chasing natalie

New church experience

It was great. The worship was beautiful and interactive, the message was creative and inspired. The service programming was smooth and the environments were warm and welcoming.

Service starts out with a couple of lively worship songs for the whole family and the kids are prayed over and they go into their own service in a huge gym for games, small group and then communion.

In the main services the body is lively and totally engaged in the message and in worship. Communion happens near the end.

The large lobby was beautifully decorated and it had a nice little bookstore.

The volunteer staff was friendly and helpful. They had all the usual pamphlets and bulletins you’d expect, but what I appreciated was the relaxed atmosphere, no hard selling of events or too long awkward greetings.

All in all it was a wonderful experience.

The whole time I just kept thanking God for bringing me there. He was faithful to answer my prayers and I felt His enduring love in everything they did.

Thank you northwest foursquare for a wonderful Sunday!

Blogging etiquette

Have you ever felt like you wanted to blog about something so bad but you weren’t sure how to approach the subject? How it would make others feel? How it would make you look in the eyes of the blogosphere?

About right now you’re thinking, who the heck cares, just spit it out woman! :)

How much of a happy face are we obligated to put on in our tweets and in our posts?

How deep can we get with the total strangers that read these pages?

I just wonder how many peeps and tweets out there struggle with issues they feel no one else will understand?

I’m pretty introverted so the chances of me opening up in this medium is unlikely, but I was wondering if there was anyone else out there that felt like they wanted to get something off their chest, but just wasn’t sure how to go about doing it safely…

If there is, just know my thoughts are with you, you’re not alone, and one day maybe it will feel safe to open up in tweets and posts about stuff that’s really bothering us the most.

Do answered prayers = added responsibility?

I was thinking today about a prayer I asked God to answer a long time ago. He answered it in amazing ways and I’ll forever be grateful.

But I wonder if sometimes those answered prayers come with added responsibility?

I had just gotten off the phone with a family member that God stepped in a long time ago to heal my relationship with.

The conversation didn’t go smoothly and when it ended, I had this thought… God answered my prayer years ago to bring peace in that relationship, and it’s up to me if I choose to maintain that blessing or cast it aside and lose it.

Thankfully I think the Holy Spirit stepped in and I decided to not take that blessing for granted and take responsibility to maintain that gift of peace God gave me. But it did make me start to wonder if added responsibility came with all answered prayers?

What other answered prayers have I taken for granted and let fall by the wayside without a second thought as to what God may be hoping from me or expecting from me?

I was thinking about all the avenues of life and our responsibility in each of those areas.

For instance, what if a person who owned a company prayed to God for good and faithful employees and God decided to answer their prayers by you working there?

Maybe you thought it was all about God answering your prayers, maybe He was answering both, now do both of those individuals have an obligation to God to live up to His expectations of a good employer and a good employee?

And what about the parent who prays to God for a child of their own or for a chance to be a parent to a child they’ve been separated from?

Are there added expectations if that prayer is answered to be the best possible parent you can be to show your gratitude to God for answering that prayer? I think so.

I’m not talking about life or death prayers, somehow it doesn’t seem like God’s character to expect something extraordinary from someone who prayers a heartfelt prayer for the life of someone to be spared.

It just seems like there’s lots of opportunity in our busy days to take all of our answered prayers for granted and never do anything extraordinary or even ordinary to show God how grateful we are for His faithfulness.

I think I’m going to look around at my life over the next couple of days and try and see the extraordinary blessings that surround me and try and show a little more gratitude. Maybe I can do that through humility or generosity or patience. I’m not sure yet, but I’ll know it when I see it and I’ll try to do something extraordinary to say thank you God for hearing my prayer and answering it!

What do you think? Does God bless us with answered prayers expecting nothing in return? Or do you think it’s up to us to show our gratitude through faithfulness, random acts of kindness and wholeheartedly trying to share our blessing with others less fortunate?

Or is it both?

God bless laywers

I seem to be getting a lot of blogging inspiration from the radio lately.

I heard a story this morning about two seminary students praying outside of a strip club in downtown Detroit.

Basically, it was just two kids praying, that’s all, no protesting, no screaming or yelling, just quietly praying. It was bothering the patrons and the dancers and the club owner so much, they called the police.

The police came and told the seminarians they had to leave the premises, the owner of the property doesn’t want them there.

So… the seminarians wrote to an attorney and the attorney started a letter writing campaign with the city to try and enable the seminarians to do their prayer vigil without harrasement from the police.

