Wordswithwheats

Wow, Did not know our old pastor played such a great game.

J.S. Park: Question: Hopeless, Heartless, and Hanging By A Thread

jspark3000:

Anonymous asked:

Sir, I like how real you are. I’m hanging by a thread on to this Christian life. Jesus is great but I can’t imagine what He’d want to do with someone who just doesn’t love Him and, honestly, doesn’t want to obey Him. I tried to live for Him but it feels like slavery. I’m not as good and okay as everyone around me thinks I am. I’m lonely, fed up and I wish I could start my life over where I’m not hanging on to Him only because I’m scared of dying, facing God and fire. Is there any hope for me?

Dear beloved friend,

Want to know a huge secret?

Ready?

Every single Christian in all the history of the world, even the “best” of us, have sometimes felt completely apart from God.

Here’s where you’re at and why it’s okay and where we can go from here.

1) You don’t want to love Him and obey Him. BUT: The Bible actually says this is our default mode of brokenness, our human condition called sin.  So you’re simply being honest about who we all are.

2) You tried to live for Him and it feels like slavery. BUT: Maybe the Christian life isn’t about a begrudging obligation to a set of laws.  Maybe it’s a growing realization that God absolutely loves you regardless of your performance, and that it’s our response to say “I love you too” which makes us crazy in the best way possible to be able to follow Him — just as love makes us crazy for our loved ones.  Maybe it really is a relationship, and not simply receiving instructions in a church service.

3) You think you’re not as good and okay as everyone thinks you are. BUT: I don’t know anyone who thinks they’re as good as everyone thinks they are.  It’s an illogical proposition that’s a devil’s lie, which falls apart quickly.  A little honesty from you about who you are will fix it immediately.  And it’s unfair for anyone to hold you on a pedestal of moral perfection.  If they do, it’s their problem, not yours.

4) You’re lonely.  BUT: Loneliness is a thick fog that we all walk through occasionally, even when we socialize and have tons of friends.  It will hurt, but it comes and goes: so don’t let it anchor your reality.  You’re also not really alone. You’re not the only one who feels like the only one, and also: God.

5) You wish you could start over. BUT: You have today.  You have right now, this moment, this step.  It’s never too late, and that’s not some postcard platitude.  People with even less time than you, less abilities, and less physical aptitude have lived amazing stories.  It can start this very second.  We all wish we could hit a reset button sometimes, but the best reset is to move forward. 

6) You’re following God because you’re scared of the afterlife. BUT: Let’s be real on this one — it’s certainly okay to acknowledge the wrath of God at some point in your faith-journey.  So many people turn a blind eye to the reality of Hell that it grieves me how much we sugarcoat such a serious truth.  Your fear (and my fear) of Hell is not a wrong response. 

Yet the Christian life is a relationship with a Heavenly Father who has way more for us than fire insurance.  When we come to know Him, our fear always gives way to His perfect love (1 John 4:18).  He has for us an intimate joy that moves us so far beyond the fear that it pales in comparison to the rich realness we have with Him. 

Just think: we’re not friends with our friends because we’re scared of consequences.  We have friendships because of the joy of intimacy, the freedom of vulnerability, and the mutual exchange of life.  So it is with God.

Dear friend: There is hope for you yet. God is sovereign and He’s still in the business of rescuing people, polishing their hearts, loving them to a better place, and simply enjoying them for who they are. God not only loves you, but He likes you — just as much as a dad loves His kids and wants to play with them.  He completely understands your struggle more profoundly than you could know, for He became one of us.

I know this won’t solve everything in a day.  But so long as a sliver of faith — a mustard seed — is sown into His goodness, you can make it one more step.  You are, as I’ve said so many times, a work of progress in a process.  We are looking towards the work finished, Jesus.

There is nothing you could do to change God’s mind about you: and it’s then His unchanging heart that will change you.  Believe it.  Enter it. Bask in it.

I love you and I’m praying for you.

