A Child for the Childless

Like many other women whose arms are still empty this Christmas, I’ve had a hard time really enjoying the season this year.  With our three year mark of infertility just around the corner, the weight has been especially heavy on my heart.  For those who are wondering where we are at with testing and treatment, I started getting chiropractic adjustments in October at the suggestion of a few friends.  At the beginning of November, I also tried to schedule an appointment with a nutritionist who is well-known in the area and highly recommended by several of our friends; however, I was told that he wasn’t accepting new patients until sometime in January and that I should call again at the end of December.  I am planning on calling again this week to try and get an appointment set up.  Beyond that, I continue to have my TSH monitored (due again in February), and we have talked about getting a second opinion with a different gynecologist or possibly looking into a specialist in Omaha or Denver.  Finding doctors is a daunting task, not to mention saving up for the hefty bills that will inevitably follow.  We are having a hard time holding on to hope.  The other day Jon mentioned with a tone of discouragement that he had seen three pregnancy/birth announcements in his Facebook feed that morning.  Seeing him start to be more visibly affected by such things brings on a whole new dimension of pain for me. 

In the midst of all of this, God has been using several different sources to help me see the Christmas story in a whole new way.  Between our pastor’s sermons and a couple posts from other bloggers and friends, I’ve begun to see just what a major role infertility played in the Christmas story, and it has brought me some comfort.   

On December 10, Pastor Eric started off his Christmas series by taking us back to God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah.   God promised to make Abraham into a great nation and that all of the world would be blessed through him.  That promise was set into motion through the miraculous birth of their long-awaited son, Isaac. 

God’s plan and the fulfillment of His promise also unfolded through Isaac and Rebekah’s nearly twenty years of infertility and Jacob and Rachel’s argument-inducing journey of infertility, which was exacerbated by the contrast of the ridiculously fertile Leah. 

As blogger Shannon Ketchum observed in her post titled “God’s Perfect Timing,” we can look back and see how the timing of Joseph’s birth was particularly critical.  If his mother (Rachel), grandmother (Rebekah), and great-grandmother (Sarah) had all given birth on their own time schedules, Joseph would not have been in Egypt to save his family during the famine.  God used him to preserve his family, and God chose to use Egypt to develop that family into the nation of Israel, through which the Messiah would come. 

We fast forward several hundred years, and God used yet another infertile couple, Zecharias and Elizabeth, to conceive John the Baptist, who was to prepare the people for the coming Messiah. 

Finally, blogger Melissa Forster pointed out in her post titled “Elizabeth’s Hope” that the Christmas story is “the ultimate fertility story.”  She elaborates: “Not only did Elizabeth get pregnant in her old age, but Mary got pregnant as a virgin! Both are stories of God doing the impossible.” 

Ultimately, all of these stories of seemingly endless waits, heartache, and miracles culminated in the birth of Jesus, the Messiah.  God used all of it in His timing to fulfill His purposes. 

Another sweet friend (head over to www.alishajoycoleart.com to check out her beautiful and symbolic art and grief journals) who has experienced so much heartache and loss in this arena recently re-posted a memory that spoke so much truth to my heart and summarizes all of these other pieces so well.  Here is an excerpt from Alisha’s post:

“My healing must and will come through Jesus alone. The fact that he came in the form of a baby is not lost on me. Baby Jesus means a lot more to me this Christmas season. All promise, hope, and restoration was meant to be fulfilled in HIS tiny body alone. Not one conceived by me. He alone will satisfy and my heart will be healed. THAT is His promise to me.”

He is my hope.  I can’t see the whole picture, but I can see that Jesus loved me enough to humble Himself to the point of infancy, to grow up in a sinful and broken world, and to take the wrath for all of my sin on the cross.  There could be no greater display of love.  I can trust Him, and I know that He cares for my bleeding heart.  

Church: Monstrous or Misunderstood? (Part 4)

            When I started this series, we were approaching Thanksgiving.  My original intent was to write a single post about how thankful I am for the churches I have been a part of and the ways they have impacted me.  Obviously, my train of thought ran away on the scenic route, and now we have left Thanksgiving in the dust.  Fortunately, thankfulness doesn’t have to be confined to one day a year.  I can’t imagine what my life would be like apart from the influence of the five local churches that I have called “home.” 

**Point of Clarification: Four of the five following churches are Berean churches, which many people have never heard of before.  The name might sound funky, but it comes from Acts 17:10, 11 where the people of the town of Berea are said to have “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”  Berean churches are a group of non-denominational churches collectively known as the Berean Fellowship that all believe in the same core biblical teachings and support each other in various ways and degrees.  They function autonomously, but the connection through the Fellowship provides a pool of resources (ideas, relationships, etc.) that often proves to be beneficial.  The national board exists to encourage and strengthen the churches and their leaders as opposed to providing governmental rule.    

1.  Sterling Berean (Beginnings)

            For the first twenty years of my life, Sterling Berean was my home church.  My infancy, childhood, pre-teen, teenage, and early college years were all spent with this dear group of people.  I can’t even begin to count all of the people who were invested alongside my parents in my spiritual upbringing.  Nursery workers, Children’s Church and Sunday School teachers, AWANA leaders, Vacation Bible School volunteers and teachers, youth group leaders, worship team members, mission trip leaders, college and young adult group hosts, and so many more individuals all contributed to my biblical education and development as a whole.  Although the programs were all beneficial, the relationships are what have stuck with me the most. 

