Wake up, O Church!

Wake up, O Church!, Wake up, O people of God!

Now is the time to be alert, not slumber. For evil roams across the land, and in these days it even increases. Now is the time to armor up and enter into the battle for souls of those destined for damnation. Lift up your voices to the Lord. Cry out for His grace to last but a little longer so more can wake up and enter into salvation through Jesus Christ.

Raise up your voices against the evil that is so prevalent. Remember that evil doesn’t have to look bad to be bad. Sin entices us and speaks to our very sin nature. And when we entertain its seduction, we join forces with it.

Be holy, O Church! Set yourself apart in these last days so all may see the Light of God. Follow His ways and pursue Him with one pure and holy passion.

Put your phones down and pick up His word. Turn the noise and distractions off and posture yourself in a surrender position so you may enter into His presence through prayer and worship. Worship Him with a glad heart and a joyful song because of His glory and goodness!

He is worthy to be praised! No one nor nothing else compares to Him.

Do not be lukewarm any longer.

Dead Man Walking

For some time now, I’ve been trying to understand why a majority of guys seem so non-committal in their faith and in church. Their faith in God barely goes past attending church. This perspective is somewhat generalized because I realize there are definitely men who take their faith and service to God seriously. But those guys seem to be rare. From my observation, most guys see faith as something not for them, like it’s boring. Why is this?

It’s time we man up

This is something I posted on my church’s blog this week. I thought it was worth sharing for the church at large.

We have a dynamic vision for Ridge Church. That vision is for us to be a praying church, not just a church that prays. Over the past year, we have made a lot of positive movement in that direction. But one thing has become blatantly clear to me and it needs to be addressed. It’s time for the men of our church to step up in the area of prayer.

Once a month, a growing group of people meet in a room at the Ridge during one of the services. The purpose of these meetings is to plan and coordinate activities that will continue to strategically move our church from being a church that prays to be a praying church.

Over the past 6-9 months, we have seen the vision come alive. Our prayer partners communicate daily about the prayer needs of the church and the community, and have also begun to take a more active role in the corporate gatherings we have on Sundays and other events. It’s very exciting! But as I surveyed the room this past Sunday, I saw continued evidence of a lack of men that has weighed heavy on my heart for a while. Of the 15-20 people that have been involved on the team, 75% of them are women. This is alarming to me. Why aren’t more men filled with an urgency for prayer in our church?

Prayer is not something only women are told to do. I am extremely thankful for the commitment and passion the women on the team have for prayer. They have been the backbone of this growing ministry. I am also extremely thankful for the guys that are a part as well. I just think that it’s time for more guys to man up and realize the need for their participation in this vital part of the life of Ridge Church. I’m convinced we won’t see the full power of God at work in our church and our community until this happens. It’s time we man up men!

Prayer is a powerful weapon waiting to be used in battle.Ephesians 6 describes the armor of God piece by piece. The word of God is the sword, faith is a shield, and salvation is the helmet. But prayer, though, is mentioned not as a piece of armor, but as the activity of fighting. Verse 18 encourages us in “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” A warrior is only as good as his performance in battle. He may have the best training and top notch gear, but if he sucks on the battlefield, he’s a goner. And to take it a step further, if the warrior fights alone, he will be consumed by the enemy. I love the movie “300” because of how the Spartans fight together. They defeated thousands despite their small numbers because they were trained, equipped, and practiced in fighting together. That is us, guys. We are being trained and equipped with the word of God every Sunday as Bobby preaches. But we are lacking power because we aren’t fighting together because we aren’t praying together. It’s time we fight together. It’s time we man up men!

Prayer releases God’s power when men and women pray together corporately. There are many examples in the book of Acts where the church prayed together and incredible power and wisdom from God was displayed (See Acts 1:13; 2:1; 4:24, 31; 6:6; 8:15-17; 12:5; 13:1-2; 16:16; and 16:25). Let me ask you a question guys. Do you think these corporate prayer gatherings were just the women and maybe a few men? I don’t. Actually, I picture it being equal parts men and women because I envision the men of the early church being active, not passive; focused, not distracted; and, humble, not proud. In all of my years in church, I have never observed a lack of women being involved in the vital work of the church. It’s always the men that are absent. It’s time we man up men!

The times I’ve been inspired to step up the most in my life are when someone has challenged me to the point that I felt like they were questioning my manhood. You can call me names or question how or why I did certain things. But don’t call into question my manhood. I think all guys are wired this way. We don’t want someone to sugar coat the truth of what we are supposed to do or be. And that is why I felt compelled to write this post. I’m challenging the men of Ridge Church to man up, to see that prayer is a powerful weapon to wield, and to join our sisters in battle. It’s time we man up men!