— J.S.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

— Psalm 42:5

“You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.”

— C.S. Lewis

Unka Glen: The secret sauce on starting a small group

unkaglen:

more-than-a-piece asked: Hey Unka! Just wanted to ask you if you have any advice about how to start up ministering to high school girls, like maybe how to go about it? What exactly to talk about and how far to go with it? Would be immensely appreciated!! Again thank you! I truly love and learn from everything you post :D 

Unka Glen answered: When you’re starting a new ministry, you should do as little talking as possible, and as much listening as possible. All too often people think of ministry as one person saying smart things, and everyone else around being blown away. That’s not really how it works. 

So we start with the premise that the Holy Spirit is drawing everyone to Himself, and we all feel that pull, on one level or another, but we spend a lot of our lives stuck on one obstacle or another. So ministry is all about helping people to overcome those obstacles, so that the relationship can move forward. That’s simple.

The complicated part is the obstacles themselves. If they were easy to figure out and overcome, we’d be over them already. We’ve already figured out the Bible part of all these problems, (and so have they) because that part is utterly simple. For example, if a young lady says she’s struggling with anger towards a friend who has betrayed her trust, we all know that the biblical answer is forgiveness.

So, you think, I’ll just tell her to forgive the friend, because this is, after all, the correct answer. Her response will be to tell you, “I just can’t”. She’s stuck, you see. So you think, I need a gimmick that will kind of trick her into forgiving her friend. So you invent some brilliant “exercise” that will do the job. And then that will fail, and then you’ll realize, hey, we never really spent any time talking about the actual obstacle itself. 

We need to investigate what makes it hard to forgive someone. That means you don’t need to think of the most amazing lesson on forgiveness (she already knows she needs to forgive her friend, I mean, c’mon), what you need to think of are good questions that are designed to get her to work through this obstacle, and find her own way to the forgiveness.

I might ask questions like these:

• What does it feel like when someone lets you down?
• Why do we rehearse the anger the way we do?
• How does betrayal make us feel about ourselves?

Then, once they do the work to figure out the nature of the problem, you can come in with some verses about how, let’s say, Jesus was betrayed. And how did that make Him feel? And do we betray Jesus too? And now what do we think about forgiving this other person, knowing that Jesus forgave us when we didn’t deserve it?

You see, we’re starting with honesty, authenticity, and getting some understanding going, without judgement. We then investigate and pull apart how this problem actually works. And only then can we know what simple biblical principle needs to be applied. 

When it comes to ministry, the less dependent they are on you the better. You want to teach them to break things down for themselves, ask questions of themselves, and learn how apply the Word for themselves as much as possible. You’re always doing your best ministry when you’re putting yourself out of a job.

'Your Church Is Too Small...'

fafdriscoll:

Deep darkness is punctuated by the flash of a thousand cameras; rumbling bass rattles through my bones. Throughout the arena I can hear the burbling, surging, building crescendo of music ready to e…

I personally haven’t been to anything Hillsong but I was hopeful, then saddened during the article.

Four Lies About Introverts

The more I rest in God’s gracious acceptance of me in Christ, the more freed I am to be my introverted self for his glory.

Introverts from a Christian perspective.

What I find awkward is sometimes I’m extroverted but then sometimes I go back to being introverted. Social connections and just talking to people helps a lot in depression but it’s contrary to my introverted self, so that makes it harder to look for interaction.

FROM LEE IN TENNESSEE: Q&A... On Watching Someone Walk Away From The Lord

leeyounger:

entrahelife asked:

Hey Lee! I was looking for some advice about one of my students.  One of the girls I work with has become like a sister to me. This girl a freaking rockstar. This girl gets it. But recently she’s been goin through a tough season. She’s gotten pretty jaded and a bit of a rebellious attitude towards anything church related. I love this girl with everything in me and I see where God wants to take her and how she’s drifting away from that. I know I can’t give her more help than she’s willing to take and generally don’t offer advice without being asked but I’m a little worried about her. She’s going to public school next year for the first time and her older sister went down the same path and never found her way back. I love her like crazy and just want to be as helpful as I can. (edited for length)

..