The church leaders weren’t simply my teachers, elders, deacons, and pastors, but they were the people who we went out to lunch with on Sunday afternoon and had supper with again later that week, whose kids I played with, and whose houses were nearly as familiar and secure as my own.  The women who taught me spiritual principles and provided gentle correction were the same women who came alongside my mom to help me navigate the world of dating and who hugged me and listened to me through all of the heartache and frustration.  I’ll never forget when I went through the most difficult breakup I have ever experienced with a boy I shouldn’t have been dating in the first place, and my pastor’s wife came to our house for something unrelated.  When I answered the door, I could see the compassion on her face as soon as she saw me, and without any hint of judgment she just hugged me and told me how sorry she was for me.  I am blessed to have many similar stories.  My church family cared about more than just what I believed – they cared about me. 

They continue to care about me.  After I left for Bible college, I would always get bombarded with a million questions each time I came home.  They allowed me to present my opportunity to go on a five-week mission trip to Europe with my school, and they provided all of the financial support I needed to go.  When my world fell apart a couple years ago, the same woman who held me together after that awful breakup texted me a passage of Scripture and let me know she was praying for me.  About three months ago, the church came together and helped carry my family through the death of my grandmother with meals, encouragement, practical help with the funeral, flowers, and so much more.  These are the people who taught me from the very beginning that a church is so much more than a crowd that comes together to enjoy a speaker.  A church isn’t like a mob of fans at a sporting event or a concert who come together because of a common interest and then depart to lead separate and disconnected lives.  Church is quite literally a family.      

2.  Monument Bible (Discovery)

            After I left for Frontier School of the Bible, I had to decide which church to attend while I went to school.  FSB made the decision process easier by providing a list of churches that aligned with the doctrinal views of the school.  After visiting three other churches, I landed at Monument Bible Church, which felt the most like Sterling Berean to me.  Monument is where I discovered how to integrate myself into a new church through service.  I learned that I had to put forth a little more effort into developing the relationships that I had taken for granted while growing up.  For the first year, I did nothing more than attend church services, and I didn’t really feel very connected.  After that, I started helping with AWANA and worship team, and I quickly found out that serving in a ministry plugs you into a church in a way that few other approaches can.  I had to be patient, diligent, and intentional, but Monument slowly started to become grafted into my own church family.  Jon joined me at Monument after we started dating and he transferred to FSB, and then we continued on through our first couple years of marriage.  Monument provided an environment where we could discover who we were as adults and discover our own place in the church body (including our spiritual gifts and ministry strengths and weaknesses).  I am thankful for the people there who gave us grace and room for discovery, who continued our training in the Word of God, who challenged us to try new ministries that were out of our comfort zone (like teaching Sunday School for two-year-olds, for example), and who gave us so many opportunities to gain experience in ministry.             

3.  Marysville Berean (Growing Pains)

            After Jon graduated in 2014, we headed towards Marysville, KS in a little U-Haul that was overflowing more with our fresh Bible knowledge and eager enthusiasm than our belongings.  We didn’t really know a soul in Marysville, but we had found out that Marysville Berean was looking to hire a youth pastor through the Berean Fellowship’s Facebook page.  After about six months of getting acquainted with the church, candidating, and plowing through the finish line at school, we were finally entering our first full-time ministry.  Like the churches I have already mentioned, Marysville Berean loved on us generously.  Several families adopted us in as we jumped into church life with both feet.  They showed us grace as we maneuvered through the new and unexplored territory of full-time ministry.  We loved the youth group, and even though it wasn’t always easy, we knew that we had found what we were made for.

            Even so, Jon and I still needed to grow up in many ways.  Ministry wasn’t the only area in which we were green.  Life hadn’t really hit us with its full force yet, and our marriage, though we had it pretty rough from the start, was still largely in its untested infancy.  Our journey to Marysville had taken us to yet uncharted waters of adulthood and brought to the forefront things in our own hearts and in our marriage that we could not ignore or hide any longer.  We reached a breaking point, and God removed us from that ministry.  Leaving Marysville Berean was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and I still feel the wounds throbbing as I write these words.  We had to leave these members of our church family in circumstances that were far from ideal, and it was painful and confusing for us all.  Yet, God brings beauty out of ashes.  He refines us through the fire.  Jon and I are different people and can relate to people in a whole new way because of the struggles we have faced, and we know that God can and will redeem the whole situation for those whom we had to leave behind as well.                        

4.  Mitchell Berean (Healing & Restoration)

            The circumstances surrounding our departure from Marysville Berean gave us a strong desire to be near a good support system but still be fairly anonymous for a while.  Jon’s parents were at Mitchell Berean, and we only knew a handful of the many other people there (one of which was the lead pastor), so it became the clear and logical choice in the midst of a very hazy time.  At Mitchell Berean, we went through the healing process.  The pastor provided counseling for us for several months, and the church leadership gave us the space we needed.  They acknowledged where we were at without rubbing our faces in it, and they didn’t cast us aside.  There, we didn’t have to face all the difficult and unanswerable questions that seemed to suck the very air from our lungs every time we went to a place where we were better known.  I hid in the sea of the large congregation at Mitchell Berean through the grieving process until I had scarred over enough to start to look out again.

