Feminist and Christians

Today I was watching a TV show that made me laugh a little. On this show, this guy had a company being boycotted by a feminist group. So this guy made the decision to take the leading woman out to dinner. She spent the meal with the guy telling him how his company just uses women and causes a poor outlook on women. The funny thing came at the end of their meal. When the check came, the guy began to only pay for his part. The woman watched and was perplexed. She asked, why aren't you paying for all of it. She went on to say that "I thought we were on a date and I assumed you'd pay for it." The guy then turned to this woman and said the greatest statement I've heard in while. He said "Welcome to equality, this is what you wanted."

This woman was a feminist because she thought that women are being treated like second class citizens. The problem is that she wanted all the respect, money, and what she feels is rights that men are not giving men, but she didn't look at it from all sides. She didn't want to give stuff up like men paying for dates, or basically the gentlemen mentality.

So, how does this apply to Christians. A lot of Christians are just like this. They want to be Christians because they think they'll get something out of it; a.k.a. get out o hell free card. Again the problem with Christians is the same problem as the with the feminist. They don't look at it from all sides. Being a Christian is being a follower of Christ. This means doing what the Bible says to do, and not just doing what parts you want or do not want to do. Why do Christians and other people's ethics seem to waiver when they are put into a situation where their personal comfort is compromised.

So, what can we learn from this feminist that can be applied to our spiritual lives? I've learned that if we believe and especially if we label ourselves something that we shouldn't do anything to compromise that. When did situation ethics apply to Jesus and His calling on our lives? It doesn't! No matter the situation, no matter the comfort ability, no matter the issue, if you're a Christian act like it.

Don't we have enough hypocrites in our society? I don't want to spend one more second making my Savior look bad. If you're a feminist, then act like on no matter what. If you're a Christian, then act like one no matter what. God Rocks, Jtw

Wow this weekend

This weekend I was privileged enough to go to Virginia for homecoming at the awesome college that I recently graduated from. I had a plan of going to the football game and some other homecoming festivities, but as I've realized, my plans change a lot. I got there and spent some time with a lot of students. These were students I'd worked with in Va before moving to NC. So I spent the weekend with students, and friends. It was extremely awesome! It did make me realize a few things.

It made me realize that first that God loves me. I realized this because with all the crap that's been going on, to have lots of people come and want to love on you...it was incredible. Around NC i have my family. Other than that, not a lot of people just want to be around us. This is definitely different in Va. The begging people for us to come back lets us know that we're loved unconditionally.

Next it made me realize that God's given me exactly what I need. For years now my wife and I have been working with students. This weekend has made me realize that God's given me what I need to reach students. I didn't do anything but be myself and share what Christ did with the students in Va. It's funny how being real can effect so many people. All the latest things I read that people have realized that works is things we've been doing for years. Being real...it's an opening for God's words to pour out.

Lastly, I have recently been told that a few of the things that I wanted to do weren't needed in youth ministry. A lot of them were said to be wrong because they liked unity of the family and basically their own preferences. This weekend taught me they are wrong. I've seen my ideas in practice and a wonderful student that I got to spend the weekend with validated my ideas. We weren't talking about some of these things. She brought some of these things up in light of the reasons i was fired from my last church. She told me how these things work, and it's what people her age need. She completely validated my ideas and assumptions on the ministry. I thank God for her and His words to me through her.

This weekend was awesome. This was the weekend we were to take the last church's youth ministry up for Scaremare. It could have changed their lives. We were going to take them to the church we also served at before them. They could have seen some of my ideas in practice and a little of my vision. This didn't happen. It's sad when a simple preference of a pastor becomes a crusade to get his way. I pray that God reaches his heart.

If you were involved in this weekend and you read this, then I thank you for being God's love to me and Shannon. This weekend was great and just want I needed from God. Thank You!

Why do churches do revivals?

Why do churches do revivals? This is a question that came to mind today when a preacher mentioned it at a church I was visiting today. He said that the Lord's supper is a good introduction to a revival. I was kinda confused by this statement. He said some other stuff that was confusing too, but I'll get to those later in another blog.

