Culture vs. the Church

     Why is the church declining in the 21st century instead of growing? Is the message of the gospel no longer relevant to today's society? These are both interesting questions that must be addressed for the church to continue with it's existence in this day and age. To be clear, the church may shrink but it will never go away. Jesus declared that, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18 ESV) As long as there believers who believe in an recognize the Son of God there will be a church. The issue then is the decline of those who recognize Jesus. Sure there are many who can identify Him as well as go to church but there is a decline in those who have had the revelation of who Jesus is by God.
     This decline has led to the decline of the church in the 21st century due to the culture of society being embraced by those who attempt to become a part of the church. The message of the gospel has never become irrelevant but it is those who try to be on both sides of the fence. To truly be the church one must let go of the influence of the culture to embrace the culture of the Kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul declared, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:1–2 ESV)
     For the church to maintain it's identity it is important for it to strive to change to where it reflects the nature of Christ and embrace Kingdom thinking. When this begins to take place, those who are part of the modern culture can see the message of the gospel in effect by the lives of those in the church being changed. That means that the gospel message is about transformation of our minds so that we can be a part of the Kingdom of God. As assimilation must take place for immigrants to fully integrate into a new country assimilation must also take place for Christians to be the church. The church will always stand and the gospel message will always be relevant. The question is will the church fully assimilate into the Kingdom of God or will it continue to straddle the fence?

Real Faith

What is faith? Most look at faith as believing God for a desired outcome to a problem or for something you want. This is the farthest thing from the truth. Faith is simply believing that God exist and that you trust and rely on Him to do what He said. Life was never promised to be one of pure comfort but it has some adversity mixed in. Learning to trust and rely on God in all situations is a challenging thing to do but if you are willing to take the challenge, you will not disappointed. First, you must know what God said in order to take Him at His word.

Going Against the Grain

I have made an awesome discovery about myself which has turned my world upside down and as a result brought some much needed joy in my life. Although my situation has not changed, my perspective has and now I see the potential for things to change. I am a big supporter of education/training and because of that I have sought after it. I have graduated from college, attended conferences and read many books trying to learn as much as I can. With that being said, I know that I am very prepared and I also have what it takes to do ministry. I had an epiphany recently where I was able to see that I thought I was doing what God told me what to do but instead I was doing things man's way. So as a result, I had limited to no success and lots of frustration as fruit of my labor.

I am currently on a mission of riding my bike around Sanford, FL going to every neighborhood while documenting it on camera. You happen to see more things and are more in touch with your surroundings when you are on a bike versus being in a car. I was riding through the Goldsboro neighborhood, which is predominantly black, when I was approached by a female crackhead who wanted me to buy sex from her. I kindly declined but at the same time was in shock because I have never had that happen to me. I had also never seen that in Sanford before. While on another ride with my wife going back home we saw a large male standing over a lady with a knife in his hands getting ready to stab her. My wife passed to safety and I stopped to intervene. A man also came out of the house this was happening in front of at the same time and we worked together to distract the guy. A man who passed in a truck stopped and assisted as well. It turns out that the guy was a 15 year old boy and the lady was his mother. I found out that the boy had mental health issues but had never done this before. I am glad I was obedient to God.

I have discovered that I have to find my own voice and discover my own path instead of following the blueprint of success that most follow. It has not worked for me and every since I have things are very different. God wants us to follow His guidance so that while we partner with Him to accomplish His will and purposes on the Earth, God gets the glory. So my bike riding/fund raising campaign will be call, "His glory, His vision, His Glory." I have always had the desire to do ministry in a new and different way. So my goal is to set out to create a super church. So what will set it apart and make it super is not only being heavy with teaching and evangelism but heavy in service to the city. Mega churches focus on getting members and growing the congregation. So I have learned that if God shows me to something to do I need to do it regardless of how crazy it seems.

From Delusion to Faith

     In my last blog I wrote about being full of faith or being delusional and how my faith journey with God has taken me down a very interesting road. I find it funny that after 20 years in ministry and a couple of failed church plants the Lord has me at that cross roads again. As I mentioned in my previous post, The First Presbyterian Church here closed after 138 years and is now selling their property. After stumbling upon the property being advertised for sale online visions of ministry began to fill my imagination.  I shared the information with my wife and she thought it was interesting but shared with me her doubts because of the other ministry failures we have experienced. I talked with a very dear friend of mine, who is doing ministry work in Norway, and as he saw the property online he became excited and began to see what I saw. I told him that I was tempted to call the realtor so that I could see  the inside of the property and encouraged me to do so. Before I contacted the realtor, my wife and I went to the property and walked around it and prayed and ask God if we could have it and if not that whoever bought it would be blessed there to do awesome ministry. My friend then made an unexpected trip here to Florida where I was able to show him the property and we prayed again. I was finally able to get an appointment to see the property and I was so amazed because of the office space, classrooms, conference rooms, etc. The only drawback is the sanctuary needs a new roof, electrical work and the restrooms need to be modified to accommodate the disabled.

     As my wife and I walked through the facilities I could literally see us there. I saw our church operating a daycare, starting a school, assisting people to find employment, youth ministry and community outreach as well as many other services.  When we walked through the sanctuary and I stood in the pulpit I could see people filling the seats and me preaching the Word of God. Afterwards we prayed again. That day my wife caught the same vision that I had. We still have the same issue which is no people and no money. During one of conversations my wife said something to me that struck a nerve. She said, "You have an awesome message and you are definitely called by God but nobody knows who you are." After she said that I realized that she was really telling the truth. So after that conversation I went to the Lord in prayer about that and he led me to join the NAACP and also meet with the city manager. I emailed the city manager and asked him this question, "We are starting a new church and how can we help the city?" He responded back within a few minutes and asked if we could meet. My wife and I went to city hall where we met with the city manager and the Community Engagement Director and shared our vision. One thing the city manager said was that he was surprised we asked how we could help instead of asking for the city to help us. The meeting was very beneficial because they were able to give us the contact information to people we can reach out to for collaboration.

