So I got into a conversation with a friend the other day about “church,” and it helped me remember what it once felt like.

This was his statement about the church today-

“God may have originally used church, but he clearly isn’t anymore. God has moved on to something different.”

Most people respond with, the church is full of broken people. You will always be disappointed with it because it has jacked up people in it. Or you will get the theological reasoning for church, which doesn’t matter to someone who doesn’t care about theology and has been hurt.

Here’s the problem with the broken people statement. We serve a perfect God. If we believed half of what we say we do, peoples’ church experiences would be drastically different. We can’t keep using the same worn out arguments for our apathy. It’s our excuse for abusing the people God desires to heal.

Some of us can’t even see the problem. If you’re like me, then you love the church. Love can make you pretty blind. Eventually you have to wake up and honestly take stock of the situation. We aren’t loving people. I did say “we.” Me too, I’m not free from this critique. At times I don’t have much love in the tank and fake it.  It happens and I don’t like it. My actions can be noble, but with no heart.

So as he talked about what he thinks God is doing now, it sounded very familiar.  He said he had a vision, “I imagine a community where people come together to share life, encourage one another towards Jesus, and help each other. There are no hierarchy, or agendas, just love.”

I said that I liked his ideas. I said that what you are talking about is what the church is supposed to be. What you desire is a community God is a part of. That is supposed to be church.  He couldn’t really even fathom that the church today has any place in God’s heart at all. It was hard to even hear me call his vision church.

If you area christian, we need to listen to the people who are disengaged with church because they are God’s voice. I still haven’t found a perfect church. I will never. Part of the statement is true, but I have experienced God’s amazing love again through his church. It’s more amazing to me that he can do that through jacked up people like me.

We don’t need to try harder, or figure out a cooler way to do things. We just need to ask God to help us love people in a real way. God just needs to be a part of it again. It’s amazing to me that some people who haven’t engaged in what we call church are closer to the kingdom of God then we are. God speaks to me in the most unexpected ways.

(thought the church sign was priceless)

Anyway, before I was going to preach, I was in a pre-service prayer room praying for the service. My talk was how God desires to heal our heart and ultimately how faithful he is to do so. As I was in this room, God reminded about the last time I was in that same room. The last time I was in that room I was angrily screaming at God. I was to the point where I would be happy to see God strike me with lightening just to know he exists.

Here, I was in this same room now about to preach on how powerful, loving and faithful God is. As I was thinking about how full-circle this whole thing has come, the worship band began to play a song Audra and I had at our wedding.

I cried. A lot. It was powerful for me. Then in the service God showed up for all of us like he has in my life over the past 4 years. We saw God do a bunch of cool things with people’s hearts. I came away encouraged and closer to God.

Then we partied on the rooftop. Drank green beer. Listened to Irish punk music and did all things Chicago.  Good weekend all around. Big thanks to The Church In West Ridge for having me!

The stories these young people have are horrific. We are hoping to go down there and bring hope and love in a real way. While it will be a powerful time of ministry, I’m hoping God will minister to us as well. He always seems to do more than we could hope or imagine.

On top of all that, for $5,000  we can put a homeless family into a home. The family that we are helping has a child with special needs and their living cost in more then they can bare.

Please consider helping us bring hope to the lives of these amazing people. Audra and I need only 1,700 to go on the trip, and we need 5,000 to house an amazing family.

If you would like to be a part of what God is doing in Guatemala and with college students, please donate. Help us get there! Any amount is great. Email me at chris@rccjax.com and I’ll explain how you can give to the 501c3.

Thanks for reading

This is a video of a previous story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmjrbX__c2s&feature=player_embedded

Reblogged from .the sword and the plowshare.:

Inspiring dude and always funny stuff.

When crisis strikes, if we are honest, we all have felt this way. When our relationships fail, our business struggles, someone betrays us, it feels like the world is caving. It feels like God is eerily silent. In our lives we become restless, angry, hurt and scared.

