Would You Read This If The Title Intrigued You?

September 20.
11:00am.
Pleasant Valley Reformed Church.
The date, time, and place. A big moment for me. I have felt many convictions regarding Christ's Church for many years.

It was right here. In this very spot. On the couch in my basement apartment at my parent's home. I was probably on HSA, checking out people's profiles or responding to a message. My dad walked down the stairs (his footfalls against the carpeted steps acting like the peek hole through a door, into which announces the presence of the person approaching) and asked to come into my room. His words would change my thoughts for the evening -- and my thoughts for the looming days ahead. He began: "People are getting excited." I was confused. What people? And why are they excited? Did gas prices come down again today? That would be exciting, indeed! He continued, "I sort of mentioned to a couple people your thoughts about youth group and church and they are getting really excited. They want to hear your thoughts directly. They have asked to have you come speak with them about this idea." Ummmm... errrrr... *cheesy grin.* I couldn't help but smile. I tried not to. This was all happening so very fast. Maybe too fast, but that has yet to be determined.

What my father was referring to, was a conversation he, my mother, and I had had the night before. They had asked if I would be willing to help with the youth group at his church. I hesitated with that. I had my face kicked in at the last church I served at in youth ministry. Undoubtedly, I have grown timid of the idea of returning to such position. And there remained something else... something I couldn't quite squeeze from between my lips. I wanted to say what I was thinking but felt scared. An emotion I have come to know all too well as of late. See, my time at Trinity Reformed Church last year was a time of trials mixed with triumphs. I have never been so pushed in all my life. Many questions developed over the 15-months in my white brick, book-filled office. What is this all about? Are we being effective? Page upon page worth of questions.

When my father confronted me with the question of helping with the youth group, many memories came rushing back into my head. All the questions returned. All the evening walks around Holland -- wandering alone, walking hand-in-hand with my thoughts -- flashed like lighting somewhere deep in my mind. Oh Lord, would I have it in me again? Do I have the passion for just one age group of church goers? That nagging "something" that I spoke of earlier began to rise to the surface. "I... uh... don't know that I can do that anymore. I don't know what to say to them anymore." This was the best that I could mutter. I knew there was more. After a moment of silence, I proceeded to wring from my soul what I was feeling. "I don't know that I agree with separating youth from the rest of the church. I think there is more we can do." There, I said it. And I meant it. I felt a bit embarrassed doing so. My dad has been so elated about a youth ministry at the small, country church. I was worried I would look up from the ground and see him holding a hand over his chest, and see a grimaced look on his bearded face from the gun shot wound I had just inflicted. But alas, no gun shot rang out. Instead, there was an intrigued look on both my parent's faces. So I continued. "I believe that ministry -- life in Christ is what I really mean by that word -- could better happen across the ages. Grandparents, parents, twentysomethings, teens, and children all engaged in a time of God-centered, heartfelt worship. Worship in the form of relating, of struggling, of honesty. Grandparents sharing their wisdom from years of trials and joys. Parents sitting down with their children and relating personally the realness of God in their lives. Children engaged in listening to the God-stories, soaking up the realness of God and active members in the life in Christ. No separation. No sunday school teachers or youth pastors relaying the message which should come from their parents and families." (That is a paraphrase of all I spoke.) There is yet more to my thoughts, but that best describes the main point of the discussion.

Next always in this discussion, comes the questions. People have questions for this idea. We have operated as a church for so many generations with one way of thinking: The church is responsible for the spiritual health of my family and will speak the utterances of God directly to each in the safety of their peer group. We'll call it sunday school because we're educating our kids in the way of God. We will search high and low for the most hip, current teaching curriculum and let that be our guide for our kids understanding of God. We'll prod them to attend youth group each week because they will come back on fire for God (that youth pastor dude seems so in touch with those kids and only he can truly teach them about who God is in their life). But I believe this has been a sad mistake on the part of the church. People are so incredibly disconnected from a life lived with other believers in Christ! We have shot ourselves in the chest. Despite all my "shooting" talk, I really am not a violent person. Families are falling apart. And God is no longer glorified. The latter must be the bigger sadness. We are not living in a right understanding of who God is. We do not seem interested in drawing each breath from Him. For many, their "walk with Christ" is limited to a Sunday morning service from either a bare-wood pew or a padded chair.

And so... the lingering question illuminating from my soul the past few years has been this: What if there could be more? More to the God we serve? More to our life in His Spirit? More to our life with other believers?

What if?

For right now, I will leave you with that question.

And the importance of September 20? It will be my first opportunity to share these thoughts with a group of people. Please pray I am able to speak clearly and passionately.

Jesus Built Relationships. Not Buildings.