     The question is still, how will we buy this property? I have never asked people for money before nor have I ever tried to do any type of fund raising. I knew that this had to be God because out of the blue I came across crowd sourcing websites and I saw how they used videos to help them reach their goals. We don't have the money to hire a professional to film and edited a good video but then it hit me. My youngest daughter likes to create and edit videos for fun plus she does such a great job at it. So I have recruited her to produce, direct and edit this video for us. I then had to come up with an interesting idea for this video and it came to me. I recently took up biking for exercise and fun. I like to go on bike rides on the local bike trails and I eventually want to do a long distance bike tour. So my idea is to  record me doing a bike tour of the city and showcase the areas we want to work in and end the video at the church property we want to buy and base the church out of. We are going to start production this week and I am so excited. I have also started a men's ministry where I am meeting with a young man on Saturday's which is probably doing more for me than it is for him. I am looking so forward to seeing what God is going to do especially since I feel like I am in over my head.

Is It Faith Or Is It Delusion

The last few years have really been difficult for me spiritually. At no time have I ever stopped believing in God or loving Him but I have had my faith severely shaken. I know that I have been called to ministry and that God has given me the gift to preach as well as a passion for people. In the year 2000 the Lord even gave me a vision of starting a church along with the name but I knew it was not time. During that time period I suffered extreme loss in my life with the death of my mother and the end of my new marriage all in the same year. This took such a toll on me  that it affected my performance as a teacher and I ended up resigning. I spent time in the scriptures, prayer and reading lots of books. I got very close to the Lord and He opened the door to meet the woman who would become my new wife.

I have always served underneath pastors making sure to learn as much as I could trying to make sure I stayed in my lane. Even after I got ordained I continued to learn and serve until I felt the Lord say it was time to move on. I attempted to start a church but it failed and figured it was not the right time. In 2006 I started a new job and met a co-worker who was a christian and we connected right away. She and I talked about meeting each others spouses and we ended up starting a home bible study that began to grow. I felt it was the Lord leading us to try to start church again but it once again failed. My family and I joined a church once again and served faithfully until I sent my resume in for an open pastor position. A seasoned pastor and missionary took me underneath his wing and let me know he saw the potential in me and recognized God's call on my life and emphasized to me that I needed to be in ministry.

The church where I submitted my resume called me as their pastor and my job was to revitalized the church because of decline. I felt like I was tailored made for this situation and God put me there but in the end it failed. So here I am with all of these failures in trying to do ministry and my faith extremely shaken up. After the last experience I decided that I would no longer seek to start a church but to focus on my family and doing ministry in other ways. In July 2013 my gallbladder failed and had to be removed and in January 2014 my stomach began hurting really bad and I had to have my appendix removed. I ended up having complications from the surgery by developing a small bowel obstruction and also getting a bad case of c-diff, which almost killed me. At the end of it all I spent almost a month in the hospital and lost about twenty-five pounds. I was still having extreme pain and my doctor kept insisting it was adhesions but I knew it was more. My medical leave was up and my doctor would not extend it and before I could get a second opinion I either had to go back to work or resign. I was still sick so I trusted the Lord and resigned. I went to another doctor and found out I had another bacterial infection called campylobacteriosis.

At this point, I found myself being really insecure in my faith. I could understand why God was doing amazing things in my friends and peers lives but I couldn't get off the ground. Now I am at home and fully recovered but having a difficult time finding a job but God is still providing. Our landlord informed me of his intent to sell the house we are renting within a year and our only vehicle is not working. In the middle of all of that I find out that the First Presbyterian Church in our city has shut down after 138 years and their property is for sale. I see pictures of the property online and my imagination goes wild! All I see is ministry happening in there and me leading it. The only problem is I don't have $850,000 and I don't have any people. Is this faith or is it delusion? I am wondering is this me trying to conjure this up or is God trying to stretch my faith? Either which way I have no clue as what to do and I certainly don't want to fail again.

Change Must Come and Will Come

What is very alarming is that American citizens as a whole are losing their humanity.  It is a shame when you believe more in a man made idea rather than the dignity of human life.  Change must come and will come.  There are those who are intent on preserving the fabric of our nation but have failed to see in our complacency it has all ready been lost.  We lack true leaders who actually have the ability to lead the nation, corporations and schools.  We lack original thinkers who are able to create new and fresh ideas but instead we are stuck with ones who only know how to retread the worn out ones.  The result is a country of people focused more on me, my four and no more instead of the collective whole.  Once again change must come and will come but when change is not initiated and all become comfortable with the status quo once change comes it will be extremely uncomfortable catching all off guard.

How Low Can You Go!

What can be confusing is when you go to a construction sight for a tall building and you see them digging deeper into the ground. The reason they have to dig a deep hole is that the taller the building the deeper the foundation has to go. In order to be successful in our own lives we must be willing to go deeper in building our foundation of character and integrity so that we can go higher. Humility is willingly lowering ourselves to lift someone else where pride is the lifting oneself higher at the expense of others. In the game limbo the person who can go the lowest wins. So how low can you go? Jas 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.