What to do when everything seems to go wrong

There’s a song that we sing at church that has really resonated with our people over the past year. It’s called “Come As You Are” by David Crowder. I believe it connects with us so much because we are a church body that truly strives to be a place where “it’s ok not to be ok”. Each of us has junk that we are dealing with and have found a place we feel safe to let it out. There’s a line in the song that I just love. “Earth has no sorrow that heaven can’t heal.” If I’ve ever found a song lyric to be true in my life, this is definitely one. I have experienced it in my own life and I have witnessed others experience it in theirs. What I have discovered that makes this lyric true is found in the power of the Gospel. If we would allow God to have control and allow Him to heal the wounds within our souls, we would experience life like never before. 

It’s scary to let God into the depths of our souls. Believe me I know. Nobody wants to confront the mess inside, so we toss it in the dark parts of our hearts and walk away. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. When we refuse to acknowledge how jacked up we are and that we are powerless to do anything about it, we deprive ourselves the opportunity to be whole and live in freedom. And what’s worse, we operate out of a continually worsening state of “jacked up-ness” which negatively impacts every relationship we have. 

So how do we get to a place of letting God in? Is there a guide to follow? From my personal experience, I absorbed a lot of information from friends that have worked the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous and was able to apply them to my own situation. Mine wasn’t one of substance abuse. But I found the principles of the steps to aide me in giving God free access to the depths of my soul. Steps 1 – 3 speak directly about this. 

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction – that our lives had become unmanageable. It’s easy to see the word “addiction” and think the Steps don’t apply to your life. If you don’t have an issue with substance abuse, then addiction is a word that’s only in your vocabulary to talk about other people’s issues. But think about this. We are all addicted to sin, and sin is what destroys us inside and out. I equate my addiction to sin to that of a person trying to recover from a meth addiction. The only difference is that the meth addict is reminded every minute of every day that their addiction is real, while I’m often oblivious to my addiction to sin. It’s when I come to grips with the reality that sin has made my life unmanageable that I realize how much I need the principles found in the 12 Steps. 

Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. After running up against the same issues time after time after time, I came to the point that I realized I am incapable of fixing myself. Trying to fix myself just makes me go crazy because, just when I think I’ve conquered something, my issue rears its ugly head again. The past few months, I’ve been running up against something that’s been going on for the many years more frequently and I have gotten so frustrated because I feel like I should be over it now. It just makes me realize that I CANNOT FIX MYSELF. I have to surrender it to God. 

Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God. That last part, “as we understood God”, is huge. The more I learn about Him and experience His faithfulness and care in handling my heart, the more I trust him. Understanding takes time and the decision to trust based on that understanding can take even more time. The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. I’m always curious to observe a person’s character over time. If I see consistency over the long haul, the more likely I will be to open up and trust. Trust is more easily lost than earned. And I think it’s easy to be slow to trust God with our mess because of how religion has misrepresented Him through hypocritical, judgmental church people. Oh that we would remember that church is filled with imperfect people who love a perfect God. It’s also full of people that are spiritually seeking and aren’t sure what they think of God yet. That’s why I love the idea of a church culture where it’s ok not be ok. 

To close this rambling out, I want to share the chorus of “Come As You Are” with you. As you read it, imagine God is speaking it to you… 

Lay down your burdens, lay down your shame 

All who are broken, lift up your face 

O wanderer, come home, you’re not too far 

So lay down your hurt, lay down your heart 

Come as you are

Embracing the un-embraced

A friend sent me a link to a very powerful, very heart breaking blog post the other day. It started out as a familiar story in which a guy decides to visit church with his parents as a way to invest in his relationship with them. From the sound of it, he doesn’t attend church but a few times a year, and I quickly learned why.

His experience that day was horrific and maddening all at the same time.

He said the preacher was going through the Parable of the Seeds, a familiar story in which Jesus compares the gospel to seed and those who hear it as different types of soil in which the seed may or may not grow. But after a while, the message took an unexpected turn. The pastor started into a rant on homosexuality and associated it with some pretty stereotypical things. From this guy’s vantage point, the preacher saw all homosexuals as pedophiles and molesters, homeless, and progressives that are trying to brainwash our children. This association did not sit well with this guy because he himself is gay. But the situation only proceeded to get worse.

