I tweet.  I like twitter for it's simplicity.  I like that you are forced to be pithy with your comments, you have 140 characters to make your point.  If you'd like to follow me on twitter, click here

You also have the opportunity to run into some entertaining characters that say, well, some interesting things.  Today I read someones tweet that asked the question, "Where would Jesus go to church?"  Now, looking at this persons other tweets it wasn't hard to figure out what point of view he was coming from.  This is a person who dislikes organized religion in any form and specifically doesn't like that Christians gather in a specific building for services.

First, I'm not going to judge this persons spiritual condition, it's not my job.  Really, I'm going to ignore them.  However, I think the question posed, paying no regard to their opinion on the matter, is an interesting question that I do have an opinion on.

If Jesus were to come down to the earth today, walk into your, or my, town, what church would he go to?  Well, none.  He wouldn't go to the church.  He didn't come for the well, afterall, he came for the sick.  That's why he hung out with tax collectors and sinners.

The early New Testement church didn't meet in church buildings, they met in houses.  In Acts 20:7-12 it talks about Paul teaching at a house until midnight and a young man falling asleep, falling from the second floor window, dying and being raised from the dead.  I'm sure Paul would have went into a church building if they were available, but in that day and age you couldn't just decide to build a huge building, so they taught were there was availability.

In the modern age, what is the purpose of the church building?  I'm talking about what it is intended to by, not what it has largely become.

Today the building is meant to be a training ground.  It is a place to learn, to be refreshed and a place for the faithful to come together for fellowship.  However, it has become a social club in many areas and like the old farmer said, "Us four and no more." becomes the attitude in the church.

We need to treat Sunday services as a corporate celebration of the greatness of Christ, a place to rejoice in the battles of the past week and a place to prepare for the battles of the next week.  A place where brothers and sisters in Christ hone each other like iron sharpens iron.

I believe that most churches get the first point above.  However, too many have no battles to celebrate and no battles for which to be prepared.  There is more back-biting than sharpening and people trying to build their internal political power.  There are to many people trying to advance their personal little fiefdom inside of the local church instead of advancing the kingdom of God in the world.

Jesus wouldn't come to the church today, not because we are so far off the mark, but because he would be out serving the lost.  He'd be serving the lost hoping that we, the church, would join him.  We can have our church services, but we can't have that be our spiritual life.  Those services are not to be the rule of your life, they are meant to be the culmination of your life's work, spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

We, as the church, need to remember that being the church has nothing to do with a building, a name on a sign or a person who stands up behind the pulpit and speaks.  It has everything to do with bringing the good news to the broken hearted, bringing healing to the sick, bringing prosperity to the poor, bringing food to the hungry and visiting the fatherless and the widow.  If we do all of those things, when we enter the building on a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening we can go in to be armed, to be healed and to be restored ourselves, so we can go into the world and do what God has called us to do, to be what he called us to be.

Well, as a follow up to this past weekend, I thought I'd give the updates. 

In my last post I mentioned all of the things that were going on this past weekend.  To Recap: I was performing my first wedding, we had the funeral for Janny and I was looking forward to an amazing worship service on Sunday.

First, I want to go through the events in the order the happened, then I'll talk about each.

• Friday night, I went to the wedding rehersal, Jen went to the viewing for Janny.
• I went to the viewing right as the funeral home was getting ready to close up shop.  Got to say goodbye to Janny and talk to her husband and son, trying to encourage them.
• Saturday morning, 11 am, went to the funeral services.
• Saturday, noon, went to wedding. 
• Saturday, 1 pm, performed wedding.
• Saturday, 2 pm, went to the reception for the funeral at our church.
• Saturday, 4 pm, went to the wedding reception.
• Saturday, 8 pm, finally got home for the evening.
• Sunday, 9:30, Arrived at church for worship practice, expecting great things.
• Sunday, 10:30, worship started.
• Sunday, 12:30, worship ended, yes, worship ended not the service.

Now, the funeral was nice, knowing that Janny knew the Lord was encouraging and a lot of the conflict within her family was put aside, at least for those couple of days.

The wedding went off without too much of a hitch, however, I struggled with the King James that is in the wedding ceremony.  It's been so long since I've read King James it was throwing me off.  I think I'm going to rewrite that ceremony using NIV or NLT.  However, other than stumbling over the thee's and thou's I did pretty good, accourding to my lovely wife and the couple that I married.  I think that is all that was important.  The reception was also very nice.

Now, Sunday service may have been the single most awesome service that I've ever been part of.  First, the worship didn't stop after 30 minutes, which is the norm.  We were going for the whole service.  Many people were baptized with the Holy Spirit.  Many more were just plain blessed.  There were even a couple families that were healed of some things that were tearing them apart.  Benny stepped up and started to take his position as the next pastor of FFCCPA and we even started collecting money to go toward starting 5 international training schools.  I believe we collected enough to start the first one Sunday alone.  Only $4K more and we will have reached our goal!