First we have to ask, does God leave? Is he absent? Here is the reality. “Never will I leave you; Never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5. I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matt 28:20  No, he doesn’t leave. He is with us in our darkest hour, and when things are great. We know this. This isn’t new information. In fact, it can be down right infuriating when someone tries to correct our poor theology in times like these. 

 So why do we respond this way? What about the way we live and think leads us to be tossed around like we are?

We let our experience dictate what the unseen reality is, rather then what it truly is. The truth is-he is with us and he loves us. Our experience tries to re-teach our hearts about who God is, and it’s hard to divorce our experience from the truth. Most of us have stories that just plain suck. If you don’t yet, just wait. It’s life. Stuff happens.

At every university we are taught that knowledge trumps everything. So why does that work in everything, but life?

Well, because it doesn’t work that way. Knowledge and experience are married together. They can’t be separated. I want to argue that we all learn this way. We learn with our heart and our head. The woman at the well illustrates this well. She knows all about the Messiah and what he would do for the world. In the scripture she has great theology. She understands who he is, and she still lives the way she does. She has six lovers. Jesus meets her at the well and moves with the power of the Spirit and boom, life change. The experience of God’s power with his truth brought real change.

The problem is that the enemy doesn’t care if you open to his movement in your life. Experience will come you way, and you will get a dose of a new reality. The Holy Spirit on the other hand is a gentleman. He doesn’t force himself on you.  As Christians we have fallen asleep to his reality. The enemy takes what isn’t his and God has invited you into freedom. Its an invitation we need to respond to. He is always open and is desiring to meet you and heal you. It’s Ironic that we are open to experience life in the most negative way, but we can be closed off to his Spirit. This simply makes no sense.

My whole point is that when you feel like God is away, ask God to send his Spirit to come and make his truth a reality. It’s normal to feel the way you do. You are not alone, and God wants to meet you.

What if we actually believed that God wanted to come into every part of our life and transform it?  What if God is actually interested healing every bad experience and hurt you have. What if God really wanted to rush in and do miracle after miracle?

It has been an interesting journey of healing for me. I’ve come to realize that I’m never going to arrive. Not that things haven’t been made right, but because I’ve always been in need of healing. At first, I thought it was a bad thing. I’m starting think it points more to real health.

I’ve been dealing with some really weird almost phobia like fears that started within the past 4 years. It has been really debilitating in my life. I would get to the point of having shortness of breath at times. Along with that, I’ve been really confused mentally in different social situations. It almost felt like social anxiety mixed with ADD. I thought that I could just work through them as I stepped out. I’ve come to find out tiime does not heal all wounds, it only buries them.

I’ve been to multiple counselors and prayed through some of the stuff myself, but I just wasn’t getting through it. Last week I made a phone call to someone in our church that connects people to prayer ministers. It really felt like I was calling a mob boss. So, I hear you know people who can take care of these sort of things…Anyway, I pulled up to a house at 8:30 p.m. and met two guys I’ve never met before. I felt slightly crazy, but man I wanted to get free from this stuff. They prayed for me for about an hour and asked me a few questions to guide them through my baggage. Man, I had more junk in the trunk that I was even aware of! We prayed for a while and nothing crazy happend, but I remembered feeling lighter.  It was a really normal prayer session with two awesome guys going to bat for me.

The next day I was in a classic situation that I would normally break down in and I had total freedom. I had total peace and I’m completely free! Not only that, my mind was clear as a bell. It’s hard to explain how big of a healing this is for me, but I feel like I have my life back again. I’m so glad to be part of a family that takes care of each other. I know I’m not finished, but this one felt good.

Inactivity is activity if you in that part of the healing, but then you have to start moving the broken stuff around. You might have to drive to a strangers house to get the healing you need. Its all God work, but it’s our job to open the door and let him in. Don’t settle for being burnt out, bitter, and angry. You weren’t designed for that. We have a God that is more than capable.

Keller out.