            As we recovered, and with the guidance of the pastor, we eventually took baby steps back into helping with worship and youth group at Mitchell.  Even though we knew that our time at Mitchell was likely temporary until God called us back into full-time ministry, we poured our hearts into the work that He had for us there.  In time, we also found out that we were not alone in our messy life.  Being a part of several life groups taught us that we could be transparent and vulnerable and still be loved.  It also taught us how to better understand and love those who were transparent and vulnerable with us.  God provided us with so many precious and rich friendships through that year and a half.  The place that had started as our anonymous cave became our safe haven where we were free and known.  Our time with Mitchell Berean was so valuable and nourishing for our hearts.            

5.  The Crossing Fellowship (Reaching Out)   

            Four months ago, we said goodbye to Mitchell Berean as God called us back into full-time ministry at the Crossing Fellowship (which is also a Berean church).  Defining the present season is more difficult than looking over the past, but I chose “reaching out” to characterize this time because this church is particularly passionate about reaching out to unbelievers and seeing people “meet, follow, and love Jesus.”  Here, we are learning in new ways how to meet people where they are at and lead them to the same salvation, healing, and hope that we have found.  God has already provided a sweet network of friendships, which I am so grateful for, and we are continually refreshed by the willingness of our new church family to be real and honest.  

            

            I realize that most of what I shared about these five churches is positive.  Not every single experience I had with all of these churches was good, but I still would not have given up my time with them for anything.  Churches have to work through fights, dysfunction, personality clashes, and legitimate hurts just like a family does.  Relationships are messy, and there are times when a hermit’s life looks appealing.  However, God created us for relationship, and we cannot go through life, especially the Christian life, alone.  That’s not the way God designed it to work.  When we do decide to choose relationship – to choose church –  we discover blessings that we could never recreate or manufacture on our own.  We grow into people that we could never have become through isolation.  Yes, I’ve chosen instead of focusing on the faults to see what God has designed and be thankful – because it truly is a gift.               

Church: Monstrous or Misunderstood (Part 3)

We went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving along with our three dogs.  Hank and Drover are fairly low-maintenance (except for when we are having to chase them down all over town after a fence breach), so the change in location didn’t affect them much.  However, Nika’s world drastically changes when we go to Sterling because she has to share the house with Baxter and Bailey, my parents’ miniature schnauzers.  As you can imagine, feeding time gets especially hectic.  One evening, I filled up Nika’s bowl next to me as my dad was hand-feeding the schnauzers to try and keep them from stealing her food.  Of course, no dog ever wants to eat her own food if she can get to another dog’s food, and being hand-fed is far superior to eating straight from the bowl.  Thus, Nika kept sneaking over to my dad with an “I’m not getting fed” look so that he would hand-feed her some of the schnauzers’ food.  She’s not spoiled at all. 

One of the main complaints that people give about church is that they aren’t getting fed.  Their pastor may have set out a perfectly nutritional bowl of truth for them that Sunday, but they claim that they haven’t been fed because the content of the message wasn’t what they wanted or it wasn’t given in the way that they wanted.  If the local church bends to this expectation of making sure that all people feel fed, then its mission is reduced to satisfying the shifting and conflicting demands and temper tantrums of its people.  Preferences take priority over truth.  Division replaces unity.  Ultimately, the church service becomes about me instead of Jesus Christ.  So, if the church doesn’t just exist to provide one massive, all-satisfying, long-lasting feast every Sunday, then what is it really supposed to do?

Before we jump into the specifics, I want to reiterate one important point.  As we already discovered in Part 2, the church is comprised of individual people.  The Church cannot do anything that the individuals aren’t doing.  If we think the church (whether universal or local) should grow in kindness, then we ourselves must grow in kindness.  If we believe that the church is supposed to care for orphans, then we must ask ourselves what we are doing to help that cause.  Since we are the Church, we are called to put feet to the mission of the Church.  With that in mind, let’s take a brief look at 11 of the activities that Scripture says should characterize the Church (both universally and locally). 

1)  Making Disciples

            This command that is given to believers, and thus to the church, in Matt. 28:19, 20 encompasses all of the other activities that we will talk about.  It is the “big idea” or overarching goal for this age.  A disciple is a learner, or follower.    

2) Evangelism/Witnessing

            The first step in making a disciple is introducing the potential learner to the Teacher.  Acts 1:8 calls us to be witnesses in all the world to what Christ has done.  It’s not our job to save people.  God is the only One who can draw them to Himself through belief in His Son (Jn. 6:44).  However, He has very clearly commanded us to tell the world the Good News (i.e., the Gospel) that Jesus died for our sins and came back to life three days later (1 Cor. 15:3, 4).  We are to bear witness, or share, what Jesus has done in our own lives in a way that is attractive to people.  This is not at all to say that we should try to just say what they want to hear.  The truth is uncomfortable at first for those who hear (Scripture says that to the unsaved, believers are the stench of death in 2 Cor. 2:15, 16), and we are not supposed to try and erase that discomfort or guilt.  What I do mean by sharing the Gospel in an attractive way is that we should be clear, accurate, loving, gentle, humble, and tactful in our speech as opposed to being vague, belittling, self-righteous, arrogant, condescending, or argumentative.  The goal is never to win an argument, but give people who are blind to the truth an opportunity to see.          

