I wish, I wish, I wish… People are wishing their lives away. Add that to the bizarre national growth of victim mentality over the last two decades, and Americans are doing less and blaming more. Face it, your personal cracks and stress points were there to begin with; blaming everyone and everything else simply won’t help you.  I does, in fact, sap and drain you of precious emotional strength and energy you need to face your challenges.

The real issue is that too many of us don’t take action. Tending to stew and waver, and otherwise procrastinating, we will blame the people around us, God, the weather, the fates, the government or our neighbor’s cat when we realize we’ve missed our window of opportunity.

Life as God offers it is about accomplishment and growth, not perfection. Waiting for the “perfect moment” is merely an excuse not to act. If perfection were the key, few planes would ever leave the ground, we would never have invented penicillin, and no one would ever attempt to play golf (or at least use drivers). The fact that we have become adept at commiserating with each other about what “they” are doing to us, and believe that the problem is with “them,” simply magnifies our dilemma.

Thrive is about doing much more than merely surviving, which is what most victims try to do. Every week, you’ll learn something you can use immediately. Now. Not tomorrow. Not next week, next month, next year, or someday. Now.

So we invite you to join us and thrive in 2012!

Feb. 12: This Little Piggy Went to Market…The Dangers of Debt
Feb. 19: This Little Piggy Stayed Home…Coping with Joblessness
Feb. 26: This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef…Learning to Handle Money Well
Mar. 04: This Little Piggy Had None…When It Seems Like All Is Lost
Mar. 11: This Little Piggy Went, “Whee!”…Money & Happiness God’s Way

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In addition, we are offering free workshops on Saturdays for anyone who wants to attend.  The workshops are all hosted by professionals and experts who will answer your questions and offer you advice, all for free!

• Opportunities for questions and answers
• Free coffee and snacks provided
• Casual dress, come as you are

Saturday, Feb.11, 10:00 a.m.–Noon:  ”How To Fix Your Bad Credit”

Free Credit Repair workshop. Learn how to fix bad credit, clean up your credit report and avoid scams.  Credit Guys from Lees Summit, MO will be at Lake Hills Community Church in Greenview to offer free professional information about getting your credit problems under control.   (Presenter: Keith Knapp, owner and founder of Credit Guys, Lees Summit Missouri)

Saturday, Feb.18, 10:00–11:00 a.m.:  ”When It Seems That All Is Lost: Bankruptcy & Your Options”

Bankruptcy is not the end of the world, though it may certainly feel like it.   The laws exist to provide help and a safety net for those in deep financial crisis.  Though there can be some stigma attached to bankruptcy, it is in some cases the best way forward.  Others find that what they need most is to learn some options in going through bankruptcy or options in avoiding bankruptcy.  (This workshop date, time and content has not yet been confirmed.)

Saturday, Feb.25, 10:00–11:00 a.m.: “Finding Balance in Your Budget”

When it comes to money, preparation is everything, but knowing where to start can be difficult. This workshop will show you how to set up a budget that works for you by helping you understand loans, borrowing and the importance of managing credit and debt.  (Presenter: Sherri Tangsrud, Edward Jones Investing)

Saturday, Mar.3, 10:00–11:00 a.m.: “Putting Your Best Foot Forward”

Job search and Interview workshop.  This workshop will offer practical help for those who have perhaps lost a job or are seeking work in today’s difficult and highly competitive world.  We will seek to give you “a leg up” in creating your resume, filling out job applications and doing well in interviews.  (This workshop date and time has not yet been confirmed.)

Also on Mar.3, 11:00 a.m.–Noon: “Working For Yourself: What You Really Need To Know”

Avoid some of the pitfalls and serious mistakes that are often made as people engage in working for themselves, start a small business or get into a home-based business.  Learn some practical tips to help you get started and to help along the way. (This workshop date and time has not yet been confirmed.)

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Membership is about choosing to belong to a local church for the purposes of commitment to love, service and growth. It is taking a step into a higher commitment to God, to the other people at Lake Hills, and to your own spiritual growth.  ”Discovery 101: Belonging” is an-depth look at our beliefs, vision, values, structure and strategy.  This is a no-pressure look at membership to determine if you would like to join Lake Hills Community Church.  It’s good to attend even if you just want more information and have no interest in joining!

You can learn more about our approach to membership by reading here: http://www.lakehillsfmc.com/connect/membership/

We are providing the special Bible used in the experience for each participant at no cost.  In order to participate you’ll just sign up for our weekly community groups that will meet for eight weeks.  You can do so at the church or through our website here.

The following is copied from the website of Biblica.com (formerly known as the International Bible Society), the organization who is creating the experience.  We recommend that you sign up for the daily CBE email (below) which includes your reading plan.  Daily audio downloads are available via email as well.

From Biblica’s website:

Every day, several hundred people give up reading the Bible. But we can change this.

People are hungry to hear God speak. According to one study, the desire to understand Scripture is one of the biggest reasons people go to church. Yet only 1 in 5 churchgoers say they’re getting the help they need making sense of the Bible. We need better Bible engagement. Community Bible Experience isn’t about reading a verse here or a chapter there. It’s the complete Bible, understood in context, experienced in community. It’s whole churches reading big — journeying through entire sections of Scripture for 6-8 weeks at a time. A Community Bible Experience is where Bible reading becomes more than just a private discipline. It becomes an experience we share with fellow travelers. It’s not about finding all the right answers from Scripture or debating points of interpretation. Community Bible Experience is about engaging God’s Word on its own terms. It’s about reading — and living — God’s story.