Afte rthe  rant went on for a bit, the crowd stood to its feet and roared with approval of what the preacher was saying. The blog writer said that there were over 1,000 people on their feet. And if the moment couldn’t get any worse for him, his own parents were joining the rest of the crowd in letting their approval be known. Can you imagine being this guy? Thinking you’re going to church to show your parents you love them, only to be blindsided by a thunderous disapproval and judgement of your lifestyle. He concludes the post by trying to acknowledge how far his parents have come in accepting him. But, as the reader, I found myself disgusted with his parents and this “church”.
His experience makes me realize something though. How often do we rank sins according to how bad we perceive them to be? White lies and stealing a pen from work? That’s at the bottom of the list. Substance abuse and extra-marital affairs? Well, those things are more acceptable and, if they come clean, we should love them and help them recover. Pornography, homosexuality, and murder? Well…they have the plague so we shouldn’t associate ourselves with them unless it’s on our terms. (Which typically means we offer a program or extend a handout to make ourselves feel better, or they turn from their ways and THEN we can accept them.) I know it’s a little extreme to associate a lifestyle choice and an addiction with murder. But that’s how it often comes across. Are you feeling the right hook in your kidneys yet?

Let’s be honest. All of us do this ranking of sin, it’s just that your list may look different from mine. But what we have forgotten is that sin is sin in God’s eyes. It’s all disobedience and rebellion against Him. And He is the only One who can forgive us of our sin and help us become new again, all through His chosen method of Jesus’ brutal death upon the cross. What we so easily forget is that our job is simply to be a reflection of Jesus to those around us regardless of who they are and what they’ve done. It’s hard to love the unlovable at times because what is unlovable to us is usually what makes us uncomfortable, or something we don’t understand. But we are all unlovable because of sin. It’s the common playing field we exist on. But Jesus loves us and we see it time after time after time in the Bible.

My church has seven core values and one of those is to embrace the un-embraced. It’s not just a clever saying, it is reality. Trust me, there are some jacked up people that come there and we are all in recovery. Drug addicts, divorced people, homosexuals, recovering Baptists, porn addicts, alcoholics, compulsive liars, co-dependents, people with PTSD, sex addicts…I could go on and on. The common theme is we are all hurting and broken people that are finding acceptance, healing, hope, and restoration in a community that is focused on living the gospel more and more. We aren’t perfect. It’s a place where it’s ok not to be ok…we just don’t want to stay there

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I’m thankful for this blogger’s willingness to share his experience. That must have been hard. But by putting himself out there, we are able to learn a valuable lesson. To embrace the unembraced, we must remain focused on living and sharing the transformative power of the gospel regardless of background, race, lifestyle choice, or anything else. Let’s allow Jesus to work on the roots of sin in each person’s heart (including our own), because He is the only One capable and qualified to do so.

Becoming a Praying Church

We have a vision at Ridge Church to shift from being a church that prays to become a praying church.

At first glance, this may sound like wordplay, but when you stop and really think about it, it’s a big vision that will take time to see come to pass. You see, there are a lot of churches that pray. After all, it’s sort of important to do in church, right? The pastors and leaders of the church always lead us in prayer a few times during the church gathering. It’s what we do. But just because a church prays doesn’t mean they have cultivated a culture of prayer. This topic has been at the forefront of every prayer team meeting we have had this year. (Hey Ridge Church—did you know that we have a prayer team???)

We have been able to make some strides this year that have helped foster a prayer culture at Ridge Church. We started a prayer team and began having team members serve as prayer partners at the end of our services. We have had specific times of focused prayer, either through our 21 days of prayer leading up to Easter, blog posts about prayer, a Ridge U class, or inclusion of corporate prayer times at the quarterly Nights of Worship we have done. Our goal has been to raise the awareness of prayer in our church body, which in turn elevates the importance we place upon it. And these efforts are starting to produce fruit.

One of the biggest developments has been the occurrence of spontaneous prayer on Sunday mornings. I have seen groups gather on the patio outside of church and lay hands on an individual who is going through a tough time. We have held corporate prayer times in our services where we are sending off a church planter or starting a new ministry and many from the church body surround and lay hands upon these individuals. And more and more people are coming down front to pray at the altar because of how God is moving within them during the services. These are the early signs that something is shifting in us. But there’s a need for more!

Jim Cymbala, author and pastor, says this about prayer…..

“Prayer cannot truly be taught by principles and seminars and symposium. It has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need. If I say, “I ought to pray,” I will soon run out of motivation and quit; the flesh is too strong. I have to be driven to pray.”