So I Said:

Hey Sidney. Welcome to my life - and welcome to ministry. It sucks watching people fall away from the Lord, especially when you really love them and really feel that connection to them. It’s heartbreaking to watch them drink from the shallow well when the Living Water is right there for the taking.

You’re so right about so many things you said - this is a very normal season for a person to go through and no, you can’t make her choose the right path. It may be that your friend hasn’t been prepared to walk in the world, but has been sheltered from it. Sometimes parents and church people lay down rules, limitations and punishments on young folks so that they don’t go too far out there, and they’re hoping that these measures will keep them walking with the Lord, but Jesus doesn’t want something manufactured like that. Jesus wants real, loving relationships, not fake and forced play dates. Not only that, but our hearts don’t want false relationships either. We want the real thing. That’s why so many good little church kids go bananas the first time they get invited to a party - turns out they never really knew Jesus. Also, very soon, these kids are going to be grown people who can do whatever in the world they want to, no matter what anyone says, so regulations are a bad idea all around. 

If this girl is going to walk away from the Lord, you need to let her do it. I know that sounds awful and it goes against your instincts, but it’s true. Not only do you need to let her do it, but you need to let her know that you’re not stressed about that or down on her about it. If she’s headed out, you can’t stop her, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. Buckle up, because I’m about to tell you the super-secret, ultra classified ministry special sauce…

It’s time for you to plant a ministry time bomb. What I mean is, before you watch this kid go hog wild with the Lord, take her out for dinner, buy her food, laugh about stuff and then, when the door is open, plant the bomb. Look into this girl’s eyes and tell her, “I love you. I love you so much it’s ridiculous. Nothing in this world will ever change the way I feel about you. No matter what you do or who you become, I will always love you deeply from the heart. I know you’re walking away from Jesus right now, and I want you to know that if you ever need me, you have my number. If you need me to come pick you up at a shelter in Tuscon and bring you home, I will. If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. I am not judging you, and I will always feel honored to play whatever role in your life I can.”

Tick, tick, tick… the bomb is planted. Now, who knows when it’ll go off? It may be in three weeks and it may be in ten years, but if you keep loving that girl and showing that non-judgmental and sincere affection, it will go off one day, and guess who she’s going to call? You. The reason that bomb will go off is that nothing in this world actually satisfies but Jesus. Whatever she tries won’t work and if she’s honest, she’s going to want what you have. That leads me to the last part of the ministry time bomb, which is that you need to just keep loving Jesus with all you’ve got. Live a life that other people want to have. Love Him and let it show. If your friend is honest, she’s going to want what you have way more than anything this world has to offer. 

..

ASK ME A QUESTION

No one ever taught me what to do in this situation … the time bomb =P

Going to Hell with Ted Haggard

jspark3000:

Must read.  Completely gut-checked me.  Powerful.

dleex4t3ff:

If you follow Christ, eat these words. Digest it hard.

Something to think about if you're in any sort of ministry (i.e. all Christians =P)

It actually flows quite well and the pictures are relevant.

Although it’s written from the USA, I think it’s good to remember. Thank God for the Lord’s supper right?

Unka Glen: Getting your walk out of the blahs

unkaglen:

Anonymous asked: For the past 2 years I’ve been in a stagnant spiritual state. I always feel exhausted in my walk with God. And more and more I’m starting to lose the enthusiasm and life I had before. How do you find rest in your spiritual walk? I’ve tried reading my bible more often, and…

great post on ministry and what not to like/do

To those out there looking for ‘spiritual growth’ i.e. a better relationship with our Dad, my sister strongly recommends ‘Growth Works’ by John North. From the 1st couple of chapters I’ve read, it’s teeming with biblical goodness and encouragement. =D

J.S. Park: Question: Disagreeing With Your Accountability Partner

jspark3000 (check it out on his blog here!):

Anonymous asked:

How do you be an accountability partner to your brothers and sisters without pushing your own personal convictions on others? I’ve recently had this problem with friends pushing their convictions on me when I feel no conviction at all. I know they mean the best, but it’s getting to the points where I’m angry and upset at them and that’s where I’m feeling conviction because then I talk ill of them and I don’t want my bitterness to grow. How does someone handle a situation like this?