What comes to mind when you think of the word: "Church?"
What emotions does it stir?
Joy? Happiness? Frustration? Sadness? Nothing?
What ideals do you associate with the word?
Friendship? Social gathering place? Safety? Singing songs with Larry? Long-winded messages? Hypocrisy? Judgment? Money-hungry leaders? A "better-than-you" pastor?
What does scripture say about it?

We need to know what we mean when we announce to somebody that we "go to church." Because the world is watching. All eyes are on us. If this were not true, "Christianity" wouldn't be a favorite subject of late-night satire. And politicians wouldn't attempt to make us think they were one of "us."
The church is used, abused, manipulated, and dying. It doesn't know who it is. And has unknowingly forgotten on whom she was founded. In many cases, it is a dying organism. Suffocated by traditions, organization, plans, multi-million dollar buildings, entertainment, comedic personalities, guilt trips, statistics, and complacent populations.

The church as a reality of life has been lost. But not forgotten. We have the Word of God. And contained within those pages are snippets of what it can be and was meant to be: a life together lived in relationship to Christ.

I am being pushed. I have been so focused the last 5 years on frustrations with the church and trying to understand what it is, that I made an idol of the church. Without even trying. I only saw two angles. A right way and a wrong way. And I feel I missed out on The Way. I had good intentions. But not God intentions. He wants a relationship with me. With you. First and foremost. That is what He is about. Jesus came to show us the way to the Father. To show us how to be in relationship with Him. He was so about relationships. Jesus would not have affixed Himself to one group of people meeting in a brick building. Jesus built relationships. Not buildings. Jesus didn't establish regular meeting times. He wandered. He met. He talked. He listened. He loved. He healed. He prayed. He slept. He ate. He pooped. Jesus didn't wake up Sunday mornings, dreading sitting through another service. He didn't raise His hands in worship because everyone around Him was doing so. Jesus didn't set aside exactly 10% of His earnings from His carpentry business for a local congregation. He talked about life. Real life. Full life. Jesus was honest. Really honest. He had this unabashed love-affair with His Father. And all He wanted was to honor Him and glorify Him. His very life flowed from His Father like water from a faucet. Jesus came to show us the way. He was The Way. And church is about living His way right next to Him.

If you're reading this. If you "go to church." If you grew up "in church." Please take some time to really understand what the church was... and is. By calling yourself a Christian, you are fully throwing your lot in with His. Make sure you know what that means. I am trying to do the same.

In Christ,
Nat

[Return]ing To Poetry and something about some book...

New book I'm reading:
So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore
By Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman.
Pick it up if you're able. It's a good read. It's the fictional story of Jake Colsen and his incredible story that develops before your eyes.
It follows thirteen conversations he has with a man named only John. John comes and goes and sets out to challenge everything Jake has ever known. John has this incredible love-relationship with Father (as he calls Him). John wants to help Jake see faith, truth, joy, forgiveness, sorrow, pain, love, and community through a different set of eyes. To realign Jake's heart with what it's been missing for years.
It is compelling.
I wanted to underline almost every word that John utters throughout the dialogue.

God is moving. His Spirit can be seen. The Bride has stopped her adulterous ways long enough to begin asking questions of the life she made for herself. People are starting to ask major questions of the church. I believe the bigger point being that God is calling His people into realness. Genuineness.

Arise O Bride
Return to your rightful place
At His side.
Do you hear Him calling you home?
The most beautiful voice is His alone.
So arise
Put on your loveliest gown
Pin up your hair
Throw away that frown
Because your Groom has arrived
He has already broken the chains
Which once held you down.
What a glorious day!
He does not care what you have done
Where you have been
Or why you had left.
He only cares that you come back
Never mind what you lack
Just come fall in His lap.
Arise O Bride
And finally! return to your rightful place
At His side.

Return.

Holy Fervor: Men.

Men.
Created first.
First to walk with God.
First to be given responsibility.
First to be silent.
I just watched a video by Pastor Mark Driscoll. It deals with the responsibility God expects from His men. Mark looks at two typical kinds of men. Two kinds of men God never intended.
God alone gives definition. And today -- right now -- men need to revisit God's definition for man. Pastor Mark explores this topic with fervor (a really smart sounding word meaning passion). He tells it like it is. And offers a glimpse into what God expects and how God reacts when men are idiots.
And we are.
I am.
This message caught hold of me. God's Spirit caught hold of me through this message.
Please -- whether you are a man, woman, married, engaged, dating, or single -- sit down at your computer and watch the entirety of this video.
You will not leave the same.
I promise.
Or I'll owe you a cup of coffee.

Here is the link:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial/marriage-and-men

I pray that God uses this in big ways. Thanks Scott for showing it to me.
Please, let me know if you have any thoughts.
Welcome. To the conversation.

Sailing the Passion Waters

Passion.

