Our Responsibility

For much of my adult life, I have had a pretty skewed view of the Church. 

What I mean by that is, if we are speaking plainly, I have blamed the Church for my lack of passion, my lack of tingly feelings in worship, my lack of excitement about studying the Bible, and most of all, my EXTREME LACK of prayer. 

Let me allow you literary folks to recover from that painful gesture of throwing out the proper grammatical dictation manual. 

The problem here, as obvious as it may be, is that each of my noted "problems", are not my Church's responsibility. They are mine! 

DUH! Right?

But, not so duh. 

The truth is, some Church's seem to be better facilitators of this kind of behavior, while some are not. 

The truth is, that if the American Church prayed and read their Bible as much as we claim to, the WORLD would look different. 

It is as if a veil has been placed over our faces. We have become blind to what our role in the body is. 

The truth is, we are in a culture of expecting a performance, instead of a revelation. 

We expect entertainment over an encounter. 

We expect to be given the answers to use, instead of studying and deciding for ourselves. 

But all is not lost! If you are reading, there is HOPE!

I have boasted about the incredible church that we are a part of before. I apologize, but I just can't help it. 

If only the whole American Church could pick up what CHURCH ON THE STREET is laying down. 

When a group of believers get together, love each other, hold up their part of prayer, study, and practice, the world can't help but change around them. 

We must pull this veil off of our faces! We have been deceived into looking for entertaining self help seminars every Sunday, with a little rock music at the beginning and end. Oh how the devil has tried his best to ruin it all, by using us to do the work of it! 

Satan's natural state is defeated! That is his identity. 

 Victory is in Jesus!

Victory is in the Word!

Demons flinch when you say the name of Jesus!

Lives are redeemed by His Holy Name! 

If we would just do what we are commanded to do, how different would our families be? Our communities? Our country? The world?

You are a part of the big picture. 

It starts IN YOU. 

Snapshot: New Years Day

We find ourselves in such an amazingly different place here and now.

2014 Could be best described as a year of great transition. Not only geographically, but spiritually, which has been both exciting and terrifying. What started off as gray, still, and stagnant water, has turned into a River, all surroundings coming alive, and a new calling to the people we were made to be deep inside us.

As we explore and focus on what comes next, where God has put us, and what exactly he is telling us to do; we have found a body of believers that truly challenges us to be better people. Not by great conversation only, but by again, and again, being great examples of who and what the church has been called to be, since Jesus ascended into the sky, and the first author's ink touched paper.

We look forward to more growth this year. With a new child on the way, we are bracing for all a new child brings, ready to welcome them with open arms into this crazy brood we call our family. We look forward to diving deeper into our new community of believers, and cultivating new friendships.

We are looking forward to making this place more our home. Shanon and I both feel that this house will be ours for quite some time, so we have decided to act as such.

We are looking forward to roots. Where we are.

We are looking forward.