Long Silence

It's been a while since my last post.  I have been living life.  I had a great winter season learning a lot about myself and my life.  I had time to work on making my marriage even better.  My family has made its home in a really great church, and I have been growing closer to God.  All that meant that I had to balance out my life.  I let my blogging go by the wayside.

I made some other online life changes.  I dropped Facebook.  I am not going to go through all the reasons now, but I was reminded that before Facebook I had a really life.  I cannot multitask.  Maybe some of you reading this can multitask but I'm not one.  Only focus on a few things you can do really well that's what I am trying to do.  I am still working on the few things I chose.  I hope that I can now fit this blog into that list.  I don't know how I will handle posting or how often, but I want to get back into the practice.  Hopefully, I can hear from those of you who read this blog.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this or any of the previous posts.

Well my wife is calling me to her side.  Please subscribe, and leave a comment about how you may have had to let something go or how your able to multitask your life.

Living a Jesus Centered Life

This weekend my wife and I were discussing how we felt about our new church. I have enjoyed my experience at the church. I feel like myself with friends and relationships that make me feel alive. The church is unconventional as I have stated in previous posts. I find it a great challenge to my own spiritual life. Anyways, my wife has not had such an easy time getting used to church. She has told me that part of the reason that she finds it hard to be comfortable with open style of our church is that she has been doing "church" for so long.

This Sundays discussion was about living a more Jesus centered life. A life of relationship with Jesus not following all the rules of the "church." "Church" could also be inter-changed with "the law" as in the law of the old testament. Jesus and Paul told us that Jesus came to make a new covenant. One that would do away with the rules and regulations of "the law." Our pastor stated that Christianity was supposed to be the anti-religion. Jesus fulfilled all parts of the old testament "law" giving us access and a fresh start. My wife found the discussion very helpful.

So in the end, It comes down to something my wife said. That our church is all about relationship and that takes time and can be messy.

Accepting Second Best

This week was a very long week for me. Many of you probably heard of the latest school shooting that happened in Colorado this week. It is really close to home because I am one those "security guards" the news referred to this week. Deer Creek was one of my schools last semester, and I personally know the "security guard" who was assigned there this school year. I am not going to blog on the shooting this week it is still to fresh to me. Instead, enjoy my take on the current health care debate.

My wife sent me this link this week. It is an article about the current health care debate and our role as modern Christians. The author states that as a follower of Christ maybe we should elect not to have the best tests or get that designer drug for our restless leg syndromes. Basically, if your healthy by keeping from using up medical services frivolously we leave that doctor's time and drugs for others who may truly need it. I know that you could take this debate to the extreme. If your old don't try and prolong your life by taking that expensive treatment or body part. Sure, there are a lot of people who think me a monster for suggesting that the sick and old not hold on to life. But isn't that what God calls us to do.

Matthew 16:24-26 Jesus said,"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"

The real question I am asking is where is your soul invested. Is it invested in this life or is it invested in the life to come? What have I gained by extending my life another day or year if I haven't used those days to bring God into the lives of those around others. And I don't mean to say that I need to spend time converting as many people as I can possibly find to listen to me. I mean bring God into peoples lives even just one life by loving them and caring for them. Alter calls are great but teaching someone to love as God loves will benefit them their whole life. I am not the best example of this but I know one thing that is for sure I know where I am going when I die. I don't need to worry about the end of my days. I am free. Are you living free as well?

Neglecting the fundementals

My wife and I have been on a spiritual journey of late. We started at a new church over the summer time. The church is based off a home church model that meets as a larger community every other week. I really like the model of the church since it has challenged me to really get into relationship with those in my church group. The problem as I can see it right now is that even though the church challenges me it is not like the fundamental church that I grew up attending. My wife has really struggled with the part time nature of the church and the community. I keep telling her that it is all about relationship. I know this is true since my cousin is a regular of the same church. The model only works if we really work at making our Sundays about the relationship with the group and with the community at large. But like anything in life it takes a lot of work to make this church work for our family.

But is my wife, right? As the spiritual leader of my household is this experiment with church not good for my family? I have been feeling that I am not growing closer to God just forgetting Him. But would a normal church help me with that?