I grew up in a very loving, Christian home.
My dad was ordained in the Reformed Church of America when I was 11. What an awesome blessing it was to become a pastor's kid at that stage in my life. I had gone through a rough period in my walk shortly before my father's graduation. It was discovered that he had a very rare form of cancer and may not survive through surgery. My dad had left a well-paying job with Ford to follow a calling to ministry and I began to question why God would allow this to happen during his last year of seminary (after all that he had left to follow God's leading).
I became bitter.
God walked us through that period, revealing His grace and love in so many ways.
My heart began to shift.
Back now to being a pastor's kid. My dad served at a small church in the Detroit, MI, area for the next 9 years. It was here that my journey with God was really about to begin.
Thrust into the position of PK was interesting.
People now expected me to be a certain way.
To act a certain way.
To dress a certain way.
To talk a certain way.
I wasn't too thrilled about this. Senior year of high school God really started to reveal Himself to me. I saw finally just how complacent I had become with church and God and my life. I was going through all the "right" motions.
I started to desire His Word. I couldn't put His book down. I had been very lazy and made some poor choices the first three years of high school, but now God was starting to become REAL to me. And everything I was reading about in His Word was contradictory to what I was seeing Sunday mornings, not to mention these strange human "expectations" that were placed on me.
I started to see that God looked at man very differently then our outward appearance -- how we dressed in "His House." I started to see the yoke (the word translated from the greek to mean burden) that "church people" had placed on its people.
This began for me a wonderful time of really seeking His heart for the church. And at the same time, a growing disliking for the church. I wanted out. I felt suffocated. I knew I was experiencing God on a real level outside of the building -- and dreaded going to Sunday morning worship because something was missing. I didn't feel God's presence there. My buddies and I began a guy's Bible study together each week. Again, I was experiencing a realness in that room with those guys that I had never experienced before in church.
Genuineness.
We would pray for each other and talk together.
It wasn't just everyone in a room facing the same direction listening to one person talk.
There was this God-dialogue.
I loved it.
I came to a place in my walk where I had to make a decision: either walk away from the church as we knew it (which I really wanted to do), or figure out if perhaps God had something to share with His church and be a tool to see restoration (a big word for me right now) come to His Bride. I decided to stick it out. And seek it out. I was growing in the faith. And in my passion for seeing the church be restored. Restored to what it was meant to be when Jesus left and built the church on the foundation of Peter and then gave freely the Holy Spirit. I started to see two very different realities: the reality of what man had made of church; and the reality of what I saw God desiring the church to be. And ever since then... I am still seeking, learning, listening, and wanting to see the church restored.
So my heart is for the church.
But more than that my heart is for Yahweh.
To know what it means to be a follower of Him and to do it within a community of other sinners like myself (for this is what the church is about).
Sinners experiencing God's grace together in life and wanting more than anything to share this life with others -- to invite them onto the trampoline (as Rob Bell would say).
I have no other aspiration in life than to love people, love God, and be a blessing. Last summer, while visiting a friend in Idaho, we were sitting around in her living room (my friend, her sister and brother, her mom and myself) talking about life. The sister went around and asked each of us: "If you could do anything with your life, what would it be?" My reply was simply this: "To love people and affect some change." I don't have any great plans for my life. I have lived a life thus far of putting my sail into the wind and letting God take it. That is how I ended up in Duluth.

My Passion.

Interwoven Mysteries.Proclamations.Ramblings.Surrender.

A time is coming, and has now come.
When the people of the church must, as one, stand up from their pews and chairs.
Walk out of their meeting places and start being the people of God.
Not running or hiding from the Holy Spirit.
But welcoming Him and doing His work.
A time is coming, and has now come.
When the people of the church must return to God their Savior.
Knees bent in adoration.
Voices singing the praises of God with heartful-realness.
A time is coming, and has now come.
When the people of the church must begin praying and asking God for power and strength.
To understand what it means to surrender.

It's afternoon now. I read 12 chapters in Acts this morning. Incredible movement. Interwoven persecution, peace, praise. Resistance. Surrender. Holy Spirit. Worthy of disgrace.

I took my first shower in the bus today.
I began by putting 12 gallons of water into the tank just to make sure there would be enough. Shower took all of 3 minutes. Used quarter of the tank. Afterward, I resolved to finally attempt fixing the refrigerator. Used Pastor Mike's drill. Placing hinge in a block of wood, I drill the two holes. It works. So far it is holding. Success. Working with hands. See a problem and resolve and fix. Feels good. Yesterday, I learned how to use drywall anchors. You begin by drilling small hole to check for stud. If no stud exists, proceed by drilling larger hole, just smaller than the shaft of the anchor. Hammer in shaft and screw in screw. Felt good. Learning by experience. Making mistakes.

