Where Do We Go From Here?

Direction is sometimes the most difficult thing in life to discern.  It often times seems that we are forced to take a direction based on the needs or wants of other people.  Actually, it’s a somewhat rare person that takes a certain direction because of their own wants.  This make the whole thing of "Where Are We Going" a tough conversation.  Everyone has input as to where you should go.

It’s always good to talk about where we are going as a church.  What is our direction?  What is the game plan?  I thought I would take a little time to just layout what’s happening now and where we are going.  If you’ve been at one of the worship gatherings over the past few weeks you know that we are talking about our CORE VALUES.  These are the 4 things that we consider to be the basis of our ministry and extremely important in our personal lives.  The 4 Core Values are:  Worship, Teaching, Ministry, and Community.  There are lots of churches out there with different focus points.  Many have 5.  Some have more.  Some have less. These are the things that we have established for NETChurch, though.  We will continue studying these different values over the next 4-6 weeks.  Each one has an important role in our lives.

What we are leading towards till the end of the year the basis of our House Church launch.  For those of you that don’t know what that is I will explain.  These are small groups of people (usually between 8-12) that meet in homes on a regular basis to discuss, minister to each other, and help build strength within our lives as Christians. It’s a place of comfort and safety where we can ask questions freely and find out what others in our community think.   This is where friendships are made.  We will be discussing these groups and what role they will play in our lives over the next couple of months.  I think that you will find that this will fill in alot of missing links for all of us.

Where are we going?  Forward.  Into the abyss.  Into the area where we can only grow and not sit still.

Hopefully you are looking forward with us!

Jim

One month ago my wife’s mother passed away suddenly.  It was a shock to our whole family, but it was the biggest change for my brother in law, Jim.  Jim Kirkland has lived in Houston for the past 41 years.  Grew up there, has all of his friends there, and has always been taken care of by my mother in law.  Jim has Muscular Dystrophy and spends all of his time either in a wheelchair being moved around by someone else or lying in an iron lung in his bedroom.  This past week, after Jim had been ill for a couple of weeks, he got into some trouble breathing while in his wheelchair.  His breathing stopped and eventually his heart.  Paramedics were able to get his heart restarted, but Jim did not recover.  He passed away in the hospital with his family there after the decision was made to pull his ventilator and let him go.

This has been the toughest time I believe I have ever had in my life.  It’s even harder still for my wife.  She has lost her mother and her brother who she loves very much.  We have been up and down, torn apart and put back together so many times over the past 30 days that sometimes I truly believe that we don’t know up from down.  The feelings that you go through are not something that you can explain to anyone else.  Most of the people around us have understood that.  I’ve heard "I have no idea what to say" so many times.  Don’t worry.  We don’t know what to say, either.

The thing about Jim’s passing that probably gets me the most is that he was one of the greatest fighters I have ever known.  Not in the ring.  In life.  Jim’s disease left him unable to move any of his body parts, except for his eyes and mouth.  He couldn’t run, move around, do what he wanted to do without asking someone to help him.  He lived on a liquid diet for the last I don’t know how many years.  He couldn’t even change the channel on the tv if he didn’t like what was on.  He watched that tv upside down on a mirror because he was lying on his back in the iron lung.  He couldn’t type his own emails.  He had to have someone turn the pages if he was reading a book.

What amazed me about him was that you never heard him complain.  He always understood what was best and didn’t say that life gave him the short end of the stick.  He cherished every moment of life.  He was the strongest man I have ever known.  Jim was the example of true courage that we all need to follow.

Tonight I want to tell everyone thank you for being there for us.  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers and all of the support you have given me, my wife, and our family.  Most of all, though, I want you to cherish every moment that you have in life.  Jim knew that any day could be his last.  Now we don’t get to share our time with him.  Life is not to be taken for granted.  It is to be loved and cultivated so that it grows with every waking moment.

We so miss you, Jim.  I pray that God holds you in His arms each day in the way that we never could.  This world will never be the same without you.