A desire to pray and a lifestyle of prayer is more caught than taught. It’s infectious, actually, and a breakout of a prayer culture leads to a breakout of revival. And that’s why we desire to become a praying church!

There’s a shift underway at Ridge Church. Have you noticed? More people are showing up each week, hearing and responding to the gospel, and surrendering control of their lives to Jesus. That’s evident in the number of baptisms we’ve celebrated recently. I sincerely believe it is all directly related to an increase in prayer because amazing things happen when God’s people seek him first and trust him with everything.

If you have a prayer request you would like submitted to the prayer team, or if you are interested in joining it, please email prayer@ridgechurchonline.com.

Whose opinion really matters?

I had an epiphany the other night. My small group from church was talking about the parable of the prodigal son and how we relate to each of the characters in the story. There’s the prodigal son who took his inheritance early and wasted it all on frivolous things and eventually swallowed his pride and returned home. And of course, there’s the father who welcomed his son home with open arms, celebrating the return of his wayward child. And the final character, the brother, is feeling left out, wondering why he did the right thing as he watched love being lavished upon his no good brother. As I saw myself in each one of these characters, a thought occurred to me. The prodigal son was able to return home because his father’s opinion mattered more to him than his brother’s. It’s a perspective shift that really has me thinking right now. Let me explain…

We have all done things in our life that we are ashamed of. The reason we push away from those that love us, including God, is because shame weighs so heavy on us that we fear rejection and judgment. This is especially true within the church, the one place we expect to be safe. I’ve heard many people over the years say that they don’t have a problem with Jesus, just his fan club. Ouch! I do have a problem with this comment for two reasons, though. First, it bothers me that church people have given church such a bad name because we can’t get over ourselves and our man made rules and religion to accept people for how they are. But I am also just as aggravated that we (I include myself in this) put so much emphasis on what other people think and do that we allow it to forever tarnish the image of God and the Church He chooses to use. This leads me back to the parable. Whose opinion really matters? The father’s (God) or the brother’s (God’s people)? If we honestly want to seek relationship with God, then shouldn’t His opinion be the only one that matters?

I remember one church I visited a few years ago during my divorce. The community group I attended was for singles and I was hoping to connect with other Christ-followers during a very trying time in my life. One Sunday that I happened to be out of town, there was apparently a very judgmental comment made about divorced people by a guy in his late 20’s that had never been married. When I caught wind of this, I was so ticked off I decided I was done with that church. How dare he cast judgment on me! He didn’t know my plight. Now four years later, I realize that my attitude was pretty pitiful as well. I was placing more importance on the opinions of the people in that group than upon God’s. I failed to remember that no church is perfect because people are involved in every single church body.

I’m not saying this is easy. God isn’t walking down the hall saying hi to me in physical form, but other people are. We all want to feel like we belong somewhere. I can say that, from experience however, until we care more about what God thinks than other people, we will never feel like we belong anywhere.

So ask yourself. Whose opinion really matters?

Church.

Yesterday I posted about organized religion and the misuse of God for the sake of power and wealth.  Today I want to take a glimpse at a troubling perspective towards the church that is growing.  It is a comment made in a conversation I had recently with a Christ-follower.  I don’t need church.

Let’s face it.  People today like or love Jesus, but aren’t to crazy about the church.  But is there a contradiction in this thought process?  The Bible says that the church is the body of Christ, so can a person say they love Jesus but don’t like the church, His body?  I understand the disdain for organized religion because it has left a trail of bodies behind its unChrist-like drive for bigger and better.  But let us be careful in associating the business with His body.

There is no doubt the image of Christianity in America needs an overhaul, and I believe it is happening.  It is going to need time, however, to change.  I look at a grassroots movement in Georgia like A Love Project that is simply about loving God, loving the community and loving the church.  They gathered over 50 trash bags filled with coats for those in need in their area last month and dubbed it A Warmth Project.  Beautiful.  There are movements of believers meeting in homes to study the Bible and learn more about God and His ways and what it means to truly be a disciple of Christ.  Efforts in our world to end injustices like poverty, hunger, lack of clean water, and the sex trade are spearheaded by Christ-followers driven by compassion and obedience to the word of God.  And there is a return to biblical teaching by a multitude of speakers, all dedicated to unpacking spiritual truth and showing the glory of Jesus through it all.

I have great hope for the church and I urge my brothers and sisters in Christ out there to not give up but to pray and seek God.  It’s no secret our world is in bad shape.  That is why it is time for the people of God to return to Him.  For when we do that, He promises to heal our land (2 Chronicles 7:14).