Learning what Jesus meant by "take up your cross daily and follow me." Each and every morning is a fresh start -- a new chance to honor or hurt Yahweh-Savior.
Every morning, afternoon, evening is a decision to change the course of your life.
Cannot make the right decision without God's help.
Romans 7.
Need to surrender every day to Christ's power and work. Failure to do this results in guilt. Pain. Doubts. Pride. Selfishness. Boastfulness. God-dishonoring behavior. Every moment we either pull the trigger to our old-self or succumb to its puppy-dog eyes. But this puppy has a nasty, deadly bite.
Bad dog.

Life is returning to this lifeless body. "Though I was once dead in my sin, I am now made alive in Christ through His sacrifice once for all on the cross." Reading through Acts this morning, I was struck by how whenever an apostle would give testimony to the gospel of Christ -- everything He was and did -- they all began with stories from the old testament. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, etc. Drawing the bigger picture of everything God did and was doing in their own time. The story of faith did not begin when Jesus walked the earth, but began "in the beginning." "For from the beginning all things were created by Him and for Him."
Colossians 1:15-23.
Leaving now. Needing to step outside and feel the sun.

This is an entry from my journal today. Thought I would share what was written. Thanks for reading.

It Is Well With My Soul(ja Boy) ... and something about invading (aliens)

I have a lot that I could talk about tonight. Many thoughts going through my head.
Question: what is community? Seriously. What is community? What is Biblical community? I went to a dance last Saturday night at Hope College. I didn't really go hoping to find an answer to this question. (It was the most fun I've had in a long time.) Anyway, looking around the room, I began to notice something. Something strange was taking place. All around the room little pockets of people stood together enjoying the simple fact that they were around each other. And these pockets moved together around the room. Maybe for a brief moment they would leave to get a drink or snack and then they would all return together to the dance floor and resume their "bringing sexy back."
I had my own little pocket of people to be with. And yes, we moved around together. And you felt totally comfortable within your pocket to do whatever your body would allow. You were safe. Everyone else around you was moving crazy and perhaps even a "little strange" too. You could be yourself on the floor -- reserved, random, absolutely insane, goofy, weird. It was a place of acceptance. And honestly, who doesn't want a place where they can be accepted for who they are? It was a glimpse into community.
I have many questions regarding what true community is. I have always struggled with understanding community. I have always felt like I was on the outside looking in on experiencing it, genuinely. I do know that there are many parts to it. And the dance helped my mind to grasp a little better this idea of "feeling safe." This is just one part of community. And this part can happen in the secular world, the structured church, and is vital to a healthy gathering of those living in relationship with Christ.
Then tonight... God opened my eyes to another important part of community. The piece the secular world is missing, even the structured church in many respects. Genuineness. In the last few months I have been on a roller coaster ride of feelings: depression, frustration, confusion, and uneasiness. People have started asking questions. They have been intervening. I have seen intentionality. Earnestness. But tonight something about it seemed preplanned, or rather orchestrated. I went to the Gathering at Hope College (a Sunday-night worship service for students at Hope College). It happens every week and I have been attending for almost a year now. After a message and communion, there is always a time of smaller-based, passionate singing. I am standing in a row with two of my students, feeling soul-numb and just not in the mood to sing, when a fellow youth pastor friend of mine, Rob, comes and seeks me out. We're just starting a new song when he purposefully comes and stands by me and grabs me by the arm and back of my head and right there in the middle of the worship begins just praying for me. An intense prayer. A heartfelt prayer. Praying against the worries and burdens. Praying for healing and restoration and joy. I am taken aback. And to make things more interesting, the song now playing is, It Is Well With My Soul, a personal favorite of mine. The words of that song run so deep within me, that it always finds a way to bring my heart to its knees. Having these words ringing out in the background during the prayer with Rob made my spine shiver. Thoughts begin pouring through my head. I feel the straps around my wrists begin loosing. I feel pound after pound of emotional fat begin to melt away. After the prayer, my first thought is: "why don't we feel comfortable being this to each other on Sunday mornings?" Why don't we feel safe (there is that word again) to invade each others lives on a week-by-week basis? For many in churches around the country, you may only get an hour together on Sunday morning. Are we truly living in community with each other for that single hour? Is this even possible? And do we really want to or know how to really be a community of believers? So I challenge you today with this: is weekly "meeting time" church serving to build up a community of believers completely devoted to Christ in their life and in the lives of others around them? If the answer is no. How do we, the Bride of Christ, raise up from the ashes an in-relationship-with-God-centered, safe, genuine fellowship? Read Acts 2:42-47, 4:23-37, 5:12-42. These are just some of the passages that God has used to walk me down the hard road of looking at the way we were "doing" church. Passages that made me question whether we were supposed to be "doing" church at all. No where in the Bible does it ever talk about the once-a-week gathering at a church "facility" where you listen to one person preach a prepared message and sing songs to the music of a prepared worship band or pianist/organist. These are just a portion of my thoughts. But it is late now and I will turn in for the night.
Goodnight.