An Acts 2 church?

I wonder if a believer baptized on the day of Pentacost with 2999 others would recognize us as the same church he experienced.  Would he look for the people of Antioch called Christians and would he see us as them? 

When I read my Bible and see the church of the first century, I wonder how we got here.  Where did they meet?  How did they treat one another?  How did the rest of the world recognize them?  Are we even close? Or are we one of the 7 churches talked to in Revelations or worse?

When Jesus gathered His disciples, he taught them, and then sent them to preach the Word.  We give awards to our kids for bringing a friend to church.  But shouldn’t we be bringing the church to our friends?

In the first century, there weren’t big buildings, big programs, high paid preachers, choirs, padded pews, 20 minute sermons, or even a checklist for salvation.  They believed, they were baptized, and the Holy Spirit dwelt in them. 

There were people who met in homes mostly on the first day of the week but on others as well.  They sold their belongings and helped the poor, widowed, and motherless among them.  They faced persecution that scattered them but became stronger amidst loss of life, homes, belongings, careers, and stability. 

Being a 1^st century Christian wasn’t about showing up on Sunday in your best clothes.  It wasn’t about attendance, contribution, and cute felt boards.  They didn’t have children’s church or youth group or separation---they were ONE.

They were disciples making disciples.  Stepping in faith and led by the Holy Spirit. Not one went hungry.  They had elders and deacons they respected to administer and do the work among the believers.  Everywhere Peter, Paul, Timothy, Luke, John and many others went, they preached.  They taught.  They loved people and got in the messiness of life with them and showed them Jesus.

When our sons and daughters tell us they want to be missionaries, preachers, or ministers, we tell them to have a back up plan.  When they want to go and serve and feed others, we tell them, get your education and career first.  We say mission work can only happen when the gospel is taught and neglect to feed, clothe, house, medicate, and provide basic needs for those who cannot do it for themselves. 

We send our kids away from us to day care, to school and to play their sports and we scatter to our jobs and ‘me time’.  The end result is an hour or two of interaction with our kids if we are lucky in a day.  That is if we can put down our screens (phone screen, computer screen, tablet screen, television screen). In the first century children walked and worked and lived beside their parents.  God wasn’t something they were taught in Bible class—He was shared everyday in every action between parents and children.  The most basic teaching of Judaism—the Shema in Duet. chapter 6 explains how a God believer orders his life.

Our traditions divide us.  We are so stuck in how we worship on Sunday when less than 10% of the New Testament is even about the Sunday worship!  It is about living life in the Spirit, making disciples, teaching, serving, faith, hope, and most of all LOVE!  How can we love when we spend all of our time defending our traditions to other Jesus followers that don’t follow just like you?  How can we love when we argue constantly about who we can call brother or sister?  How can we love when we don’t spend enough time with people to really know them?  How can we love when we are not willing to get involved in the messiness of sinful lives that need to see Gods redeeming grace?

Jesus told the rich young ruler that all he lacked was to give up all his belongings and follow Him.  And he walked away.  Are our ears numb to the hard teachings of Jesus?  Can we live the words of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount?  Or are we skipping through the pages of our Bible, finding the words that work for us and pretending the rest don’t exist?

Being a Christian is not about GOING to church!  It is about BEING the church.  Christianity is action.  It is doing.  It is about sacrifice.  It is the ultimate in selflessness.  It is not procrastinating to do tomorrow what can be done today. 

A 2000 year long game of ‘telephone’---do we resemble at all what Jesus started?  I am not sure a man baptized on the day of Pentecost would recognize many of the churches today as the one he was added to that day.

I write all of this as a reminder to myself—I need to refocus, reprioritize, reorganize, and really look at Jesus.  The church He died for.  The church He loved.  The church I want to be.  I realize any work I do will not save me.  But to show Him to the world, I think I need to look more like Him.  And so does the church.

Chopped

I love to cook.
I hate to shop.
No, I really hate to shop--which makes cooking a bit difficult.
Part of the reason I hate to shop is I am so cheap.  I know that Wal-mart has the best prices on paper products and personal care stuff.  Sams is great for getting all of the pantry items I can buy in bulk.  And then there are the sales.  I watch the sale fliers and rotate between Kroger, HEB, and Randalls for things like meat and vegetables.  
So shopping usually involves several stores.  I hate Wal-mart on the weekend--it is like ALL of the weirdest people on the planet go to Wal-mart on the weekend.  And there are a lot of weird people on this planet.  Add the Texas heat--you cant leave items in the car as you go from store to store or it will all melt.  Running home is not practical.  So I procrastinate my shopping!