In the meantime the seminarians are back at school and more of their fellow classmates are getting excited about what they’re doing and decide to join them.

The attorney is able to secure a letter from the City of Detroit that states the semanarians are able to pray whereever they want without the threat of harrasement by the police.

Now there are 12 students praying outside the strip club and once again the owner calls the police. The police officer tells the students to leave and they show him the letter they have from the City that states they have the right to pray here.

The police officer then goes to the club owner, and says the kids have a right to be here and leave them alone.

What a blessing that the attorney they contacted was able to secure that right for them to pray there.

Tagged: Godblessattorneysseminarystudentsstrip clubpolicedetroitmichigan

an intimate relationship

I was listening to the radio this morning and the DJs were talking about that governor in SC that had an affair in Argentina. They brought on the resident “therapist” and he had this to say… when there are problems in a relationship the first thing to go is the intimacy, then affection and then communication. And once all those things are gone, you’re in a lot of trouble.

I thought that was very interesting.

I started thinking about a friend of mine who is struggling in thier marriage because of a lack of intimacy.

Then I starting thinking about all the times I’ve heard in church how God wants to have an intimate relationship with us.

I’ve heard that, but honestly I’ve never really spent much time thinking about it or even really understanding it.

I thought about talking to my friend and letting them know that the hurt they are feeling in their marriage is an example of the hurt God feels when there’s no intimacy in our relationship with Him.

All that to say, it just really got me thinking about what it means to have an intimate relationship with God. Like I was saying, I’ve heard in church that is what He wants. But what does that really look like?

Here’s what I came up with: Being faithful, being there, listening, sharing, needing, trust, constant communication, submission, selflessness, etc.

I also started thinking about how it must be true that God wants to have an intimate relationship with us because of what Paul wrote about staying single.

How it’s better to be single so that all your attention can be on God and not your spouse. Wow! That’s saying a lot. Paul went on to say that if you have to get married, go ahead, but it’s better to focus on the Lord’s work instead of pleasing your spouse.

Don’t despair if you are married, I think it means He wants to be right there with the two of you. Okay, honestly I have no idea what it means if you’re married, but maybe it’s about making sure God comes first before every conversation or decision.

I don’t know if I’m going to talk to my friend about the “intimacy” factor or not, if I do, I hope I choose my words carefully.

Is it hard to have an intimate relationship with God?

Tagged: GodIntimacy

church plant

Last night I was taking my daughter shopping to spend some of her birthday money and as I was waiting for her to come out of the dressing room my mind started to wander and I started thinking about missions in far away countries. I have no idea why I was thinking about that… then I started thinking how weird it is where your heart leads your head sometimes…

So this morning I was lying in bed, trying to get motivated to get up and start my day, all of a sudden two words just popped in to my head. Church Plant. What?

Yeah, I guess that would be kind of cool if I knew some people who were trying to get a church going in my area. I could definitely try and help out, sure… and I left it at that. Maybe I would even try and do some searches and see if I can find any church planters closer to home…

Then on my way to work this morning I started thinking about even more weird thoughts… like what would this world be like with no sin. What would the church look like? What would the messages be like?

Then I started thinking about the Bible. How it’s kind of a manual for how to live a Godly life in a fallen world. But knowing that it is so much more than just that…

So the more I thought about this world and the church and the Bible and Jesus, I started to think that the very reasons why Jesus had to come to earth are the same reasons the church is here now.

As much as I would like to imagine a world with no sin, I also know that while we’re all here on earth, that is never going to happen. And since that is a cold hard truth, there are some other truths that come along with that. Jesus had to come to seek and save the lost. Luke 19:10

So now back to the church. Since we all know we’ll not see a world without sin in our earthly lifetime, what is the purpose of the church? Is it to be like a hospital for the lost? A place for people far from God to get help and be saved?

How much is the church being like Jesus? How much time are we spending with the lost? Are we making it easy for the lost to find us?

I know there are tons of books and blogs and conferences and whatever on this subject, I just feel that I could read all of them and probably still not get any closer to an answer.

It seems like we’re making some progress… but it also seems like there’s still so much that can be done to seek and save.

The role I’ve played in the past, the role I play now seems so small it’s almost insignificant in my own eyes.

So I’m back to those two words that came to me this morning that I don’t really know what to do with, but maybe God will show me…

Tagged: church plant