None of self and all of Thee

This was written on 12/4/06

An epiphany! OK, so I haven't acted on any of this yet. As soon as it came to me, I wanted to jot it down. I have been racking my brain. What is wrong....what can we be doing to better offer ourselves to others and bring people in for Christ. How do we stand out from the crowd. All of these kinds of questions. Well, I have a thought...an epiphany. We have been meeting together, BUT there hasn't been a strong outward focus. For lots of reasons...we don't know anyone, we are all working, trying to settle in, etc. SO, anyway, I realized that we are more like a group of 5 friends meeting together and worshipping....well, duh! But we need do seek to be more. What we need to be and need to see ourselves as is a church body, a family, and a single unit. We need to act like it and live like it. It needs to be the priority and the primary focus of our lives. I know this takes time, but this is where we should be. So how do we get there? Well, it starts with one person with the vision. That's how we got up here in the first place: A vision. The problem is that now we have achieved that vision and although we have another vision in writing, we stopped never switched over to start pursuing it once we got up here. We reached the vision we had been working on for three years, but I think we stopped there. So now we must take on this new vision and we need a person to step up and start.

I am striving to serve this church body and act as a spiritual leader and encourager. So I will do it. Simply, nothing fancy, but I have a few ideas. I think a lot of it comes from looking at scripture and thinking “how did the churches in the Bible function?” I'm not talking worship and structure and all that, not theology and or hermeneutics, but how did they interact? From one member to another, how did they work together in order to live out something they believed in so strongly that they would draw in others from around them to want to ask about who and what they were and come experience and be a part of what ever it was??? Well, I think it begins with getting the focus off yourself and spending time, LOTS of time looking at the needs of those around you. Here's the theory. I will focus on “doing for” (doing for others whatever they need), and just trying to meet the little needs I can of those around me. But not so much that I will burn out. I have to prevent that by encouraging the others in the group to do the same thing. As the 5 (8) of us work to meet each other's needs we will grow in our “doing for” and it will become our nature. We will “do for” those outside of the group. This is how we will grow. GET THE FOCUS OFF YOURSELF AND ON TO THOSE AROUND YOU. It starts with one and I have to deal with the emotional/spiritual/etc needs of those in the group before we venture out in any strong fashion. How effective can you possibly be when you are in emotional/spiritual turmoil. I know that I wouldn't be convinced to come join whatever you had to offer unless I could see in your own life that it had something to offer me. Could it be that in its most primal and fundamental state you have to appeal to the selfish side of humanity to bring people to Christ?

I know this may sound obvious, but when you are innundated with all new things and new surrounding and you feel like there is nothing firm or constant in your life, your tendancy is to pull into your shell. You want to seek safety and protection. I think we have all done that a little bit up here. Please pray that we open our shells back up so that maybe we will see that as we serve the needs of those around us, God will provide for our needs.