And sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it is not. We watched a movie last night, The Insider and a line in that movie was, "know what you're going to do before you do it and then do it."
Maybe maturity has to do with not saying what you feel like and I lack that, but that is me and that, more than anything is what this is about.
I am me. I am human and I have faults and I don't try to hide them. There is a biblical scripture that says even a fool seems wise with his mouth shut, or something to that effect...okay Ill post the exact reference for you freakin literalists.
Proverbs 17:28 (New International Version, ©2010)
28 Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent,
Thats I right I said freakin. Get over it. Sheesh.
I'm on a journey like everyone else and along the way, as I was taught to bash homosexuals and unbelievers, I was taught understanding and tolerance by the most beautiful human I know, my wife Anita.
And I've carried on many lengthy deep conversation with a great Atheist friend Dawn whom I adore and really appreciate. It stretches me.
I'm rebellious to the most casual observer and when I read George Barna's book, "Revolution", I was motivated, inspired and enthralled. I jumped on the band wagon and bashed the traditional denominational church. Thus was born the simple, the organic, the cell group type church. One that was described as more biblical.
Well time passed and folks like Neil Cole and Tony & Felicty Dale, and a whole host of others wrote books all about this church in your home biblical format. How to do it, etc.
Tony and Felicity are incredible and have sacrificed much to further this arena. Much has been written from both the legacy church perspective and from the simple/organic church side. There have been man made labels of course, like emerging church, emergent church, Missional and so on and so forth.
Initially it was wanting a more intimate experience with God. Who doesn't want that? And there was a lot of criticism of the traditional church. Many many point blank statements like, "in the absence of the Holy Spirit there are programs."
Okay okay, so that seemed to die away some and then we began to see some organization. Conferences, books books and more books galore, along with newsletters and.... it was beginning to look a lot like them spiritual conferences with big names in the arena for them to sell their wares, not unlike any other amway convention or electronics or anything else. How to do music, how to have kids involved, how to break bread, how to....
More and more ways, how to's. How to seek God, come together without an agenda, exercise your spiritual gifts etc etc etc.
Even Methods of talking to the lord daily. CO2's (church of two). LK10's (Luke 10-2 pray to the lord of the harvest...) the mantra of this movement along with acts 2:42 - they met in their homes and broke bread with glad hearts and .... their number grew daily.
Growing faith where life happens
Ya know, IF you're gonna be biblical, I mean you're moving toward literal, then
This grew into just plain biblical, leaving all other forms of church as wrong. Even heretical. Neil Cole even had the audacity to post a note and/or blog about the roman emporer Constantine being Satan's entry into the church as the institution was created and exists today, 1700 years later.
I was incredibly offended by his assertion and felt it completely disrespectful and uncalled for. If you want to get closer to God, then go in your closet and get close. STOP blasting any and all other manners of worship.
Hey, I'm guilty of all of it at one time or another. Neil is on a pedestal in this arena and should not in my opinion still be bashing the church.
So I confront him publicly on facebook, since his attack is public and he gets offended and calls me juvenile after accusing me of being a name caller, so I call him a hypocrite.
Whatever, Neil and no one else is the authority on God or the appropriate way to worship.
That is what gets to me more than anything else is when someone asserts their way is the right way or asserts to know the mind of God and what God wants. It sickens me. It makes me want to distance myself from those types and their methods as far as I can get.
Get over yourself!
Right, wrong? It's me, remember I said I'm human and have faults? There ya go.
I should get over me too.
I do see something in the simple/organic church happening. They're organizing like the traditional church, calling it networks which is incredibly similar to denominational districts. They getting paid staff and growing their budgets along the way as well. Some of the many things they initially and some still do, criticize the institutional/traditional/legacy churches of.
( I want to to loudly proclaim that Tony and Felicity Dale never bashed the church and as far as I know always referred to it as their brothers and sisters and asserted it to be a field ripe for harvest like every where else.)
I see groups claiming they gave away a million dollars over the course of seven years and this is how you too can do it!!!!, throwing that in the face of the traditional church.
I never recall Jesus or the Apostle Paul using quantities to laud anything they did for the kingdom.
So this leads me to social media and publicly approving or denouncing anything.
I'm involved in a ministry and we have a blog site for the ministry. This is the blog site for me.
I am Not the ministry. I want to be able to be me, faults and all and voice my opinion, whether in accordance with or in opposition to an agenda or person.
Much like a disclaimer at the bottom of the rolling screen in fine print or quickly spoken on the radio... in no way does this represent the opinion of the ministry or anything else that can be held against us etc...
So, be me and leave the social media scene or reign it in and lay low, "under Satan's radar screen," as my friend Ralph would say.
I think Ill go back to sites where one can openly debate and no one cares who you are. They're just glad you're there and when they're offended they get over it. They don't block you like Neil did me.
Here's my request to you Neil Cole, since you're not going to allow me to reply further, please delete my comments from the discussion on your page.
I had a blow out with Maurice Smith similarly over networking simple churches and the biblical references which also led into a discussion of his book, "All dogs go to heaven, don't they?" a book against Unitarianism. We no longer communicate.
There is one judge and in my opinion my great friend Jacq said it best, "none of us have a clue, but we can love God and love people."
I finally figured out what bothers me most in all of this. Its the apparent bullying. I grew up with a couple of bullies and I just won't tolerate it. When one group starts beating up on another group, I see it as bullying and something deep inside comes up and I can't contain it.
Namaste
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