3)  Water Baptism

            Once an individual has come to trust in Jesus as his or her Savior, that individual is saved forever.  Water baptism is included in the Matt. 28:19, 20 passage as well as several other passages, and it is simply a symbolic public declaration of what has transpired in the heart of the new believer.  Water baptism communicates to all around that the one being baptized is a follower of Jesus.

4) Growth

            Disciples should constantly be growing in spiritual maturity.  Maturity comes with daily putting into practice the principles that are learned from the Teacher (Jesus).  There is a crisis of developmental stagnation that occurs when of an over-abundance of basic knowledge exists apart from the deeper understanding and discernment that blossoms out of obedience and practice.  Hebrews 5:12, 13 describes this ancient problem.  This stunted  growth also stems from “putting the weight of our spiritual maturity on the pastor’s shoulders,” as Wendy Pope recently put it at the Warrior’s of the Light Women’s conference.  While it is true that church leaders are held accountable for the way they shepherd their congregations, we do them an injustice to assume that we should be totally dependent on them for our spiritual growth.  We as individuals are ultimately responsible for the choices we make.  Those choices either line up with the instructions of Jesus and lead to life, growth, and maturity, or they miss the mark and make us dull, disillusioned, and foolish.  Just like we cannot expect to thrive physically on one giant feast per week, we cannot expect to experience life transformation simply by listening to a sermon on Sunday.  We have to learn to feed ourselves by reading Scripture on our own, allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us through it, and living out what we learn in each moment of every day.  Spiritual growth is a constant process.            

5)  Teaching

            Acts 2:42 paints a pretty clear picture of what the gatherings of the early church looked like.  Teaching of the Word of God was one of the primary components, just as it should be today.  Teaching within the church comes in various forms, only one of which is a sermon.  Older women are called to teach the younger women how to be loving wives and mothers (Titus 2:3-5).  Older men are also to teach the younger men how to live sensibly and above reproach, largely through their own example (Titus 2:1, 2, 6-8).  Parents are to teach their children (Dt. 11:18, 19).  All teaching should be examined to see whether it matches up with the Bible (Acts 17:11), and teaching is not a task which should be taken lightly (Jas. 3:1). 

6)  Prayer

            Prayer is yet another key activity that is mentioned in Acts 2:42.  1 Thessalonians 5:17 instructs us all to “pray without ceasing.”  I’ve heard it described this way before: “Prayer is to our spiritual life what breathing is to our physical life.”  We couldn’t imagine going through a day with only three breaths of air at mealtimes.  It’s no wonder why we find ourselves spiritually faint when we limit our prayers to three or four one-minute speed-chats per day.  We need to be in constant communication with our Father, and we have free access to Him at all times!  Beyond the simple necessity for prayer, there is something special about coming together with other believers to talk to God (Mt. 18:19, 20; Jas. 5:14, 15).  Prayer is a powerful and unifying act that draws us closer to our Father and to each other.    

7)  Fellowship

            Acts 2:42 also talks about fellowship and eating together.  God created us for relationship, both with Him and with each other.  He delights in our enjoyment of each other.  Eating together breaks down walls, promotes vulnerability, and opens doors for conversation.  My husband and I are so thankful for believing friends with whom we have shared food, tears, laughter, frustration, and hope.  We’ve played together, struggled together, forgiven together, learned together, repented together, and lived life together.  Unearthly beauty emanates from pure relationships in which both parties are transparently known, and yet still loved.  Hebrews 10:24-25 encourages us not to neglect this precious gift of fellowship.      

8)  Equipping for Service

            Ephesians 4:11-16 is another key passage about the mission of the church and what it takes to make disciples.  A huge responsibility of the church is to equip individuals for service: to give them the knowledge and tools they need to do the good works that God created them to do.  Some are called to the church offices of elder or deacon, and others are called to be pastors and teachers; however, these individuals make up a small percentage of the total Christian population.  They are just one small part of the Church.  What service are the rest of us supposed to be doing?  1 Corinthians 12 explains that all believers are given spiritual gifts for the building up of the church as a whole.  We can’t all do every job, and we weren’t made to do that, but God has gifted us and molded us specifically for the service that He has called us to do.  Other church members can help us discover our gifts and develop those gifts.  Every single believer is needed to play his or her own role in the church.  Anything less results in dysfunction of the body (read 1 Corinthians 12 for an awesome illustration of how the church is like a physical body).             

9)  Edification

            Many of the activities we have discussed already work hand in hand for the edification, or building up, of the body of Christ (the Church) in unity, knowledge, and maturity.  Our words and actions toward each other should always be evaluated in light of this common goal for the church.  Are we building up Christ’s Church or tearing it down?

10)  Communion   

            Communion is an ordinance that was instituted by Jesus on the last night that He celebrated the Passover with His twelve disciples (Matt. 26:26-28), which was also the night He was betrayed.  Communion is a symbolic act in which believers remember Christ’s death on the cross and look forward to His return.  This ordinance draws our attention back to the reason the Church is able to exist in the first place.      