Blogging for Change

I’m fascinated by what we’ve started.  This isn’t a church so much as it’s a quest.  It’s like we’re a group of people who all came together from different directions, backgrounds, and experiences who are pursuing an unknown goal together.  We know basically where we want to go.  We know the end results that we want to see.  It’s just that every day is a whole new experience.  We learn a little more about what we are and what we need to do with every turning of a corner.  It’s really cool to be a part of and yet it’s scary just the same.  I balance that thought that we are out of control with the understanding that we might be charting unknown territory.

It’s interesting to see how we react to new things.   I’m finding that no matter what we believe about ourselves we are all still human beings with natural tendencies.  One of them is to grasp on to what we know as comfortable when new things come along that we are not used to.  As we look at what we want to do with a worship gathering I have to keep myself from falling into the normal rut of worship style and expand my thinking to new ways that I’ve never really considered worship before.  How do you really help people experience worship?  How do you get to the point of worshipping not just by attendance but with your heart, mind, soul, and body?  It’s not easy to change what you’ve been taught.  Bob Gomez of The Father’s House (a house church movement here in the Corpus area) talks about how they have gone through all of the evolutions of models where they started one way and have slowly changed their thoughts and directions as they peeled off layers of things that they have learned over the years.  I feel like we are doing the same thing, it’s just a really tough road to go down.  We’re comfortable with what we know and sometimes a little scared to try something that is untested.

Maybe we will all be able to embrace the unknown.  Perhaps we can reshape the future by studying the past and taking the great things and making them even better as we peel off the things truly not of God.  When you start doing this you not only strip the layers that have to do with church.  You also start stripping the layers of yourself that are unhealthy.   And the whole time what you are pursuing is wholeness.

May we all embrace wholeness and the pursuit that will take us into the unknown areas of our lives and this thing that we call church.  May our lives be enriched by the journey and the glory that is truly God start to shine brighter than we could ever imagine because of our willingness to search for honesty in our relationship.  That prayer should be the goal of everything that we do.

Katrina Evacuees

Around 70 people from New Orleans were brought to Portland this week from Corpus to be housed at TM Clark school.  I got the opportunity to be there with them as they came in, to talk to them, and got to know some of them very quickly.  They are wonderful people. They were very grateful for the help and concern that everyone has for them.  That was on Tuesday.  Today they were moved out of Portland to another shelter.  The city was needing to consolidate everyone.

I really feel for these people.  Some of them that I talked to had been living on a bridge on I10 for 3-4 days.  Others were rescued from their houses.  The stories were amazing.  There was one family of over 30 people that had come in and there were still members that they didn’t know where they were.  They also told me that many of them had been moved to 4 different shelters.  I just hate that they had to be moved again, you know?  I’m not taking any shot at our city government or the people in charge.  Considering the situation I think everyone has done a great job trying to help as many people as possible and the outpouring from the community has been great.  I just feel for them because they want to settle down now.  They wanted a church to go to on Sunday.  They want their kids in a school.  It’s got to be the hardest thing anyone can imagine.

I’m not sure what I would do in that situation.  I don’t know what any of us would do.  It sure does make our problems seem awful small though.  Right now my little complaints or irritations just don’t seem that important compared to losing everything.

If anyone who was displaced reads this or hears of it let me tell you one thing:  We are praying for you and your families.  We might not know what to do all of the time.  We don’t know how to replace your lives for you.  We don’t have all the answers.  We are lifting your life up before God and asking Him to take care of all your needs.

Hopefully we will be there when you actually need us most.

Forgiveness

Ever had one of those times that you tried to say something that is very profound in your life but it doesn’t come across the way you would like?  I have.  Actually, I’ve had it many times.   I had one recently, though, that needs to be addressed.

Within the past month or so I wrote a blog entry referring to a friend I have and his ministry. There were things within this story that I believed to be valuable to the church on the whole.  My belief is that we can sometimes learn from things that often times look right or sound right on the surface, but have some underlying issues that are hard to distinguish.  This was one of those issues.

