Over the last couple of days, I have been seriously thinking through this idea of whether or not we need this corporate/non-profit entity known as The Journey of St. Clair County and would appreciate some serious reflective feedback.  I personally have a lot of emotional attachment and time invested in The Journey but the Kingdom is not about my attachments.  I will give you my thoughts on this as well as some questions to ponder. 

First of all, what is the purpose of having this entity known as The Journey of St. Clair County?

My initial thoughts on this, we have this organization to give us an identity, an association with people who think along the same lines.  But one of the things I have noticed with having an identity with an entity like this, it becomes a separator.  We belong to this particular group that has this particular set of beliefs and we meet on these particular days.  If we truly believe that the church is made up of people who follow after Jesus, why would we want to add one more group to the mix of already divided groups?  Can we simply say to people who ask what church we are a part of, "I am a follower of Jesus."  Do we really need to be identified with a particular brand or group of believers? 

Second, there is a growing corporate entity known as The Journey in St Louis right now and when we even tell people our name, we begin to be lumped in with them (not that there is any negative result of the association).  We have to tell people not that Journey. We are really losing our identity right now.  So, do we want to keep differentiating ourselves from the other group each time someone asks?  This just goes back to the first point, we have to tell people what makes us, our brand, our group, our organization, different.

Third, as with all groups that have an identity, we begin to separate ourselves from the world we are tying to influence for the Kingdom.  For example, we have been participating (some of us) in a community volleyball league.  We joined the league as The Journey.  How many relationships have we built with members from the other teams to advance the Kingdom?  Have we not separated ourselves from others by having our own team rather than just joining in with a group of people and building relationships?  Are we viewed by the other teams as being members of the larger corporate Journey(taking us back to point 2, which takes us back to point 1)? 

Finally, I think that we can still maintain a means of utilizing what we have established as a resource for those seeking Jesus and being the church.  Perhaps our websites can become more of a connecting hub for groups and resources. We can utilize our social networks(FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)  as a means of connecting people to us.  We can create pages, links back to blogs, whatever means necessary to help people understand our call to simply BE the church.  We can still support the causes we love like Compassion International, Project Compassion, Casas por Cristos, but it just means we each will need to take on a little more personal responsibility in helping them out.  We can still organize group blessings by just communicating with each other.

Perhaps the biggest issue we face and I may have just stumbled upon it, is this: do we really know how to be the church without an association with a particular group?  Do we need to learn what it means to simply be the Body of Jesus?  And that's okay if we do.  Perhaps we need to come together as one whole group for a time and learn the depth of this truth.  Another possibility would be to just gather in groups of 2 or 3 and learn to come into the presence of God and Jesus.   

I would really like some good honest feedback on this.  Just because my thoughts are posted here, doesn't mean that I am proceeding with closing down The Journey as it stands.  Afterall, this involves more people than just me.  Thanks.

  

The darkness of nightfall settles in around you, and you begin to notice the distant horizon growing more and more elusive as if a fog is settling over it.  You strain your eyes to see across the field, but you just can't see clearly.  Even as you squint, nothing comes into focus.  Was that something moving along the tree line?  Maybe the time has come to pack things up and head back to camp.  After all, this process will reverse itself in the morning.

This memory comes from my days as a teenager sitting in a stand waiting for a buck to come into my view.  You would wait until the last few moments of daylight were about gone before giving up the hunt for that day.  The next morning, we would rise before daylight to be in the stand awaiting for the darkness to fade into daylight in hopes that our hunt would be successful.

I have noticed this phenomenon in different areas of my life as well.  For example, when I first started out in my current career path, it was like the dawn.  I really couldn't see that clearly where I was heading, but it was getting brighter as time passed by.  Just as I seemed to have come into broad daylight and I thought I knew where I was heading, it started to turn toward evening. The momentum of the first several months began to wear off and things began to get out of focus.  It wasn't that I was discouraged to the point of giving up the hunt, but it was a matter of waiting through the night for dawn to come once again.  The last few weeks, my focus has returned, and I feel like the brightness of the noon day sun is at hand.

I have seen this happen to me in my spiritual life as well.  There are times when things appear to be clearly in focus, and then there are times when twilight begins to settle in around me.  Although it may appear as if night and darkness have fallen, there is still plenty of light from the moon and stars holding out hope.  This hope of the morning sun revives your spirit to encouraging you to not give up but await the dawn.  As the morning sun begins to shine, so your does your life shine as well.

Perhaps now, this very moment in my life, the dawn returns.  The sun is beginning to light up the horizon in brilliant hues of orange, red, and blues. Perhaps the night has come to increase my thirst for the daylight.  As I contemplate the place where I am and the reason God brought me here, there seems to be a renewing of energy for the things of the Kingdom.  The abbreviated time we have here on earth passes so quickly, we must not dwell in the darkness too long.  The time is upon us to regain our focus, to strive for the light of day.

  

This book written by Frank Viola and George Barna has been stirring up some controversy since its release with Tyndale Publishing.  It is challenging our views of the "church" as the majority see it today.  For those who are reading it or have read it (reading just excerpts from it won't give you the full context), let this be a place for discussion for the sake of growing in our understanding of what God desires His church to be.

Post your overall reaction to the book, the ideas that really challenged your thinking, the things you don't agree with, and the things that just hit the mark. 

As we strive to live as God intended us to live in Christ, let us encourage one another to that end.

  

Sometimes when I read a Scripture, I try to turn off the reflex of seeing what I've been taught for years—and try to see what is THERE instead of what I've been taught is THERE.

Here was the passage for today:

Luke 10:1-3

"After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest."

I've often had this Scripture presented to me as a proof text for the notion that we need workers for the harvest.  Duh.  And that said workers are to "bring Jesus to the people" or some similarly worded concept.