I love watching the Food Network.  First because it is one of the few channels I can leave it on and feel pretty safe that my kids wont see a mostly naked person or learn colorful new words if the show changes.  Add I have to admit, I am a foodie.  I love blending flavors and textures and experimenting and I glean a plethora of ideas by watching Cooking shows.
Which leads me to chopped. The premise of the show (if you haven't watched, you should!) is 4 cooks compete through 3 timed rounds where they have to create a meal out of items in a mystery basket.  I feel like every episode of Chopped is me opening the door to my pantry and figuring out what to do with chicken, pretzel crackers, sriracha sauce, and  sour cream. Or some other bizarre combination of ingredients.  The criteria for judging is presentation, taste, and using the mystery basket ingredients.  Presentation is my Achilles heel.  I can get taste in there and get pretty creative but it doesn't always look very pretty.
But I learn lots of great words to impress my family.  They have eaten haricot vere (green beans), kale chips, and I have learned that chocolate and coffee make a great crust for wild game.
And not every attempt is successful.  I am pretty sure Veronika votes to chop me every time I use a mushroom.  And I am thankful that my husband is patient with my combinations, he has rarely complained about my cooking (although the fact that he calls my favorite chicken dish "Slimy Chicken" shows he doesn't always embrace mycreativity!)
And one of the great things about having driving teens in the house is I can send them to the store with a list--just need to remember to get my debit card back each time!

I confess, I love the challenge of chopped.  I may not like shopping, I can't garden to save my life, crafting skills elude me, but I can usually make a decent meal from some really odd ingredients.  Which proves each of us has at least one talent!

Veronika's Voice--A talk she gave to her youth group, June 2014

Hi, my name is Veronika Brinkley and I am a 7^th grader here at West Houston.  My family and I moved here 7 years ago and I want to share the hardships I have gone through. 

I wasn’t born on this continent.  I was born in a little Russian village on the Baltic Sea called Zelenogradsk in Kaliningrad.  Here is a map of Russia and as you can see, the place where I am from is very small and outside of main Russia. 

 VIka and I are sisters from the same mother born 16 months apart.  Tragedy struck us when we were 2 and 3 years old.  We were left home alone in a building with no heat.  My crib was pushed close to the stove, the oven was turned on and the door was open.  Somehow the flame from the oven started a fire.  Because I was so close, I was burned.  Vika was able to hide and was saved without any burns.  The result of this tragedy was Vika and I were placed in a rundown orphanage.

I was burned over 30% of my body and had surgeries in Russia but we don’t really know how many.  I want to explain scars to you.  You see as your bones grow, your skin grows also and that keeps everything in balance.  Burn scarred skin does not grow.  So as my bones grow, my skin fights and refuses to grow with it.  While in the orphanage in Russia, my scars had gotten very tight, but I will tell you more about that miracle later.  Here are some pictures of Vika and I in the orphanage.

We were adopted in November of 2004.  Here is a picture of my parents at court.  

 Vika and I had been through hard times and though things were better in our new family, I still had lots of challenges to face.  As soon as my parents got us home, they took us to doctors.  We knew I was burned and would have to have surgery because it was getting very hard for me to walk.  But we also found out that because of malnutrition, meaning I wasn’t fed properly, my bones were deformed.  My first year in my new family I had 4 surgeries.  I could not walk and my parents and sisters pulled me around in a wagon.  I am now 14 and have had a dozen surgeries, most have taken months to heal which has meant crutches, wheel chairs, and not being able move around on my own legs.

Some of you may look at me and think, oh her scars are weird.  But to me, they are not.  My scars remind me that God has taken care of me through some amazing things.  My scars are my beauty marks and God put them on me so I could see how He works in and with me.

You see I wasn’t supposed to be in that orphanage.  I wasn’t supposed to be with my sister.  I was supposed to be moved to another home away from her where I would not have been educated or ever had a chance to be adopted.  But God knew his plan for me.  Adoption from Russia is a very hard and long process—for most people it takes years.  From the day my parents applied to adopt us to the day we were in court officially adopted was 8 months.  That is unheard of in Russia—and a few weeks after our adoption, Russia closed the adoption doors and almost no kids were adopted in 2005.  But God knew what I needed and the director of the orphanage broke the law and sent our adoption agency my pictures and asked them to find us parents and on that same day, my parents paperwork came to the same desk.

Another miracle that happened during my first year and those 4 surgeries, the bills were very expensive and my mom was talking to the hospital to work out a payment plan for all of my bills when we received a letter giving me a grant to cover all of my medical expenses for the year 2005—which was huge miracle!  All of my medical bills were paid for!

As I grew and had a ton more surgeries, long recoveries, interrupted school and summers, it has not been easy.  Kids have said mean things about my scars and made fun of me.  They see me as being different and many kids don’t know what to say or do.  But I would love to tell you about my scars and my experiences—don’t get me wrong, it has been hard but God and my family and friends have helped along the way. 

When people hear I was adopted from Russia, they always have questions.  No I did not speak English when I got here and my parent knew very little Russian—spend a day trying to talk to someone who doesn’t understand you and see how hard that is!  I forgot most of my Russian language as I learned English but have recently attempted to relearn it.  I don’t remember much about Russia but I have pictures my family has taken and that helps me remember.  People also ask me about the orphanage.  It was not a good place.  It smelled bad, we wore the same clothes everyday for a week and we didn’t have basic things like baths, soap, toothbrushes, or sometimes toilet paper.  One of the most difficult things for Vika and I was learning to eat a variety of foods.  We were given mostly oatmeal and soups—rarely did we get fruits or milk or meat or fresh vegetables.  So when my parents brought us here—they gave us all these weird foods we had never tasted.  We were less then cooperative in eating them!  After class, Vika and I have brought our memory books and we can show them to you if you are interested.

