New Blasted Gourds

I am planning on keeping this site open for now, but I have been working on revamping our church website and have now formed a new blasted gourds site that I am trying out. Come by and visit.

blastedgourds

Vital Signs

How can you be a vital Christian? How can you make your church a vibrant church?

• Join: Become a member. Some may ask, “Can’t I do everything just as well without joining?” The Christian life is all about covenant relationships. It begins with a covenant relationship with God, and follows with a covenant relationship with God’s people. If you refuse to covenant with God’s people your life will always lack, as will the life of the church you attend and the people around you. Admitted it may vary in degrees. The illustration of marriage may help one to understand. Would my relationship with my wife be as strong if we did not covenant in marriage? The commitment, the vows, the security all strengthen the strong love relationship. Let Christ and his bride know you are committed to him and to them
• Love the Lord your God with your all: This is for your sake and for the sake of others. Your holiness and obedience directly impacts your life and the lives of others. Sticking with the illustration of marriage, let us look at the breaking of that covenant, divorce. I am learning more and more that no matter the reason for the divorce, this impacts more than just the two people in the marriage. It has ramifications on the children, the parents, the friends, the coworkers, and the list goes on. So too when you break in your obedience to God it affects you, but also has an impact on Christ and his church, your family, your friends, and even your neighbors and enemies.
• Love one another: This command may need to be broken down to different levels for our culture. Begin by loving the people God has placed closest to you, those in your local church. This is often the real test of this command. In terms of church universal, yes we love all Christians. However, it is often easier to love someone that doesn’t care what you believe or how you act. Many nondenominational atmospheres create such an environment. It is fun loving and appears to be all accepting, but it is easy to be on the surface. When it comes to the local church we are called to care about what we believe and how we act, it is part of what we covenant to be committed to one another about. This is where the real rub often comes in. There is accountability and knowledge of one another. If you can love there, it is a real light of the gospel and demonstration of the bond of the Holy Spirit. Be committed first and foremost to those you have covenanted with, and let your love flow from there.
• Love your neighbor: You have to do all of the other things first, otherwise your love for your neighbor will only point them to yourself and not Christ. But if you are committed to God, and if you are committed to his people, let his love flow. Spread the good news that through Christ God can take a sinner and love them,and bring them into a people that loves them, and they can love back.

You can start all kinds of programs to build community and read all kinds of self help books on how to be a better Christian, but it really comes back to the basics. You must love God, you must love the people of God, and this all calls for commitment in one anothers lives.

Walking On Water, Ice, or Egg shells?

I was on my way home yesterday when I heard a DJ on the radio telling about a man in Florida that has scientific proof that Jesus walked on a thin layer of ice rather than water. We have all seen pictures like this on the left where people appear to be walking on water, but in reality it is just an optical allusion. But was Jesus miracle to confirm his deity just an optical allusion? And if he truly was God why would he need to play tricks? Or if he allowed a natural phenomenon to occur so that it appeared he walked on water, why wouldn't he just take credit for the natural phenomenon like he did in other places, like causing the sun to stand still?
The better question to ask may be why do scientists want to rationalize away the miracles of Jesus? After all this theory lacks for proof and may be impossible to prove that this is what occurred on the exact nigh and location that Christ walked on water. I could go into my theories why this is absurd, like why a boat could go through the water no problem when there was thick enough ice to walk on, and Peter walked on the water right near the boat if you want to say the ice was only near the edge of the lake, but this is not my point in writing.
This newest attack at the miraculous is another in a long line and even the foundation of Liberal and Neo-Orthodox theology. They cannot believe miracles over science. Every belief and happening needs to conform to mind and understanding. At its heart much of this appears to be man trying to make God accountable before man, rather than man having to give an account before God.

The Church, It is all about Me?

I was over on another Pastor's blog and was introduced to this video, The Me Church. It is a humorous exaggeration and reflection of the way some churches operate and how many think the church should function. It raises the questions, what is the purpose of the church?, what should I expect from the church?, how if at all should the church be marketed?, what is my responsibility within the church?, and even what is the church? It has been a lasting concern of mine that we have defined or allowed the church to be defined as a brick building, an organization or institution, or even a pastor, when in reality it is a body of people. Now there has been almost an entire generation of church goers that have been introduced to what a church is only in the Me driven market. The church has bent over backwards to attract the lost. Have we bent over so far that we have stopped being the church? Well so much for it being a humorous video.

Florida Vacation Video Part 1