11)  Worship

            Finally, the Church should be characterized by worship of the One who saved us.  Although this is often expressed through song (Eph. 5:19), it is also expressed through obedience and the laying down of our lives, of our own will, in each step that we take through this life (Rom. 12:1).  All that we do should point back to Him, and not to us.  He gets the glory and praise, because He is the only One who is worthy. 

            Whew!  There is so much more that could be said about what the Church is supposed to do (the majority of the New Testament is dedicated to the subject!).  One truth I love about being a part of the Church is that it isn’t all about fearfully and robotically following a list of do’s and don’ts.  It’s not about pretending to be someone that I’m not.  Everything I have listed here is a gift for us to live this life the way God designed life to be lived and to be a part of something that is so much grander than anything we could construct on our own.  It’s about relationships, with God and with each other.  When we truly understand it and accept it as the gift that it is, we find a world of deep joy, freedom, hope, and belonging.  Next week, I’ll wrap up this series by sharing a little bit about the local churches I have been a part of and how God has used each of them to shape and impact my life!                  

Church: Monstrous or Misunderstood? (Part 2)

            As a child, one of my favorite scenes in The Little Mermaid was when Ariel seeks out the help of her eccentric seagull friend named Scuttle.  She shows him some human objects she has found in the hopes that he can tell her exactly what they are and what they do.  When she pulls out a fork, Scuttle announces that it is a dinglehopper, which the humans use to style their hair.  His excitement grows when she pulls out a tobacco pipe (which he calls a banded, bulbous, snarfblat), and he tells Ariel that it is a prehistoric item that was invented to make music when the humans got tired of sitting around and staring at each other all day.  In an attempt to demonstrate his claim, Scuttle blows on the pipe, and all that comes out the other end is sand and seaweed.  He’s convinced that something is wrong with the snarfblat. 

            Like Scuttle, many people look at the church today with one idea about what it is and what it does, and when what they see conflicts with that belief, they get frustrated and think that it must be broken.  As a result, they eventually toss it in the garbage as something that is useless at best and dangerous at worst.  They think they are throwing away a broken snarfblat when, in reality, they are discarding a perfectly functional tobacco pipe that was never meant to produce music.  Just like you make sure you don’t throw anything valuable into your waste basket, you should know exactly what the church is and what it is supposed to do before you walk away from it.  For part two of this series, I just want to begin looking at what the church is.

            According to Richard A. Seymour’s Systematic Theology: A Basic Outline Based Upon Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Eight-Volume Systematic Theology, the term “church” means “a called out assembly” (Ch. 8 Pg. 1).  From this small statement, we already know that the church is a group of people.  This truth has at least two major implications.  First, the church is not a holy building or a place.  My husband and I are a part of The Crossing Fellowship, which currently meets in a community building called the Senior Center.  We have friends at a church plant in Torrington, WY who have met at the fairgrounds for many years.  Buildings of all shapes, sizes, and styles are used as a gathering place for the church.  The building itself is not the church.  It is merely a tool to be used by the church.  Second, since the church is a group of people (all of whom are sinners), it cannot save anyone.  Only Jesus saves.  “Going to church” does not make up for sin because church is not a place to go, and even if it were, sin is a debt that cannot be paid by a Sunday morning service.  It can only be paid by the pure, sinless blood of Jesus.      

            Now that we have a basic definition for the word “church,” let’s dig a little deeper.  The New Testament uses the word “church” in a couple of different ways.  In some verses, it is speaking of what is called the universal, or invisible, Church (from here on out, I will capitalize the word when I am referring to the universal church).  The universal Church includes all true believers in Jesus Christ of all nations from Pentecost until the Rapture (if you have no idea what those are, you can read about them in Acts 2 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 respectively; just know that we fall into that time frame).  This is a very unifying truth that crosses all barriers of race, gender, and social status.  One of the clearest pictures I have experienced of the universal Church is that of singing a worship song in English around a campfire in the French Alps and then hearing the same song sung in Portuguese and French by European believers.  Even though we struggled to communicate clearly and relate to each other culturally, our worship was just a glimpse of the fact that we were bound together by something much deeper and much more intangible than language or culture.  Of course, God is the only one who can see into the hearts of people, so He is the only One who can see the universal Church accurately and entirely right now.  However, that doesn’t diminish the fact that true believers all over the world are tied in a bond that is tighter than blood itself.

            The New Testament uses several analogies to describe the nature of the Church and its relationship with Jesus Christ.  It speaks of the Church as the bride of Christ and as the body of Christ.  The Church is also described as a family and as a flock of sheep with Christ as the Shepherd.  There are several more, and we could spend a great deal of time delving into them all, but I just want to make a couple of brief observations based on the few I just mentioned.  The Church is incredibly precious to Christ; He loves it and cherishes it as a husband is called to love and cherish his wife (Ephesians 5:25, 29).  He cares for it as a whole and as individuals, just as a shepherd cares for his flock and searches for even one that gets lost.  In turn, the Church knows and follows Christ as her Shepherd (John 10:11-18).  As the Head of the body, Jesus directs the Church and has authority over it (Ephesians 1:22, 23).  The Church is so much more than a mere committee, club, or organization.  It is a family that has been knit together by the Holy Spirit, and a true believer cannot simply refuse to be a part of it.  It was woven into his or her very identity at the moment of salvation.  As a family, we need each other desperately, and Scripture cautions us against isolating ourselves from our brothers and sisters (Heb. 10:24, 25).                    