But one phrase, quietly, almost shyly snuggled with the end of a prepositional phrase, where it mayn't be noticed (since the next few words introduce a quote from Jesus Himself), is "intended to go."

Jesus wasn't asking the workers to Bring Him To The People.  The workers were to PREPARE the people.  Serve the people.  Testify about Jesus.  Show the people what life in the Kingdom was like, so the people would be ready to receive Him when "He Himself" arrived.

It's a different way of looking at it than the traditional (at least in my particular spiritual culture) methods of evangelism...which sometimes (albeit unintentionally) gives off an odor of "salesmanship."

So it's not OUR duty to make the people Christian.  That's the Holy Spirit's doing.   It's our duty to prepare people for when Christ shows Himself in their lives.

I don't really have a good closing thought to cap this post off.  Anybody got anthing to add/dispute?

  

In the midst of a discussion the other day, my mind has been thinking about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  We read the words written by Paul that we need to "be imitators of God," "do conform to the pattern of this world," and "our citizenship is in heaven," and then we read Peter's words referring to us "as foreigners and exiles," how is that we have failed to become different from those around us in the world?
This thought has been stirring in me:  What if we stopped and looked at the world around us and take note of how people live their lives without a relationship with God through Jesus.  Then take what we have noticed and do our best to live the opposite.  Would that not make us stand out?  As a follower of Jesus, we are called to be different from the world around us.  We are to be holy, which in essence means to be called out of the world, to be unlike the world.
What would change in your life if you were to live like this? 
Once we know what we need to change in our lives, we must gather around us like-minded people who will help us to live out this changed life.  The temptation to be just like those around us will come back at us and, therefore, hinder the change we were seeking.  There is strength in numbers if we would just become a united front to be more like Jesus than the world. 
These were some of the thoughts that I have been thinking about over the last couple of days.  Let me know what you think.

  

Continuing the thought at the end of chapter 19, Jesus begins with a parable to help us understand the meaning of the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

• What is the main point of this parable?
• What should we learn from this parable?
• Why does Jesus continue to tell the 12 that He is going to Jerusalem to die?
• What do you think of the request made to Jesus concerning the sons of Zebedee?
• Why is rank so important?
• How does Jesus describe rank in the Kingdom?
• How do we promote an upside down form of the Kingdom?
• Why do the crowds tell the blind to be quiet?
• Why does Jesus ignore the crowds and heal the men?
• What motivates Jesus?
• Do you have the same motivation as Jesus?
• What other questions do you have as you read this chapter?
• What applications can we make from this chapter in our daily lives?
• Other comments?
  

  

This chapter begins with questions directed to Jesus about certain issues.  So let the questions begin.

• Why do you think that Jesus was questioned about divorce?
• How do two people become one in marriage?
• Are there other legitamate reasons for divorce other than immorality? If so, what would be?
• Some people are gifted to be single.  Why do people assume something must be wrong with someone if they never marry?
• Children came to be around Jesus and the disciples tried to stop them. Why?
• How does our culture view children? How does that view line up with Jesus's view of children?
• To obtain eternal life, is it something that we must do?
• What was the rich young ruler truly missing to obtain eternal life?
• What is or has been the hardest thing for you to give up to have eternal life?
• What is the reward for giving up everything for Kingdom?
• What questions do you have concerning eternal life?
• Any other thoughts or questions from this chapter?
  

  

This chapter speaks of what God desires from us in our attitudes and actions.

• Why are we so obsessed with position and rank?
• Who is considered the greatest in the Kingdom of God? Why?
• How serious should we take our relationship with God?  Why?
• What was the reason Jesus came?
• Does your passion in life reflect that of Jesus's passion?
• When a problem arises between people within the body of Christ, what are the steps we are to take to resolve those problems?
• What are the results or the goal of taking such action?
• Why is forgiveness so hard?
• If Jesus says that we should forgive an offense (singular) seventy times seven, what does that say about His understanding of our difficulty of forgiving someone?
• What has God forgiven you of?
• What questions does this chapter bring to your mind?
• What is the biggest challenge presented to you in this chapter?
• Any other thoughts?
  

  

This chapter begins with the core three disciples experiencing more than the other disciples.

• Why do you think that Jesus chose just these three men to go up the mountain with Him?
• What is significant about those who appear with the transfigured Jesus?
• What was the purpose of this trip up the mountain?
• What do we learn about demon possession from this recorded account?
• What does Jesus mean that we only need faith the size of a mustard seed?
• How much faith do you have?
• When Jesus and the disciples were questioned about the tax, what do we learn about our responsibility to those we are under in this world?
• Describe a time when God provided for you in an unusual way.
• What other questions do you have from this chapter? Thoughts?
  

  

Again, Matthew's writing is dealing with the Pharisees.

• Why are the Pharisees constantly trying to trap or test Jesus?
• What role did the Pharisees play in this culture?
• Speculation:  If there have been many men claiming to be the Messiah over the years, what affect would that have on the Pharisees outlook toward Jesus?
• Why does Jesus warn His disciples about the teachings of the Pharisees?
• Jesus then asks the disciples about who people are saying He is.  What are the responses?
• Do you truly believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God's Son?
• Why is understanding this truth considered to be the foundation, "the rock," upon which Jesus will build His church?
• After talking about who He is, why would Jesus tell His disciples to not tell anyone?
• Jesus then tells His disciples about the coming trip to Jerusalem.  Why does Peter stand up and "rebuke" Jesus?
• Many people claim that following after Jesus is free, a gift of grace.  When you read the words of Jesus in verses 24ff, what is the cost of following Jesus?
• What makes it worth the cost to follow Him?
• Have you given your life to Jesus?
• What questions does this chapter prompt in you?
• What thoughts do you have?