If anyone wants to help with that, let me know, I'll let you know how you too can help us start some training schools in other countries.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend, and by the end, I was worn out, but I would be happy if every weekend happened the same way.

Anyone who knows me, knows that right after being a minister and a christian, I am a geek.  I love technology and I love all most things geek.

Right now I'm looking for the best bible study software that I can find for under $50 USD.  I want a nice UI with a wide range of bibles.  The bibles that it must, absolutely, have are the KJV, NKJV, NIV,the NLT and the Amplified Bible.  Other versions are bonus.  I'm looking for a solid version of Strongs Exhaustive Concordance and Vine's Biblical Dictionary.  Other references = bonus.  I would like to have a couple devotionals and commontaries as well, but they aren't needed.

Right now I'm playing around with a few free software packages, but I can't get any bible versions past KJV and to add the other ones that I want will cost over my budget.  For free software I have to settle for public domain bibles, which includes the KJV but not many others that I want to use. 

The reason I'm in the market for the software is that I want to start some serious Bible study.  Since I'm a geek, I want to have my study materials available on my laptop.  I wan't all of the materials there.  I don't want to have to have a library of books just to do the simplest of studies.  I'll still have my hard copy Bibles that I will use for ready and as my pulpit bible, but I want the software for study.

The ones that I'm playing around with now are the Bible Explorer and the e-Sword.  These are nice, but not overly intuitive.  Getting add on material can be a pain. 

I'm all about downloading things, but the pain I've gone through to get these packages working well hasn't been real fun.  I'd much rather have the material on an install disk that I can reuse when I reinstall windows (I do often as a software developer just to keep my system running fast.)

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.  I'm anxious to see what alternatives other people are using, and maybe one of them will be the right fit for me.

There are many things I love about being in the ministry.  I love being able to help people find Christ.  Love watching a person go from decrepit to Christ-like.  These things bring me great joy.

One of the things that I don't like about a lot of churches is how many of them avoid technology.  I personally love technology.  My chosen career, after ministry, is that of a web developer.  I program websites.  My whole life is infused with technology.  I wish the church, as a whole, would grasp onto technology and use it in effective ways to minister the gospel.

Really this isn't about railing about technological short comings, this is about a great tool that exists for any owner of an iPod, Zune or any other media player.  I'm speaking of the power of the podcast.  I know that Family Fellowship, every week (for the most part) puts its services out on the internet as a podcast.  This is one way to use that technology.  However, there is so much more out there in the podcast universe than just adding your messages to the vast array of information out on the web.

One of my favorite podcasts that I've recently discovered is called The Bible Podcast.  The Bible Podcast features Michael Lee reading through the New English Translation of the Bible.  He goes through one chapter per day.  Michael has a very smooth voice that brings out the emphasis of scripture nicely.  This is one of the better readings of the Bible I've ever heard.  I've heard some other readings of the bible and I've been bored to tears by the person doing the reading. 

Having an audio Bible is nice.  It's no replacement of Bible study, but it does allow you to hear the Word of God when you're not in a position to read yourself.  Personally, I like to listen to this podcast at work.  I can do my job of programming and still be edified by the Word of God.  It's an important thing to me, to be able to hear the word, even if I can't read it.  It also gets rid of other peoples opinions and just delivers the word.

Right now I'm listening to the book of Acts.  Chapter 15 to be precise.  I've read Acts several times through out my life, so I generally don't go there for general reading.  The podcast is one way to go back to those passages of scripture that I haven't read in a while and keep myself familiar with it. 

I'll add a link to the podcast itself later.

This also goes back to the other bit of technology that I mentioned above.  I own a Microsoft Zune.  I love my Zune.  There is a good chance that I will never go back to an iPod.  I realized yesterday how much I miss it at work when I don't have access to it at work.  I was kind of lost through out the day.  I'm used to having something on in my ears all day and it helps me keep focused.  Oh well, I have it back today and that is what is important.

When the ministry in Sarasota open there is one guarantee that I will make, technology will be used to its fullest extent.

There are many things that I've learned over the past 15 years.

It seems that every major event in my life brings new revelation.  I'll lay down the timeline of these major events and how my perception has changed.

1994 - I was just returning to the church after having walked away for about three years.  I walked away because of my arrogance, plain and simple. I learned from my return to Christ is that I cannot out run him.  There was no where I could go, no where I could hide, I would return, though the choice to return was mine, I didn't really have a choice, I would have been pursued for the rest of my life had I not come back when I did.

