The past few weeks have been stressful. There have been all sorts of attacks by the enemy and I am physically and mentally drained. All the pain and stress came to a close on Sunday...
Yesterday, my church shut it's doors... at least for a time.
Change comes often in this life. Sometimes it is hard to figure out why it happens, but we know that God has a plan. God never sets something in motion that does not further His Kingdom. How can a church closing down further His Kingdom? The answers to that are plentiful. There are churches that abuse and hurt their memebers all the time, those are the churches that should be shut down.
But then there are churches like mine. We were a small gathering of people that loved one another as far as I could see. We enjoyed one anothers company. There were problems and short comings, but there is no perfect church.
As we reflected and said good bye to Sunday mornings as we knew them yesterday, the one thing that God kept speaking to me was that this was His time. God used the people of our church to minister to one another. Life change happened. All of us could look back and see the times when God spoke or set in motion changes in us at our church.
Now, He's moving again. Where? I don't know yet. That's half the fun though, isn't it?
God's timing is so perfect. Even when it seems inconvenient, it always works out to be just what we needed. Look back at the tough times in your life. He is there. He is perfecting us. He is molding us. He is loving us.
His time is always the right time.
8 comments:
The Lord is faithful. You guys will still be able to worship and be supported by your bros and sisters in Christ. We will se ya next week at Desperate.
Scott,
Change is sometimes a challenge. Awesome growth can come from it!
I will be praying that God will use this time for His glory.
Heather
Hey man, I can relate to your circumstances. It's a paradox of grief and excitement all at the same time. Allow yourself to experience the feelings of loss as well as the excitement that comes with the clean canvas.
I will say this though, The Church stills exists, even if the building and organized meeting schedule doesn't. And we're gonna have some CHURCH this Friday! Can't wait to see you!
It was a priceless experience, it was something that I will never regret doing. I grew up in many ways during the journy that was CPX/Relevant. Thank you Scott for the part you had in that. I love you, I love everyone at our community that we called Relevant. If I ever was an ass, it wasnt personal, it was intentional, I didnt mean it. I look forward to life outside of doors of Relevant Church, but Relevant Church will always exist, as long as our community continues. May we work at continueing the biblical community we started.
Maybe its time to move to Portland?I can think of at least three churches you would dig out here...
Scott, still trying to process what has happened. The answer I seek most is, what is God wanting us to learn in this? And I don't necessarily mean this in a negative sense, like we've been bad and need to shape up. It could be a positive, like maybe we've learned to love well, and now it's time to scatter and spread that love. Sort of like when the early church was persecuted and scattered, it caused the Kingdom of God to spread. Or maybe we just need to go "underground" for a time, like a seed, in order to come back to life.
Today for church I went to Westwind's website and listened to some podcasts.
I found a church, but it's 3 hours away... maybe a move is forthcoming!!
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