The Relationship Tornado

I write off and on for a local newspaper (Pathways Christian Paper) that is published by some friends of ours. Tonight I wrote this article after praying for the last few weeks and seeing the pain of a friend and her family.

Affair: The Relationship Tornado

One of my favorite lines in a song is “I followed my heart, but it lies! It lies!” Over the last few weeks I’ve been praying for someone in our church who’s spouse had an affair. Affairs are like family tornados. They destroy everything, hurting the innocent, and leaving the landscape looking completely different.

In virtually every case, the spouse that enters into the affair doesn’t set out to destroy their family it just sort of happens. People allow a look to become a flirt, and a flirt to become a conversation, and a conversation to become a connection, that connection becomes a tangled web that is virtually impossible to break free from without destroying a family, and quite often more than one family. I’ve seen so much devastation over the years come from good people who made a choice to entertain the company of someone other than their spouse. It never ends well.

Pastor Rick Warren has a saying “the grass is greenest over the septic tank for a reason”. Sometimes, we forget that what looks good from a distance really smells pretty bad if you spend enough time lying in it. Don’t follow your heart, or giddy school boy or girl crush. Follow God and his word, our hearts will lie, he never will.

Just some thoughts

So I am sitting home this Friday evening and pondering a few thoughts...

• A few weeks ago I was approached by someone (with a good heart and positive motives) asking why we don't have a more formal program to go after people who have left or are on the verge of leaving the church. This person rattled off a few names of people that are no longer at our church. It's a good question and I've been tempted to think, OK...they're right, we need a program to make sure we aren't letting people slip away. Tonight, I am questioning why would we do that? Now hear me out on this...If the people in the church know someone hasn't come to church in a while...why are the people in the church not calling on them and checking up with them? IF I were away from church for a while I would much rather a friend called me to check up than someone who did it because it was their job to do it. Not that the church shouldn't call on people that they haven't seen in a while...I am just not sure a church should have a "program" for it...my mind isn't made up on this, just saying I am questioning it.
• I've been praying quite a bit about some directional things at 242. Excited about some things that I believe God has in store for us. Looking forward to the next six months as a church. I think we could see some big things happen. Not because we are doing anything special but because he is going to do something special. I am praying for God to move and for us to see some amazing things that defy explanation and can only be described as a miracle of God.
  
• I am really looking forward to getting back to teaching at church. I have a few months worth of messages ready to go (for the most part.)
  

Sunday Mind Dump

It's Sunday let's dump!

• Enjoyed playing music this morning. Not something we can do on a regular basis anymore but it's fun now and then! It was tough with the power point issues and something happened to our floor monitors and we couldn't hear what we were playing or singing but it's all good!
  
• Got some tech things to work on, we have to get better at getting the power point in line before Sunday morning...
• Great message this morning Craig!
  
• I was amazed at the size of the crowd today...nice to see some old faces for the first time in a while.
• Lot's of people at church with heavy hearts and a lot of junk in their lives this week. Just praying you guys can lay it all at Jesus feet and trust him with it.
• It's been a very trying couple of weeks at the Renner household. From the break in, to getting our kids off to college, to April starting law school, it's taken a toll on us. I am ready for things to be back to normal. Not quite ready for students tomorrow but they are coming anyway so....
• I've got the next few months worth of messages planned out....we are starting a series I am calling "Back to Basics." We are going to look at some things James has to say about our lives...Should be fun and very practical for all of us!
• Still praying the building comes through for us. We are $500 a month apart from what we think we can afford and what they would like to get. Praying they come our way a little and our giving is a little stronger over the next few months so we can maybe go their way a little...
• I better quit writing or I am going to start rambling on and on!
  

Sunday Mind Dump

It's amazing how being gone from church jest a few weeks can feel like a lifetime! We were gone for two weeks and going back into church today I felt like it had been much, much longer.

So, let's dump:

• Cori told me she is out of town next week so you are stuck with April and I leading worship. Good thing Jake had a couple of my guitars at his house while we were away or that wouldn't be possible right now!
  
