally was me down $300 but big-man up $600. I took a photo of him rolling in the cash on the bed (which is pretty funny) but given he was in his underwear by that point, I figured I’d spare him. Some things are better left private. After deciding to quit while we were (collectively, anyway) ahead, we went for a swim and a hot tub before retiring to the room to watch the Olympic coverage on TV.

Sunday morning we got up and had some really bad coffee. Okay, admittedly I’m a coffee snob. We use a French press at home and use 5 heaping scoops of espresso roast for two mugs of coffee, so hotel coffee just can’t do it for me. Big-man had decided to have another massage Sunday morning given he’d enjoyed the first one so much. I, on the other hand, decided to drive in to Bellingham to look for some real coffee… a Starbucks perhaps?

It was then that I realised it was raining. Remember that nice weather I’d said we had? Remember how I said we’d gone with the tops off the Jeep? Remember how I said we’d left them at home?! Yeah. Nice. So I’m driving down I5 towards Bellingham in the rain, with my hood on, in search of the happy green circle. I finally spotted one Starbucks just as I was passing it with absolutely no hope of doubling back. I kept going to Bellis Fair… found a McDonald’s but that was definitely not what I wanted. So I decided to drive around some more…

I found the strangest thing: right beside Cost-Cutter was Christ The King Church. No joke. A big church in a mall… it was really weird. I’d planned to miss church that morning, being out of town and all, but then I felt compelled to drive right by the front door… 8:30am service. I checked the clock: it was 8:27am. Now I know when God is talking to me. “Don’t miss church. You soooooo need a little godly influence don’t ya thing?! You already threw away the money I provided for you playing stupid gambling games, don’t you think you ought to think about me just a little while you’re immersed in all things worldly? Besides, you’ll like it.” Yes God. I went in.

It was like violins started playing… as I walked though the door the first thing I saw was an espresso bar. Sweet. Then, I met a woman who works in the children’s ministry and gets espresso vouchers for doing so. She was happy I’d dropped in and gave me one. Score! Thanks again, God. I finally make my way in to the sanctuary, wondering if people were frowning upon my attire: yoga pants, a hoodie and flip flops (my usual any time I’m not at work), just in time to see the pastor come in… wearning flip flops. FTW!!

After the service I had just enough time to get back to the hotel, get changed and have a swim and a steam before my mani/pedi appointment at the spa – my final pampering of the weekend.

The drive home was quick; just 10 minutes at the border. We were home by just after 3pm sitting by the pool at the mother-in-law’s hanging with our mini-man, who we missed dearly.

It’s really important for us to take time away from the hectic pace of everyday life. This was a nice break. Thanks babe… I love you. Now if we can just focus on not killing each other before we do it again, that would be fantastic.

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Family Time

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… About that whole “seeking balance” thing… today is a great day! My wonderful mother-in-law came over this morning (with my sister-in-law… must give credit where credit is due) for breakfast and to hang out with my amazing mini-man while my big-man and I went to church together… on his crazy-fast GSXR-750 crotch rocket :D fun! I think ours is the only church that really should have bike parking. It’s starting to amass a following of leather-clad rocketeers who serve the Lord lol!

But again I digress… fun times. I haven’t been on his bike in quite a while. I’ve become a bit of a nervous nelly since becoming a mom over 2 years ago, but I guess that’s a God-given instinct: protecting your life. The mini-man thought it was very cool that mommy was getting on the back of daddy’s motorcycle. I think he wanted to come too, but there’s no way. He’s not riding until he’s at least 42.

So this afternoon we’re headed out to enjoy the sunshine by the pool, sipping cool beverages with friends while caked in SPF 50 and enjoying inflatable things filled with water and bits of grass and such… you probably know how it is. I will do my best to relax while running around trying to make sure the mini-man doesn’t fall in the in-ground pool, but instead sticks to the inflated variety. I should wear a hat.