As I write entries in this blog I become a "life reporter" of sorts.  A person that is here to give you a dialog of what is happening in this world I live in and the people who affect it.  That’s what makes this format honest.   I believe there is a need for more of that honesty.  We could eliminate alot of conflict in this world if each of us could just try to be honest about who we are and what we actually believe.  There’s no need to read between the lines with me.  What you see in front of you is actually who I am.  When I say something I actually mean it.  I wish I saw that practiced more often in this world and especially in the church where honesty should be cherished, not hidden.

Thus, I find myself at a moment of honesty.  My desire as a Christian is to build up the family that is the body of Christ.  To open our eyes to the things that we could avoid and help others understand that there are some issues that we have built up over the past couple of hundred years that may not be the healthiest in the world.  I hope to see not only NETChurch but every church that comes in contact with us change the way that church has been done so that we will REACH more people who actually need Christ instead of making them believe that we are the hypocrites and small minded people that they say we are. 

If I want the world to be honest then I need to be the one to start.  If I have hurt people by the statements and observations that I’ve made then I truly apologize.  I was not intending to hurt anyone.  My intention is not to create a rift within the church but actually to unite.  Do I believe in my views?  Yes.  I do.  I carry a very large banner for reformation within this wonderful body of believers that we call the church.  I do believe that we all need some change and even some times of introspective observation that makes us question who we are and who we are following.  Why?  Because I believe that I need that myself.  I have made decisions that were improper and poor within my ministry and hope that others can learn from my personal mistakes.  Everything I write about I have either experienced from one of the two sides of the issue.  I point the finger at myself long before I would at anyone else.

That said….. I hope that there is forgiveness available from those with a hurt spirit.  My words are not intended to hurt you.  They are intended to help us all.  I will continue to carry the banner higher and higher as I hope to see us all open our eyes to Christ’s intentions for this church.

Will I still speak freely?  Yes!

Will I bring up uncomfortable issues?  Absolutely!!

Will I challenge those who minister to this world to a new and higher standard?  Every time!

Some of you are wondering what I’m talking about.  It’s good enough for you to know my heart.   If you see it you will know that I’m not here to hurt people, but to enlighten them.  I think a little light on some hidden subjects is probably what we need.  Christ spent most of His time here doing just that.  Those are the footsteps I will follow.

Please don’t use this format as a place to prove prejudice or division of any kind.  This is a place of unity.  This blog is my heart in type for all to see.  Whether folks like what they see or not I will not be able to change.  I must speak the truth as I know it.    If it’s not what you agree with then you might move on and you can just say that it’s my opinion.

I just consider it to be a pretty good opinion, though

Why NETChurch?

I’ve been asked by quite a few people about our name.  NETChurch.  Why NETChurch?   Is it because you are meeting in an "Internet Cafe"?  If so, what happens if you outgrow that place?  Will you change the name?  Are you an "internet church" where people go online to attend?  Why aren’t you First Fellowship Community Church of the Agape Family???????? (there are definitely certain words that I feel are overused.  You can pick your own…..)

For all of you trivia buffs, and for those who aren’t but are relatively offended by our name, let me explain.  A net is an interconnecting puzzle with a much bigger purpose than any small part.  Put into plain terms:  We are a part of one really big network of believers.  It’s not about us.  It’s about Him and what He’s doing in all of us.  None of us are so important that our face needs to be on a billboard inviting you to our church.  None of us are so great that we need to have our name on the marquee outside the massive building that we’ve built (which we haven’t, so don’t freak out).  We are all one part of this huge flood of people who want to pursue the same journey.  Because of that journey we are connected.  Like a net.  One of us is insignificant.  Many of us are a movement.  A revolution.

The internet, a fishing net, a network.  All of these things have something in common.  It takes alot of small things (sites, strings, computers, etc.) to make them effective.  Just the same, it takes all of us who want to take the journey together to make NETChurch.  All of us are connected together by a common thread.

Pretty cool, huh?