1997 - I left the church to which I had originally come back.  I had realized that the church was putting on a display.  It was a place to see and be seen to the people who were going there.  I learned that no matter what I had done for the advancement of that ministry, when I was in need of help, I would be thrown under the bus, and that is what happened.  At that point in history I was leading worship at the church, driving the church van, working full-time and going to school full-time.  I was running on empty and after service one night, I had a breakdown.  The youth pastor, who was awesome, by the way, came to me and helped me out.  He said he would go to the pastor and see if we could find a replacement to drive the van.  The biggest thing was driving the van after church.  I was so tired from my day, knowing that I was going to have to do it again the next day.  That day marked the last time the pastor ever talked to me while I was attending there.  Previous to this I spoke to him regularly.  That marked the last time he said anything other than "Hello".  He never talked to me about removing me from any positions, I just simply was not asked to participate.  I was devastated.  I was so mad at the church I left.  I wasn't mad at God, I was mad at the people.  I told God I would give him four churches to find one that I could feel at home in and I would stay in a church, if not, I would still serve Him, but I wouldn't attend a church to do it.

I went to three churches that I couldn't attend.  They were too dead for me.  I would shrink in those churches.  The fourth church I attended was Family Fellowship Christian Center, and I am still there today, now serving as an associate pastor, elder and worship leader.

1998 - Was the year I found FFCC and the year I met my wife.  I was still in school and working full-time, so any socialization that I was going to get was going to be at odd hours, which led me to the internet and the World Wide Communities Online Christian chat rooms.  It was in this chat room that I met Jen, who was also going to school, in North Carolina.  In January we started chatting, at the beginning of May we met in person, May 25th we were engaged and December 5th we were married.  I learned that it is not good for man to be alone and that God had designed a helpmate just for me.  Our relationship moved so quickly because we had no doubt, from the start that this was meant to be.  We only waited as long as we did so that I could graduate and get a real job and so she could make the move from North Carolina.

2000 - Probably the biggest change of mentality that I have ever had occurred this year.  That was the year Josiah, my oldest, was born.  This was a profound moment for me.  Up until this time I had no idea what it meant to be a father.  I have never known my earthly father, so I never had an example upon which to draw.  I was scared to death in the months leading up to his birth.  I hope that I didn't let my fear show too much.  I really was trying to put on the brave face.  However, the first time I held that 8lb bunch of flesh, I fell in love.  He was everything to me from that moment on, and for the first time in my life I realized why I would never have been able to outrun God.  He loves me the same way I love Josiah, but with even more passion and intensity.  I knew that I would lay down my life for that little man and I would kill to protect him.  How much more was it for God to not protect His son, but sacrifice Him so that we may enter into His plan for adoption.

In 2003, it was Braedon who changed my life.  I wasn't afraid of having another child.  Josiah had been around for three years now and I knew that I could be a good dad.  The question that was answered for me was this.  How can I divide the love I had for Josiah and share it with another.  The answer was poignant.  I had made a mistake in my math.  My love would not be divided, it would be multiplied!  That is how God can love us all; His love is multiplied every time someone comes to Him!

In 2006 I learned patience.  Actually that probably really started in 2008, but the cause of this lesson was born in 2006.  Thorin is the model of a strong willed child.  Go ahead; look up strong willed child in the dictionary, yea, that's his picture.  I have to be careful with him because the spirit in him that drives me nuts is the same spirit that will make him a success in the future.  I don't want to break his spirit while molding it into a useful tool.  I want the passion he displays every day to be focused on God.  This has shown me the patience that God has shown me as I've rebelled and thrown tantrums.  He doesn't want to break my spirit, but he wants to direct me in the way I should go.

In 2009 came Rilian.  He’s only a couple months old now, but he makes me laugh.  The simplicity of a baby brings me joy.  He is my reminder that a merry heart is like a medicine.  He reminds me that sometimes it is important to play the jester, because the jester brings joy in the moment of sadness.  When all else fails, make a funny face, produce a funny noise, it turns tears into laughter, at least in the eyes of a baby.

I say all of that to say this...

We were bought with a price.  We were brought to the Father in the spirit of adoption.  We are, in every sense of the words, Children of God.  Let's remember that in our everyday walks.

Today we are at war.  Not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities that reside in the heavenly places.

The attack of this enemy is devastating in its subtlety.  This attack sucks the energy, life and ambition from all that it afflicts.

What is the name of this enemy?  What is this method of attack that is assailing these United States of America?

Apathy.

I see people every day that walk around, self involved, with only one care in the world, the person looking back in the mirror every morning.

I see these people who are submitting to a culture that says that the government will supply all your needs according to what it can take from the rich.  This is a culture that says that you are evil if you try to get ahead.  A culture that is intolerant of only one thing, Christian values.  A culture that says it's better to be a drug abuser than to be the CEO of a successful company.