The second sense in which the New Testament uses the word “church” is that of the local church.  The local church, or visible church, refers to a specific group of professing believers (for example, The Crossing Fellowship in Gothenburg, NE or the Sterling Berean Church in Sterling, CO).  Within this local group, there may be unbelievers as well as believers.  There may even be people who say they are Christians but have never really understood what it means to trust in Jesus alone for salvation.  The local churches we are familiar with today are much different than the ones talked about in Acts.  The earliest local churches had minimal organization, though they did have specific leadership positions and observed specific ordinances (The Lord’s Supper and Baptism).  On the development of the organization of the local church, Seymour writes the following:

“In the beginning there was no apparent organization of all churches under one head [to clarify, he is referring to one ruling governing body, not to Christ].  This idea was developed by men at a later date, as evidenced in church history.  However, it is not found in Acts or the Epistles of the New Testament.

Thus, to the very simple form of the New Testament church, much has been added throughout the centuries.  Some of these changes have been necessary and in the will of God in view of changing conditions.  Other changes have been of the flesh and harmful.  On these questions a wide variety of opinions exist; therefore we have many different types of local churches.  It is the duty of each believer to seek God’s will for himself in this matter and make his choice accordingly. 

However, there are two extremes to avoid:

                  A.  Over-emphasis on organization.

                  B.  Denial of any organization” (Ch. 8 Pg. 5).

            Like the universal Church, the local church (which we most often think of when we hear the word “church”) is like a family in many ways.  It is made up of spiritual elderly, adults, teenagers, children, and infants.  As was mentioned before, some members of the group may not even be spiritually alive yet.  These all come from different backgrounds, and they certainly don’t always agree on everything (which is partially why some level of church organization and leadership is needed – similarly to how a family thrives best with structure and clearly defined roles).  All of these individuals have to learn and choose to be biblically unified for the sake of Christ (this was something Jesus specifically prayed for during His time on earth in John 17:20, 21!).  Division in the church breaks God’s heart, and it is painful for all who are involved – much like divorce.  Unity does not happen automatically.  It is developed as individuals learn to set aside minor disputes and differences for the sake of Christ and seek to be unified as a heavenly nation that does not operate the way this world operates.  Unity grows as the individuals of a church align themselves with the truths of Scripture and are transformed by those truths.    

Transformation takes time, and members of a local church need grace just as much as anyone else.  One important truth that we often forget is that no matter where individuals of the church are at in their spiritual growth, none of them are finished yet.  All of them still have a sin nature, and all of them still sin to some extent.  No one is perfected in this life.  While true believers should live by a different standard than this world, we cannot simply write them off as nothing but hypocrites when they give in to sin.  Christ is the one who is hurt the most by such actions.  He already took the punishment for that sin, and He will deal with His disobedient children in loving discipline, whether it be through the channels of church leadership or something else.  Justice should be left in His hands and never used as an excuse to isolate or to disobey His call to be unified as one body.  Instead, we should pursue reconciliation, restoration, and forgiveness with others whenever possible in the way that Jesus gave His very life to reconcile, restore, and forgive us.      

For those who have stuck out this lengthy post, I sincerely hope that it has helped you to see the Church as a whole as well as your local church just a little more like God sees them.  We have barely uncovered the tip of the iceberg of all that Scripture has to say about the Church, so don’t assume that this post is exhaustive by any means.  God has a lot to say about His beloved Church!  Thinking and studying through these things again has been good for my own heart.  I’ve been reminded of how valuable the Church really is to God and how much I should cherish getting to be a part of it.  Join me next week to talk about what the Church is supposed to do!        

                               

Seymour, Richard.  "Ecclesiology."  Systematic Theology: A Basic Outline Based Upon Lewis Sperry Chafer's Eight-Volume Systematic Theology.         Theology 2.  Frontier School of the Bible.  North Building, La Grange, WY.  2012.  Lecture.  

                             

Church: Monstrous or Misunderstood? (Part 1)

            Last weekend, I learned something new from one of our youth leaders.  I learned that “sucker” is a really bad word on the east coast of the United States.  A word that instantly brings images of sugary candy on a stick to my mind elicits a very different response from this woman who moved to Nebraska from Vermont.  She told me about the appalled shock that she and her children experienced the first time a Nebraska bank teller asked them if they wanted a sucker.  I knew English words could have different meanings from what I was used to in places like Australia, England, and Ireland, but I didn’t realize that there could be such a significant discrepancy even within the different regions of the U.S.

            Similarly, another word that produces a wide range of reactions is “church.”  The fact that one word can evoke so many different emotions and images in the hearts and minds of its hearers is mind-boggling to me.  Some of those images may include:

A large room filled with holier-than-thou, judgmental stares that make you feel worthless and hopeless.

A quaint little white building with a steeple, rows of wooden pews (perhaps padded with an awful shade of forest green or nude pink), a pulpit, and a proud, old upright piano, in desperate need of a good tuning, that seems to have become integral to the very structure of the building.

