Here We Go...

Ok, so here’s the deal…I’ve been wanting to blog about some ideas/thoughts I’ve had about church/the Body/service/leadership/etc. for a little while now. I’m sure my transition back to America has had something to do with this, but really it goes back farther than that.

God taught me a lot about church – what it is, why it is, what it isn’t, what we make of it, and what it could be – while I was overseas. A lot of my time was spent teaching/guiding young believers in the area of church. Now, I’m really not qualified to do this, and if I had been doing it on my own or using my own ideas, I would have just messed it up. What we did, instead, was look at what Jesus said about church, how the early church started, and what the early church was about. Jesus and the disciples gave us a solid example of what the church should be, and while “culture has changed” and “things are different now,” God is unchanging and perfect. So is His Word. So we can still look back to the first Christian church and learn from them.

What’s going to follow (hopefully in several blogs) is my views/opinions/suggestions/challenges. My initial goal is just to get this out and on paper (or the internet equivalent), and by posting it for people to read, I have a stronger push to actually do it. I’d also like to hear other opinions/suggestions/criticism of my thoughts. A lot of what I write is mainly a challenge to myself to do what I think the Bible says we should do, because even if I think huge changes need to occur, if I’m not willing to change, why should I expect anyone else to.

This is not meant to be a criticism of church or specific people in the church. This is not meant to be me airing my frustrations. If it begins to sound like that, please call me on it.

Finally, I never claim to understand the Word completely or understand how to apply is perfectly. Some things I say may be wrong. Don’t read it as me saying, “This is what I think and I’m right.” All I want to do is look at Scripture and talk about what I think its application looks like today. I’ll do my best to type the Scripture I reference or at least give you the reference so you can read on your own and let me know what you think. The entries probably won’t be in much of an order – because this is a blog not a book, but they will hopefully have a flow within each entry.

I’d love to get lots of opinions on this so feel free to pass it along to others. You can comment on my blog or link to yours and write up your own deal. This could be kinda cool if we get discussion going. If nothing else, at least I’ll get my thoughts out and maybe my head will feel less crowded.