my prayer for today
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me."
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7 comments:
YEP!! KEEP THAT ATTITUDE!! I LOVE YOU GIRLY!
As I look deeper at journey church today, I see more and more churches moving away from messages based simply on the bible. It seems rare to hear a message preached there that is based on a section or chapter of scripture. Instead, messages are about how to be a better person, arrange your personal finances, or finding your purpose (even if that purpose isn't pleasing to God), or in some cases messages are nothing but attacks on beliefs of fundamental Christianity.
One example, that has hit home with me, is when a pastor attempts to out think God and gets clever with his sermons. "If only I can make church cool, people will come". So they begin with gimmick preaching, you know repelling from the ceiling in army fatigues to start their sermon, or arriving on a motorbike, sans helmet. That progresses into to sermons that question the literal interpretation of such Bible stories as Job, Jonah, and the Garden of Eden. These types of pastors begin to contradict everything Christians know to be true and they cause grief and confusion among the believers. They say things like, "I don't really believe in the Trinity", or "Hell isn't a literal place".
Yes, I think the journey church is just fine, it's leaders who take the Bible out of context or try to be "cool" to the world that non church going people don't like. The overwhelming majority of people I know want to go to church, when they go to church, and that means returning to some of our more traditional roots. Let's stick to the example of the church outlined in Acts 2:42.
Stop trying to change people into JOURNEY christians and leave them as God's Christians.
"Anonymous" - I'd encourage you at least to identify yourself with a fake ID or you may be associated with other "anonymous" commenters on all our blogs. Some of them at times are very hateful and hurtful and do not generate loving dialogue or glorify Christ.
I don't know that you've actually "looked deeper" at Journey if you think that we don't preach from Scripture. We've taken a year to study the letter of Philippians and another one to study the book of James. We are committed to solid, biblical exposition, but I agree with you... there are churches who aren't.
Journey is also not about being "cool" but simply about being obedient to the words and teachings of Christ. It's all about Him and not about us.
Our mission in our church is the same as any other Christ-centered gathering of believers - to bring glory to Jesus Christ by leading people to love Him.
Scripture tells us to seek first His kingdom, and that is what we imperfectly seek to do. Don't get me wrong; Journey is not a perfect church. We're people, just like anyone else.
However, I sensed in your comment that you're not happy with some things that you see in our members? If so, please give us more specifics so that we can seek to change if we need to.
We certainly don't want anyone to become a "Journey" Christian - but rather a Christ follower. Like I said earlier, it's all about Him.
I hope you're involved in a Christ-centered, biblically-saturated church that is encouraging you in your faith. If you're not, we'd LOVE to have you visit! The fact that you're thinking about things like this is a great encouragement.
Said with class and dignity, Jeff!
And Shelley-I love it!I think God wants any of us to sit stale simply because of what kind of church we may or may not attend-working on yourself and being a christian simultaneously should never be construed as a non biblical thing(as anonymous has suggested) but as the way Jesus would definitely want us to be.I think you are doing a great job and keep it up,not in spite of comments like anonymous-but because of them.((HUGS))
BTW I meant I DONT think God wants us to sit stale.....
My mistake,tee hee hee.
I like your prayer the best!
Love God. Love people. That's really all we can do! Thanks for sharing at small group tonight!
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