Ok back to the revival thing. I've grew up in church since I was very young. I've been in many different kind of churches, but most of them have a revival in common. A revival for those that don't know is this. There is a few days (up to a week) where a service is done everyday. Usually a pastor from somewhere else comes in, preaches a whole series, and there is more time given for each day (usually no limit). A revival is used to create a fire under people's butts. That is it's intention, to put people on fire for God. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't

So the question is "why do churches do revivals?" Honestly I have no idea why churches do this. It's been my experience that mostly older people go to these and most people don't make it every night of this extended event. I once had a professor named Dr. Ergun Caner. He knows more about church history than I could ever learn. Once he talked to our class about revivals. He said that "no substantial revival has ever occurred that was not started amongst the students of that area." Holy Crap!! That means that revivals that change lives and history start with the passionate students. So why do churches use programs like a revival that targets the older people? Do they really think that if they schedule in a revival that God will jump on board and say yeah I'll show up on that day or during that week because you say so? That's stupid!

Churches use revivals to try and create passion amongst people who don't have it. As my wonderful wife put it, "they try to create that mountain top Camp experience, because they won't go to camp." Wouldn't it just be easier to go to camp? Sounds to easy. Makes you wonder why the pastor doesn't try to create or at least want to create this type of experience all year long!

Ok so what's the point? Well in a purpose driven society, what's the purpose of the revival? I believe that everything we do in ministry should have a point and should meet our goals in one form or another. This doesn't really fit in. If we use the idea behind the simple church we'd have to cut this out. If we use the purpose driven idea we'd cut this out. So why is it that so many churches refuse to cut this out. Is it because it works? Is it because they know a revival will do what they haven't been able to do during the year? No! They do this because they always have. That disgusts me.

Ok, so I probably won't make churches even think about dropping this most scared cow. So my next question is...why do we target the older people? Most pastors have been to seminary right? This means they've taken church history and have learned about all the great revivals. Surely they've learned they've all started with the students who have the passion and the guts to do it. Then why do they overlook this? Why do they just patronize students instead of using them? Do a revival that reaches out to this group. Get a service where the students come, bring people, and are real. Authenticity is key with students and there's a lot of churches out there that are more fake than most of the girls that Hugh Hefner hang out with.

Also, this shouldn't be a once a year thing. This should be a weekly thing. Sure it's going to take a lot more work. It's going to take a person who cares more about God than making people happy. It's going to take a daily revival in the people's lives to whom are going to create an environment that creates a revival in everyone else at least once a week.

Revival in most churches today isn't needed. It's directed at the wrong audience and used for the wrong reasons. Why can't people just rely on God and become real enough to be a revival daily? It's almost like a contest to whom can can get best speaker. Do they really think God's loving this tradition? The question is, how long will he allow this slap in the face from fake people?

Praise God for real people who want to have a daily revival with God at the center. It'll start with students. It always has started with students. Some pastor's have forgotten. God hasn't ever forgotten. Praise my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! God Rocks -- Jtw

When did God become an Excuse?

So, When did God become an excuse for doing what you want? Anyone who's worked in ministry or pays attention to news about people and religion know what I mean by this statement. It seems a lot in the past few years that people in religious leadership like to use God as an excuse to do whatever they want. They say things like "We're going to do this b/c we prayed about it," or something like " This s what God wants." These statements have been used to rationalize some of the most horrible things in history. I saw a news article recently talking about a so called "pastor" who thought it was ok for a father to marry his adolescent daughter because it was part of their religion. Holy Crap, what's up with that? How can God be used to say this is ok? Because God's become the excuse. Recently I was fired from a Job where I was excelling at that job. I was fired b/c they "prayed" about it first.

How can we stop this flagrant misuse of a Holy God? It's called accountability. This kind of thing occurs in places where we give one person way to much authority. When did God ever put a single person up on a pedestal? He didn't! The only person He ever gave major authority was Himself in human form, known as Jesus Christ. If the leadership was accountable to people who walk with God daily, then less little problems like this will arise. Where people stop, think, and talk, ideas outside that of God's word start to become evident.

PLEASE for the love of God, stop using God as an excuse. Why do we feel the need to say that God has said something that you know He didn't? I think it's because no one can argue. The people that say these things know that God isn't going to just come down and confront you in public over the stupid thing you just said that He said. It's only an amount of time before you'll have to answer for what you've said. In this life or the next you'll answer for it.

Start actually praying, looking for God's leading, and do that. Regardless of what God's leading is, do that! You've got to be ready to do thing you don't want to if you're going to do God's will. It's not always the easy thing, but it's always the right thing. The right thing also isn't always what we want. Remember that the next time you're going to want to do something just because it's convenient or want to get rid of someone because you're jealous. Remember that it may not be what God wants just because you want it.

What God wants is perfect. Why do we think that just because we want it that God will in turn want it as well? How selfish our sin must be.