• I've been working hard on some teaching and we are going to start off my teaching with a series I am calling Back To Basics. As part of that series we are going to look at some of the fundamentals of the Christian life. We'll start off with taking a look at what does it look like when a person is "Mature."
• Reminded this week that it doesn't matter who you are you cannot take your eyes off Jesus without consequence.
• We should have some clarity on the building situation over the next few days. Praying that it works out. Getting in there would go a long way towards putting us in position for growth.
• Took an hour nap this afternoon. That NEVER happens!
• April hasn't even started classes yet (they start tomorrow) and we added up that she has studied 55 hours this week just to be ready for the first week of law school. It's going to be a long 3 years!
  
• It's official. I have made the switch from PC to MAC....LOVING IT!
• Friday I get the honor of dropping both of my kids off in college....let's hope they both stay there!
  

Simple is Best

So, I've been praying for the last month about what we need to be focusing on at 242 in order for the church to progress forward and here is what I believe God is saying to us. We need to be the simple church that we were created to be. We shouldn't worry about trying to have a program for everything, rather we should focus on doing just a few things really well. Having said that, I feel that over the next six months to a year we need to focus our energies on three things:

• Creating the best Sunday morning worship experience possible: Simply put we need to get much better at doing Sunday mornings. We need better systems, structures, and organizations in place so we are better prepared to meet the needs of people on Sunday mornings. This means focusing on a few key ministries and building them up....Things like our children's ministry, greeting visitors, kitchen services, and designing better worship services. Most people's initial point of contact with the church is through our Sunday morning worship experience, so we should put more thought, energy, and prayer into planning services.
  
• Building a better sense of Community: We need to find ways to help people connect with one another. Small groups, meals, fellowship, all those things need to be built up so we are in a better position to meet the needs of those God brings across our path.
• Becoming a church of prayer and expectation: My heartfelt desire is that 242 church would become a praying church and a church that shows up with the expectation that God is going to do something awesome! That starts with being a praying church. When God is doing amazing things at the church it creates a sense of excitement and people want to be a part of a church that is exciting!
  

Over the next few months I'll be sharing my heart about how we can do these things within the context of Acts 2:42...

Sunday Mind Dump (Saturday Edition)

While we are not yet back from our vacation we are sitting in the airport on our way home. It's been a great week over all. The trip started out a little rough but got better once we got on the boat. We enjoyed three really nice ports this time:

• Key West: Always nice and plenty of things to see and do. It's a bit too congested for my tastes but it's still a cool place to visit.
• Grand Cayman: Very nice, very British. Slow paced and pretty...enjoyed swimming with dolphins and then getting on a boat to go out to Stingray City...a nice sandbar where there are tons of stingrays that love to be played with and fed....needless to say, this was April's favorite part.
• Ocho Rios Jamaica: Jamaica is very beautiful. We swam with and fed sharks....I know, I thought the idea was crazy too but it was fun anyway.
• The Boat: Awesome....loved the food (especially the Indian place for lunch! April and I loved the giant Seaside movie theater and watched movies under the stars almost nightly after dinner....
  

One of the things I love about unplugging from the grid is having some extra quiet time to just hear from God about some things. Sometimes it's about church and what do do next...this time it was about me. God was showing me there are some areas of my life I need to develop some discipline in...Going to start working on that as soon as we get home....Perhaps I'll write about this a little more over the next week or so...

Life

This fall my life takes a change. My youngest is off to college...for April and I we are officially "Empty Nester's" whatever that means...I will say that life has taken it's twists and turns over the years and if you'd asked me 30 years ago if I would be here I would've looked at you like you were crazy. I wouldn't trade it for the world though.

Life has been much harder than I could have ever imagined when I was young whipper snapper. It seems like time goes so slow when you're young and so fast when you get older. Enjoy things while they last...Jake and I went out and played golf today...nothing special just a nice round of golf between a Dad and his son...I wish we had more of those days...Make no mistake, I am happy he's off to college, one day that kid could do some really special things...he's crazy talented. But, I will miss the little things....But then again, it really is the little things that make life fun isn't it :)

Enjoy it while it lasts....