My favorite musical artist is Mandisa.  She has 3 songs (actually more than that) that mean a whole lot to me.  One is ‘Stronger’.  It talks about trials can make us stronger and teaching you not to give up.  There are days when I want to give up.  But then I listen to her song “Overcomer’ and realize that God has already overcome it all for me.  I just need to rest my trust in His hands.  I want to read you some of the words from Mandisa’s song, Scars because explains how I feel.

These scars aren’t pretty
But they’re a part of me
And will not ever fade away
These marks tell a story
Of me down in the valley
And how You reached in with Your grace
And healed me

They remind me of Your faithfulness
And all You brought me through
They teach me that my brokenness
Is something You can use
They show me where I’ve been and
That I’m not there any more
That’s what scars are for

And then these words from “Overcomer”

You're an overcomer
Stay in the fight ‘til the final round
You're not going under
‘Cause God is holding you right now
You might be down for a moment
Feeling like it's hopeless
That's when He reminds You
That you're an overcomer
I am an overcomer!

Some of you in here may have scars as well.  They may be visible  where all can see like mine are or they may be scars on your heart.  Maybe someone has hurt you.  Maybe you have been betrayed and don’t think you can trust anyone.  I am telling you my story because I want you to know that GOD will take care of our struggles and scars, every scar will show you how He can heal you.

One of my favorite Bible stories takes place in 1 Samuel 16.  God is showing Samuel who He wants to be the next king of Israel.  Samuel sees all of the tough and most handsome sons of Jesse and thinks each one looks like he could be the King.  But God says no and brought in the youngest and smallest son, David.  And this is what he told Samuel:

 “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Our heart is what matters to God.  And people that only look at me and see scars will be missing out on knowing who I am.  I am a girl who loves to read, swim, play games, talk with friends and recently square dance.  I am a good listener and am a loyal friend.  We can all get so caught up in outward appearance’s we miss the wonders God has to offer.  And if you have scars, remember, they show you what God has brought you through—they don’t define who you are!

February 16, 2014 The World Lost a Wonderful Lady Today

My first memory of her is sitting in her salon chair
Spinning around while she cleaned her curlers
I can still hear her voice as she led singing on Sunday morning
And smell the roast cooking when we came home for lunch
Lunch was always supper, dinner was sandwiches
Fresh bread is served at every meal
And baking day was the best

The closet under the stairs filled with toys
Well loved from years of children’s hands
Family reunions, the smell of mutton on the open fire
Taking us to Lagoon. waiting for us to go on every ride
Driving the California coast and listening to her tell stories
The best were about her childhood and Grandpa Lester
I never met him but through her words, I knew him

She loved to dance although I never saw her actually dance
Driving down Parleys canyon to the city for shopping
Eating pizza because it is her favorite
Always on a day that Grandpa Jay stayed in the field
Me climbing in the ‘crick’ to help pull out the beaver dam
She would shake her head at my cold water antics
The best summers of my life spent on Wooden Shoe Lane

In my recipe box are several stained cards written by her hand
Pieces of paper leaving a taste filled legacy
Her jars of pickles—the best in the world
Try as I might my feeble attempts never quite taste the same
She gave me a good scolding when I needed it
But her heart and hands with pretty polished nails
Are quick to hug, forgive, and encourage

A trip though the crimson canyons
Showing me where the school bus let my dad off
So he could race it down the hill
Generations wearing deep grooves down the red rock slide
She watched us climb the Sugarloaf
And added our names the 100’s carved in red stone
And cooled off by wading in Calf Creek

I always wished I had inherited her blue eyes that sparkled
I learned unconditional love, family first, and boiled raisin cookies
I taught her how to pump gas into her car
As she sheepishly confessed, Grandpa always did it for her
104 called her ‘Great-Grandma’, 5 ‘Great, Great, Grandma’
Each one wrapped in a blanket crocheted by her hands
But I was blessed to call her Grandma first.

He Died For Me

He died for me

A simple statement

I could dwell on for hours

It is easy to say

Harder to fathom

And throws my world

UP-SIDE-DOWN!

I like my comforts

My house, my hobbies

My nice car

My padded pew Christianity

It is easy to check the box

Teach a childrens class-check

Attend church—check

Listen to good music—check

Put money in the collection plate-check

Pray before meals—check

Checked—but is that enough?

What if He wants more

My heart—all day long

My thoughts—all day long

My service—all day long

What if I stopped living

In mediocrity

Meandering

Comfortable

What if the pew isn’t padded?

What if He wants my predictable life

Wants me to stop running in circles

What if I were His hands

Or His feet?

Where would He walk?

Who would He be with?

Where would I go?

And am I willing to go there?

Who does He want me to love for Him today?

Tomorrow?

What would that look like?

If I really lived everyday

Like He died for me.