A repair shop for when things go wrong in your life. 

A place to meet people. 

A horrible gathering of fakers and hypocrites, all more concerned with their appearance than with the reality of their hearts.         

A boring thing your parents made you do with all sorts of rituals and traditions that you didn’t really understand or think were necessary.

A place where you go to stock up on enough spirituality to last you all week long. 

A good thing that you don’t really want to do, but you do it so it will make up for all of the things you did this week that you knew you shouldn’t do. 

A residence for an antiquated mode of thinking that is no longer relevant or needed since science has given us all the important answers.

I could go on for a while, and I’m sure you can think of more examples.  With so many different experientially-based views about church, it’s no wonder why so many people are walking away from it completely, disillusioned by legitimate hurts and unmet expectations.  It doesn’t help that church has gotten a bad rap lately, particularly from we Christians ourselves.  Yeah, I’ve been guilty of it too.  How on earth are seeking people supposed to be attracted to church, or to the Head of the church for that matter, when Christians talk about it so derisively?  While I don’t disagree that serious problems can and do arise within the church, I think that much of the general frustration and hatred towards church that is so common amongst my generation stems from a misunderstanding of what the church is and what it is supposed to do.  

My heart breaks when I see wounded and lonely people keeping far away from church because of fear, bitterness, or a simple lack of understanding of what they are really giving up.  Being in full-time ministry and having grown up in a family that was heavily involved in the church, I am well aware of the things that go on that leave people so cautious and skeptical.  I have been burned, and many people I love have been burned; yet, I still can’t imagine life apart from the church.  Church is God’s idea, and to toss it aside is to miss out on His beautiful design for this age and on the many blessings that go along with that design.  For that reason, I want to take the next few posts to dig through the truth about church (not too extensively – there is a whole subcategory of theology dedicated to the subject!) and decide whether it really is as monstrous as it is sometimes made out to be or whether it is greatly misunderstood.    

Maranatha's Marriage GetAway, 2017

I remember sitting in the Olsen chapel at Maranatha Bible Camp over a decade ago and listening skeptically to a woman speak on the topic of purity in relationships.  I’m not certain whether the memory is from the Purity Conference I attended in 6th grade or from Junior High Camp one of the following years.  Nevertheless, I believed that I, a young girl who had not yet even entered the world of dating, understood romance and the progression of a relationship better than this married adult speaker.  The memory that is so vivid in my mind is her statement that was something along the lines of, “Girls, there have been days when my husband does something that makes me think, ‘I married THAT?’”  Whatever point she was trying to make at the time didn’t really stick in my mind, but I remember pitying her and thinking that she must have settled.  She must have never REALLY fallen in love, or she must not have married the RIGHT person with a SOLID relationship with God.  If she had, she and her husband would only ever be crazy about each other. 

Once I reached my dating years, I started to believe people when they said that marriage was hard, but I thought that “hard” meant getting used to the occasional dirty sock on the floor.  I had little disagreements and moments of irritation with some of my boyfriends, and I was still convinced that those would likely be the extent of any difficulty in my future marriage.  Those minor spats were easy enough to work through.  Granted, I was hurt on a much deeper level by a couple young men, but I just chalked those truly devastating times up to being with the “wrong” guy.  I wouldn’t ever have to experience that level of heartbreak with the man I chose to marry because I would refuse to marry anyone who had the capacity to hurt me that much. 

July 14, 2017 marked my 5th anniversary of being married to Jon.  Our relationship has been tested by fire in so many ways through that short amount of time.  I’ve learned that the speaker I pitied was simply being real with us and that Paul wasn’t just a spurned, ignorant, and bitter single man when he cautioned in 1 Corinthians 7:28 that married people will have trouble in this life.  Above all, I’ve learned that I am a sinner who married a sinner, and like every other sinner, we both have the capacity to hurt each other in profound ways.  We both desperately need Jesus and His overflowing grace, love, and forgiveness so that we can in turn freely give that grace, love, and forgiveness to each other.  Trust and intimacy don’t just generate spontaneously in marriage like they seem to during the early stages of dating.  They must be intentionally cultivated and pursued. 

This weekend we were given the opportunity and privilege to lead worship at Maranatha’s Marriage GeAway.  There was an irony in being on the other side of my wedding day and sitting once again in a Maranatha chapel (though a much larger and more updated one) and listening to another speaker talk about God’s design for marriage, particularly in the area of sex.  While much of the content in the messages opened old wounds and triggered past emotions, it was good for us to be reminded of God’s design and to have a springboard for communication about ways we can strive to continue to align ourselves with that design.  It was also good to be reminded that marriage, when done God’s way, is a beautiful image of the very character of God. 

For anyone who wants to listen to the messages we heard this weekend delivered by Pastor Bryan Clark (Lincoln Berean), you can find them at http://maranathacamp.org/marriage-getaway/ in the drop-down menu titled “Fall 2017 Session Audio.”   

For me, some of the highlights of this weekend included:

*Leading worship with my husband.  He originally planned on adding some more band members, but the director of the camp (Kris Cheek) just wanted us to lead as a couple.  There is something sweet and bonding about getting to play music and ministering to others together. 