This mentality is pervasive in the popular and political culture of the United States.  Everything from the Miss USA contest, where the "favorite" to win answers a question about gay marriage from her heart and it costs her the crown and brings the wrath of Hollywood down on her to the Wall Street and Auto Company bailouts where the government takes of companies instead of letting them be consumed by the market place.

We are in the process of giving away our freedom.  It's not being taken from us, we are giving it away.  We are not sad.  We are not disappointed.  We actually rejoice in it.  We shout out "Yea, let the government take care of me!"

The Bible states, "My God shall supply all my needs according to HIS riches in glory".

Can we step back in this country and look at ourselves?  Are we depending on anything other than God to be our provider?  Do we rely on the government, or do we completely lean on God?  And the biggest question.  Are we really worshiping God?

We need to break out of the apathy that is ensnaring us.  We need to break the chains of slavery that the world has subtly slipped over our necks.  We need a new independence day.  We need to break free of the mental snares.  We need to change our focus.  We need to focus our ambition in the correct locations.

We can accomplish this with the following four actions:

1. if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. - 2 Chronicles 7:14
2. Get back to the word of God.  We need to gain spiritual knowledge that can only be gained by studying the Bible.  Not just reading, but prayerfully, emphatically, studying God's word.
3. Place te well being of others before yourself.  Start taking care of people around you before you take care of yourself.
4. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. - Luke 6:38   
   

When you do these things, pray, study, give your time, give your finances, appathy will begin to melt away, like ice cream on a hot, sunny day.

You will see some immediate results as you start putting these four principles into motion.  You will improve your relationship with God.  You will gain a greater understanding of God.  You will have a greater compassion for others and you will prosper in every area of your life.

When you lean on God as your source, you will gain real humility.  Humility is when you, yourself, realizes that everything that you are doing is not the result of your efforts, but the efforts of the living God.  This is not the same as being humiliated, which is when you are forced to acknowledge that there are people or entities greater than you.

When your focus in your life is outside of yourself you begin to have your perception altered.  The people you help are no longer lower than you, you are their servant.  God is no longer a stranger to you, you are his child.  

In conclusion, stop looking at the government as your source, you are not entitled to anything as a citizen of the United States.  You are guaranteed an equal opportunity under the constitution, not equal results.  Lean on God to be your source, everything else will be the resource he uses to bless you, so that you can be a blessing to others.  If you do these things, you will become victo

As I move forward with my personal preparation for full-time ministry, I realize that there are 3 areas that I need to address.  These 3 areas encompass many things that need to happen.

1. Spiritual
2. Mental
3. Physical

Spiritually, I need to be prepared, not only to minister to other people, but to ensure that my relationship with my God and my family can endure the strains of being the primary target of scrutiny as the pastor of a church.

Mentally, I need to be prepared to handle the attacks mentioned above.  Also, there are many areas in which I'm just not the most qualified person in the world.  Financially is a big one.  If I don't have someone out of the box that is great at handling finances (I believe in staffing your weaknesses) then I need to make sure that I enhance my ability to handle this aspect of the organization.

Physically, I'm out of shape, or should I say, I have the wrong shape, because round is a shape.  I need to get into better physical condition.  Being a pastor is not for the physically weak.  Many attacks that a pastor takes are physical.  Not in the aspect of a fist fight, but the activities of the church will take a toll on the body.  I have to be prepared for these attacks.  Also, being that I am encumbered by diabetes, I need to make sure that it is in control at all times.  My preference, lose the weight before I come down to Sarasota and be done with the disease.

I used to think that my first priority was the physical, but I realize now, that I need to work on the spiritual aspect first, in conjunction, really.  Until today, I thought the area I was strongest in was spirituality.  Of course, a little prayer, introspection and revelation will smack that out of anyone.

I realized today that I am surrounded by too much noise.   Whether it is TV, the radio, or even my family, I never take time for quiet time.  Even now, I have my Zune on listening to music.  It's praise and worship (Delirious?) so it's not too bad.  

I've also been being hit by some self awareness that I wasn't prepared for.  I'm not the man I thought I was.  This weekend, being Mother's day weekend, made me realize how far I fall short on a normal basis at being a husband and a father.  If I can do what I did this weekend and it makes my wife happy, why can't I do that regularly.  I look back on this weekend and I still feel I fell short of what I should be doing on a regular basis.  This has revealed to me that I have to change my regular behaviors.  I have to consecrate the time I spend with God and the time that I spend with my family.  I can't let my experiences of my day at work effect how I am at home, after all, this is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it.  

Anyway, I'm determined to be prepared by November 2011, so I have some work to do.  However, have no fear Sarasota, when I arrive, I'll be ready to deliver the word of God with clarity and power.