Now we must wait for change...God Rocks!! Jtw

Post-Emergent Church Movement

Recently I've spending a lot of time thinking about the church. I've been to community churches, independent, southern baptist, Pentecostal, and especially dead ones. They all have their issues, whether it's leadership or doctrine, they all do have major issues.

Today I was reading online about this movement called the Post-Emergent Church Movement. Here read for yourself: http://crosebrough.typepad.com/postemergent/about_postemergent/index.html

I've spent a lot of time recently in churches that are not emergent, and I'd say that I like emergent much better. The worship is real and they definitely show God's love. The problem is that they don't go deep. They have very surface level theology, and honestly I hate that. This is where the Post-Emergent comes in.

The Post-Emergent is a movement where you take the authenticity of the people in the emergent church and returns to the authority of the Bible and where it stands. Many churches, especially that reject the emergent, do things because they've always done them. The problem with this is they are fake. People do stuff they don't know about and no one is real. This is evident because they live out of boxes. When they're at work they act one way, when at church another way, and even at Wal-mart they act a whole different way. When did Jesus call us to be Christians only at church? He didn't and I hope that churches that are this fake will wake up before they completely die and leave the area they are in without a light.

A few things that i hope die with this Post-Emergent Church Movement is the emergent church's way of arguing over things that really have no answer, and the decision that tolerance is the best way to reach people.
Why argue? I don't understand why argue about something until you come to the point where neither of you want to talk to each other anymore. Why can't we agree to disagree and agree that we both have valid points that we both don't agree with.
What's up with Tolerance? Ok, I agree that we should listen to other people's opinions, I'm saying that when it comes to what Christ said we shouldn't be tolerant. Jesus was very hard on sin, not the sinner. I can be very honest with someone about their sin, and still show them love. Let's return to that sort of stuff.

I can definitely see the pros and cons of this movement. Only time will tell if this movement will catch on. I believe that it will. I believe it will because a few words are key: Authenticity, Transparency, Love, Honesty, Trust, and most importantly Christ. These are things that define a person's life, a Community's atmosphere, a generation's impact, so why shouldn't they be things that signify a church?

It's gonna be awesome if this becomes a movement that produces churches that reflect these 6 things evenly. And, above that, that the people of these churches create in their own lives these 6 things for everyone to see. No boxes just open space.

God Rocks,
Josh

Now where do we go?

The question that I sit here thinking now is where do we go? Where exactly do I go from here. Since this whole situation of ... stuff started I've asked God many times "why aren't you doing anything", and "what's next." Since I first posted the entry to get the truth out, I've had people I didn't even know cared actually send me message after message about how they've seen God in me and it was the churches loss to lose someone like me. For those of you who have been sending me these message I thank you and want you to know that you've helped me a lot. It has been an honor serving you.

Something that I have been thinking about a lot lately is this. I think God brought me back here to learn from this situation, but most of all for Matt and Bailey. That friendship and counsel has greatly affected me and I thank God for all the time I had with them.

So now where do we go? Well God's calling has never changed and what God wants me to do has never changed. I must forgive those that have hurt me, and move on. This might sound rather unsympathetic, but it's not my call. I will continue to minister the people of WYBC and especially the students who have found my love. My heart for them hasn't changed just because I'm not allowed to minister to them at the church.

I have a call from God and a vision from God. I've been taught on how to be a student pastor and that plays into my vision. So now all I have to do is find the church that God wants me to be at. I'll be much more cautious about people's answers this time, but doesn't mean I don't keep up the ministry. Maybe this time I'll put my ambitions on paper so there isn't any questions on what I intend to do with God's generation of students.

Keep praying for me...I need all the help I can get
God Rocks,
Josh

Ministry...in a church?

In most churches that I've been, a ministry is kind of like an accessory. They seem to work like this. There's 2 kinds of churches: a wave church and a tree church.

I call them the wave Church and here's how a wave works. Waves start out small and builds as things get added (like ministries). The wave gets bigger and bigger, and the whole time the whole wave is working towards a goal. This goal is written and some that's not written. The written ones often apply to reaching their community or being well known in their area for something. The unwritten goals are things like, to have this number of people by the end of the year, and even things like making the people who brings in the money happy. So there are good things about this wave church. They don't usually have unnecessary ministries and are very specific on who they want to reach. The problem is the wave church is all going one direction. True they stay on direction, but they also are afraid to stretch out. They are very good at reaching one person, but miss everyone else. They also can't use anything that they haven't done before. In other words, it's not with the direction of the church.