*Getting to know some acquaintances better and meeting some new couples.  We ended up spending quite a bit of time with the “5-Year Club,” which was comprised of us and three other couples who got married in 2012, including one couple who was our anniversary twin (we got married on the same exact day!).  We played games, laughed, ate meals, and discussed life together.  Jon and I also really enjoyed talking to a couple from Lincoln Berean whose kids are about the same age as we are. 

*A beautiful, delicious, candlelit, and catered dinner and overall good food that I didn’t have to plan for, shop for, prepare, or cook! 

*Opportunities to enjoy and have fun with my husband. For example, we roller-skated for a few minutes for a short date night (we were pretty tired by that point and ready to get home before another early morning), while Barry Holbrook (camp staff and friend of ours) played blush-worthy love songs over the speakers.  He and Tanya (his wife) also shouted out for us to kiss, and the attempt nearly landed us on the ground in a tangled mess. 

*Getting a refresher course on some things I already knew about sex and marriage and also seeing some truths and making connections that I hadn’t before in various Bible passages. 

*Deep conversations with my husband on the drives to and from North Platte (we would have stayed at the camp if it weren’t for our 3 canine responsibilities at home). 

*The chance to evaluate and re-focus on being intentional about cultivating intimacy in our marriage and taking little steps towards making better choices with our time with that end in mind. 

Marriage isn’t easy.  Cliché, I know, but many hurting husbands and wives know the depths of what that statement can really mean.  Marriage is even harder when you try to figure it all out on your own, or worse, when you set it on the backburner and neglect it until one day you wake up to find a huge explosion of a mess.  I’m thankful for events like this Marriage GetAway that point couples back to the purpose of marriage and to the Designer of marriage, giving them hope, encouragement, and strength to keep fighting for everything that this world is trying to pollute, cheapen, and tear apart.  As with all other Maranatha events, I’m thankful for the chance to pull away from the routine busyness of life to quiet my heart before God and hit the re-set button on areas of my life that need it.  I highly recommend checking out all that Maranatha Camp & Retreat Center has to offer!  

Freedom from Fear

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  Sure, I have fond memories of wearing fun costumes, eating obscene amounts of candy, and trick-or-treating with friends, but all of that was usually shrouded by a sense of unrest.  The combination of startling and scary decorations, disguised strangers, daunting shadows, and dark streets was very unsettling to me.  I certainly could not comprehend the fascination with haunted houses that was so common amongst my peers.  While I enjoyed some of the lighter aspects of the holiday, my mind could not fathom why people would want to intentionally pursue and stir up fear. 

 

While I still have no desire whatsoever to partake in the likes of haunted houses and horror movies, I’ve found that I’m much more a friend of fear than I’d care to admit.  I let it seep into my life in subtle ways until it becomes familiar and, strangely, safe.  It’s almost as though clinging to fear gives me a false sense of control.  If I just keep a death grip on it, then I can prevent the object of my fear from ever getting close to me.  For example, if I fear snakes enough (if I refuse to go near any of their possible habitats and constantly keep a vigilant and paranoid eye out for them), then I won’t ever have to know the pain of a venomous snake bite.  If I refuse to let my husband indulge in his adrenaline junkie instincts to the best of my ability, then I won’t ever have to know the devastation of losing him.  Fear taken to such extremes is a prison masquerading as a fortress.  It whispers protection in our ear all while wrapping it’s coils around our necks - binding us and gradually choking out the very life we were trying to preserve. 

God has a lot to say about fear in His Word.  Specifically, He tells us not to fear...repeatedly.  It’s been said before that there are 365 verses in the Bible that command us not to fear.   I haven’t gone through and counted them myself, but whatever the exact number is, God obviously cares about what we do about fear.  However, anyone who has ever struggled with an addiction (or, to make it more palatable, a recurring sin) knows that, in most cases, you can’t just stop when you are told to stop, even if you see the necessity for it and have the desire to change.  Your brain has to be rewired over time (Rom. 12:2) by replacing your old way of thinking with something else (Eph. 4:22-24).  As we rely on the strength of the Holy Spirit to put off our old self and put on the new self, He transforms us from the inside out. 

Lately, God has been showing me His replacement for my unhealthy fear.  In Psalm 112, verses 1 and 7 say, “Praise the LORD!  How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in His commandments.  He will not fear evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.”  If I take God seriously - obeying Him and trusting Him in every area of my life - then I have no need to fear anything or anyone else.  This is not because of any guarantee of a life without trauma, disappointment, suffering, or loss, but because I know that God loves me deeply (Ps. 139; Jn. 3:16; Rom. 5:8; 1 Jn. 3:1) and is able to do immeasurably more than I can think or imagine (Eph. 4:17-21), including working all things for my good and His glory in the end (Rom. 8:28).  He can and will carry me through all that life throws my way.

This is not to say we should live recklessly or foolishly.  The fear of the LORD is also the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10).  However, it does mean that we can do so much more than just survive in this life.  We don’t have to walk around with our walls up and our fists clenched, slowly dying within our hardened shells.  There is a better way.  We can find the freedom to experience joy and security by letting God do the job of being our Defender and Shield.  As we consistently put off our own fears and put on the fear of the LORD, we will give the Holy Spirit room to break our chains and transform us into people who are free, secure, giving, compassionate, and alive.