This is an excellent question, so let’s define what an accountability partner CAN do and can NOT do.

An accountability partner CAN —

1) Count on each other to say the hard thing, graciously.

2) Ask each other questions about how it’s been going.

3) Share without shame.

An accountability partner can NOT —

1) Judge your motives; they can only ask, and then trust.

2) Allow sin to be the focus, or the friendship will become an interrogation.

3) Coerce or guilt-trip into change, or it will only be temporary and filled with resentment.

While I’m probably missing some things, in your case they might be trying to coerce you.  So ask your friends what their motives are.  Whether their motives are actually good or bad, just tell them your feelings about their methods.  Unless you’re doing black tar heroin or punching children, let them know you appreciate their convictions, but guilt-trips/manipulation/conformity will not work.  They need to know that your walk with the Lord is your walk with the Lord, and you need encouragement, not pushiness.

A word on accountability: The big danger I’ve found with “accountability partners” is that they can become sin-inspectors and start looking for flaws at every chance, which end up filtering every action with a negative magnifying glass.  This ruins the friendship forever.  I would know because I lost friendships this way.

The thing is, accountability needs to happen with an established friendship that already began with trust. In other words, you can’t point at a fellow Christian and say, “Keep me accountable!” — because accountability grows out of a friendship first. Otherwise, calling each other out will feel like a personal attack. 

And accountability always has to be secondary to friendship.  In other words, it can’t always be about getting together to point out sin.  Even counseling and mentoring and discipleship needs some “normal-fun-people-time” or you’ll go crazy.  If you’re only getting together for introspection, you’ll begin to dread being near the person.

Please don’t hear me saying that accountability is always comfortable.  At times your feelings will be hurt because no one likes the hard truth, but “wounds from a friend can be trusted” (Proverbs 27:6). 

Of course, you’ll want to be intentional in your friendship about these things.  Be prayerful and always be compassionate when you rebuke or receive rebuke.  The cornerstone of every strong friendship is the degree to which you can feel safe to tell the truth, both about yourself and about the other person.  I preached a sermon on that here.

I’ll leave you with a quote about accountability and why ultimately the Gospel needs to be the driving force here. 

The reason I hate the kind of group described above [for accountability] is that their focus is primarily (almost exclusively, in my experience) on our sin, and not on our Savior. Because of this, these groups breed self-righteousness, guilt, and the almost irresistible temptation to pretend — to be less than honest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in accountability groups where there has been little to no attention given to the gospel whatsoever. There’s no reminder of what Christ has done for our sin — cleansing us from its guilt and power — and the resources that are already ours by virtue of our union with him. These groups produce a “do more, try harder” moralism that robs us of the joy and freedom Jesus paid dearly to secure for us. They start with the narcissistic presupposition that Christianity is all about cleaning up and getting better — it’s all about personal improvement. But that’s not Christianity!

— Tullian Tchividjian

This is what I feel but couldn’t express in words xD At one point I was doing this or very close to, but friendship is so much more than accountability, and also so much more with - that proverbs verse =3.

Question: Is Depression and Anxiety a Choice?

I guess the reason this guy writes these so well is because he’s experienced it xD

J.S. Park: Question: Doesn't Grace Make You Lazy?

jspark3000:

Anonymous asked:

Does Christianity encourage laziness? The whole concept of Grace you often speak about lets people off the hook too easily. The Bible says faith without works is dead and Jesus said all trees that bear no fruit will be chopped down and thrown into fire. The reason people are so lazy and under-motivated is because they are always told they’re some special person while no one really is all that special. So how does telling them God loves them help deflate their ego?