The 2nd church is one I've called the tree Church. Here's how a tree church works. A tree grows by giving it substance, growing out branches, and constant pruning. In a tree church the tree grows. The trunk is the tree, it's the people. In a tree, the trunk doesn't change, but the branches go out from it. The branches are ministries, ways to meet peoples needs, and ways to reach people. This is one major way that a tree and a wave are different. Where a wave all works in one way, a tree works in multiple ways. The tree spreads out, covers a lot of different things, but still works for the same purpose. They all work toward the sun, and they also work to nourish whole tree. They reach many people, but it may look to some people like all the branches are not working toward the same purpose. It's up to those people in those branches to educate those on the outside. The tree church tries things new, and doesn't hold a whole lot of honor for tradition. A thing that most people don't understand about the tree is that pruning is necessary. If things don't work they get cut back. Even if an event or some program seems popular, but doesn't meet the purposes it's cut. Everything has a purpose.

There are 2 types of churches: wave vs tree. I've been in both kinds of churches. The wave works well for most older people, but ignores relevancy. They say "we do it this way because we've always done it that way." The tree church is for 30 somethings or younger. This group has the stigma of changing just for the point of change. They are very relevant, but also ignores some of the harder things from Christ in order to keep a relationship.

Neither are perfect, but both are used today...now it's up to you to decide which you should serve in. Jtw

What if...?

What if people loved God as much as they love their significant other? Recently I've been looking at lot of people's myspaces. I've been overwhelmed with the number of people's names or motto's or whatever that say something about their girlfriend or boyfriend. They're so open about how much they love these people but if you see them ask them they may have only been with that person for a very short time. I usually leave amazed with these people with how much they will talk about those people, and how important they are to their lives. Normally this would be OK, except when you talk to them about God. They'll go on about how God's first in their lives, but they're lying. They're lying because God can't be first and anything else be first.
So the original question begins again: What what if people loved God as much as they do their significant others? Would we link up myspace and see people's names talking about God? Would we go to their sites and it be a monument to the living God? Would we have churches, communities, countries, and governments that see through the lens of Christ?
The problem is that this will never happen. Most people will never be so devoted to Christ that God's will is more important than anything that happens around them. Jesus said that people will hate us because they hated Him first. Makes you wonder why they don't hate us. Maybe it's because we don't love God enough for others to know it. But...what if...? Jtw

What is a Church?

I've recently been plagued with the thought "what is a church?" I know from the Bible that God's people are in fact the church. This is awesome and I wish more people knew that. As I sit here reading through the book of Acts I see how the early church and it's people did things. I see how they showed people love, this is how people knew they were believers. I see how they worshipped God without regard for what people thought of them, an element lost in most churches I've been to. I also see people who are servants, who see each of the spiritual gifts as equal and each person having their own part in the church community. This leaves me disillusioned. The churches that I've been in recently have a whole different philosophy. It seems as if they only care for those that care for them, they never truly worship because of their neighbor, and the pastor is put up so high on a pedestal that his word is god to those around him. How did we take the wonderful, loving, caring thing that God created called church and make it into this inwardly focused deity. I pray that God sends me a church where they people work as a team to worship God regardless of where they are, a place where the pastor is just a servant using his gifts to God's glory, and a place that is so outwardly and upwardly focused that everyone will know them by their love. That's what God called us to! How have we come so far? What is a church? I pray each day to learn what that is. Jtw

Matt and Baley Hinson

Matt and Baley Hinson were two of my best friends. I've known Baley a few years and knew Matt for over 20 years. On July 27th they died along with their unborn little boy. To know them was to love them. They were truly people of God, and one of the best examples of a Christian I could ever hope to have had. This has been one of the hardest times in my life. It's hard to go from talking to someone every week to never gonna see them again on this side of glory. My mind keeps going back to one statement in my head "if it were only Thursday morning again." I realize that this statement is extremely selfish. When Paul saw a glimpse of Heaven God had to send him a demon to bring him back to earth and want to return. How could I ever want that for my friends. I want them back, but I know I'll see them again. I guess it's easier to think of them as just moved to a better place than it is to think of them as permanently gone. Knowing Matt for so long and knowing how alike we are, I think I know what he would like. He would want us to move on, tell people about Christ, and love on students with everything we can hope to have. Well it's be awesome to know these wonderful people. I can't wait until the day I see Matt and Baley again, but what will be better is on that day Jesus will run to me, hug me, and say well done. Matt and Baley have finished well and I hope I do as well. I hope to be the man of God that I saw in Matt. Thank You Jesus for this wonderful example of what you want from me. Praise Jesus. God Rocks, Jtw