So occasionally I get questions like this that make me wonder: Do you really care what the answer is?  Are you trolling right now?  Are you baiting me into a trap?  Have you ever struggled alongside real hurting people? Are you teachable enough to see where you went wrong here?

Christianity encourages laziness just as much as atheism provokes genocidal baby-eating evil — which is to say, you can take any issue and spin it the way you want, and you end up with a simplified straw man that makes ya looks so smarts.

This is a “deconstructive reductionism,” like when movie nerds reduce a movie plot into a laughable writer’s room. It doesn’t add to the discussion, at all.

I love you bro and I say this knowing we might just misunderstand each other: but you’re probably taking the Grace of God and reducing it to a parody of itself, which I would reject too: because it’s not really grace. 

Still with me?  Grace is not so much any one action or rule or attitude, but grace is more of a story about broken people being loved and healed.

Let me tell you about my first pastor.  When I first came to church over ten years ago, I was a stubborn thick-headed horny atheist who was looking for hot Christian girls.  I hated the sermons but I kept coming back: because there was something about this pastor.

He endured with me.  I asked him tons of annoying questions about God and the Bible, but he answered them patiently.  I screwed up a lot: I slept with a few girls in the church and confessed them all, but he never flinched.  He called me and texted me when I never replied.  He bought me lunches, dinners, books, and sent cards to my house.  He spent hours praying for me.  He never once lost his temper with me.

Over time, I realized how much of a jerk I was to him.  I didn’t listen; I was late all the time; I got drunk and went to strip clubs on Saturday nights before strolling in hungover on Sundays; I hardly asked how he was doing.  BUT: he was endlessly loving.  And the grace of this man completely melted me.  I’ve known him now for thirteen years, and there’s no way I could be the person I am today without him. 

I remember small moments.  When one day I was horribly depressed, and he wrote me a letter right in front of me.  When I got out of the hospital from swallowing a bottle of pills, and he listened without judging.  When I was sobbing hysterically one day and he gripped both my hands and told me, It’ll be okay.  God still loves you and He will never stop. 

Even now, my eyes glisten and my heart swells at his sacrifice.  His grace fundamentally ripped away my selfishness and disturbed my ego.  I deserved nothing and he gave me his all.

You get it, right?  Out of gratitude, I came to love my pastor: and I realized I would do anything for him.  When you love a person, nothing is off the table.  And when you realize this person loves you back no matter what, you will be alongside them for eternity.  There’s an endless freedom and security there found in nowhere else.

But why was my pastor this way?  Because of Jesus.  It all pointed to him: and as much as my pastor loved me, Jesus loves us infinitely more.  I began to understand that grace is a love-relationship, a journey, an adventure, a story of a restless human heart who can only find wholeness in Christ.

That’s why grace is an enduring narrative that never really ends — because it will always be about a big picture filled with little moments, instead of a principle or philosophy or theology.

If this bothers you: well it should.  No one naturally likes grace.  It feels too easy, and certainly some people think they can abuse it.  But grace in and of itself can’t be abused anyway, because it’s a gift given freely regardless of how it’s received.

When someone unconditionally loves you despite you with no end in sight, it changes you.  The only other option is to beat you up with religion and rules, which can’t sustain you for your whole life.  While grace takes longer, it will become a part of you in a way that moral conformity never can. 

Without grace, we’re just clocking in our daily tasks until we “feel holy” or we’re desperately trying to hit an arbitrary standard.  With grace, we a have a limitless love that provokes us into the same kind of love.  It changes not only what you do, but what you want to do.  It turns nobodies into somebodies as long as they remember they’re nothing who received something.

That’s the only truth that could ever motivate someone to anything.  We work hard, but grace empowers every effort.

I love the ways of God =) Grace. Love. Mercy. Justice.