The Community Bible Experience is about changing the way we read God’s Word.

In eight weeks, you’ll experience an entire section of Scripture, starting with the New Testament. You’ll gather in small groups to share the journey. You’ll glimpse more of the Bible’s context than ever before. And your entire community will rally around the one thing that matters most: God’s Word.

How does the Community Bible Experience work?

Participants read five days a week, using a revolutionary presentation of Scripture called The Books of the Bible. (You can download a sample pdf here.)  Small groups meet for book club-style discussions of each week’s reading. Learn more about how it works.

What is “The Books of the Bible?”

The Books of the Bible is a revolutionary new format that strips away centuries of artificial formatting, leaving behind nothing but pure Bible text. Learn more about The Books of the Bible.

Why should I join a Community Bible Experience?

Every day, several hundred people give up reading the Bible. 4 in 5 churchgoers aren’t getting the help they need understanding Scripture. For most of us, Bible engagement is an isolated, fragmented experience. We believe there’s a better way. Learn more about why it matters.

How do I get started?

When you sign up we’ll send you everything you need to join in your Community Bible Experience via email.

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Remember to sign up for a community group at LHCC to complete the experience if possible.  If you live elsewhere, please consider joining the experience right where you are, and maybe even forming your own group!

But what happens when the dark side of this cultural convention shows its ugly head?  What happens when we begin to “brand” others by labeling them?  We all do it.  It begins as a matter of simply classifying and organizing information we gather about someone.  The brain does this automatically.  The process begins to deteriorate and go south when we create a habit of too quickly identifying and classifying people into existing categories and then we simply leave them there.  We’ve put them in a box.  We’ve stereotyped them, acting as judge, jury and (sometimes) executioner in the courtroom of our own conclusions.

The problem is, people are much more than the labels we assign them. You are an individual regardless of whether you fit into the broad classification of mom or musician, jock or computer nerd.  Such categories, or pigeon-holes, create a mental image complete with a set of expected thoughts, behaviors and patterns.  You have doubtless experienced the frustration of feeling the straight-jacket of false perception that someone has strapped you into for their own convenience or purposes.  They haven’t taken the time to learn and allow for your uniqueness, or for some reason they don’t want to allow themselves to see you as more than the label.  On a deep emotional level, you mutiny against the stereotype because know that You are more than the other person sees…or is perhaps willing or able to see.

God is different.  He sees you.  He knows you.  He values your uniqueness, your singular approach to life, your bizarre individuality.  He has molded so much of that throughout your life by the family and environment in which He placed you.  And He created you to play a distinctive part in the unity and diversity He intends in His Church and His kingdom.

This is a two-way street.  We thrill to hear how God sees and values our one-of-a-kind-ness.  But do we allow for and extend that same grace toward others?  Or do we limit those around us by pigeon-holing and branding them?  It plays out in behavior like control issues, micro-management, criticism, power struggles, name-calling, and thoughts of superiority and over-estimating our own intelligence and wisdom.

Many of these ugly practices stem from the way we view others in relation to self and to God. Paul addresses this very issue in 2 Corinthians 5:16: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view…” In the context of that sentence he is saying that people are more than we see, and we need to learn to view them from a perspective that’s higher and better than our own.

How much more peaceful would your life be without the need to control? to micro-manage? to criticize? to defend your own position of intelligence and wisdom?

We invite you to plan to be with us or listen in on our “messages” page as we address this critical issue of how to break free of branding others and to live in the peace and unity to which God invites us.

July 31 – “Out of the Pigeon-Hole” (pastor Mike Knapp)
August 7 – “What Brand Are You Wearing?” (Roger Thyng)
August 14 – “Good and Pleasant” (Mark Gerriets)
August 21 – “Running With the Herd” (Pastor Mike)

Serious pain is a game changer.  Life becomes a different reality when hurting becomes the new norm.  Whether it’s physical, emotional or psychological pain, life redefines itself into unfamiliar categories.  Dark and worrisome thoughts beget fears which threaten to drag their victim into black despair.  At least that has been my experience the past few months.

Thankfully, I appear to be coming out the other side, but I’m left wondering in admiration at those who face serious pain every day and are still functional in life.  I couldn’t even find the mojo to blog during this time, so it’s good to be able to finally begin writing again.  I know that God somehow brings good from every experience we have.  I have struggled with why God sometimes doesn’t help those in pain — didn’t help me with my pain — even while I wondered what my future life might be like.

Trying to redefine one’s life in terms of pain is a dark place, or at least it has been for me.  The recent blockbuster movie, Transformers: The Dark of the Moon is the inspiration for the title of this post.  (Honesty Disclaimer: The article has nothing to do with the movie. I hoped to attract a few more readers to the blog by piggy-backing on such a popular phrase!)  Seriously, in thinking of imagery for where I have been emotionally and spiritually during this time, the lunar eclipse concept just somehow felt right.  When I saw the movie title, I also liked the thought of mixing the word transform or transformation into the whole batter.  To sum it up, I both believe and find experientially that God transforms me/us when we’re on the “dark side of the moon” when we can’t seem to see or reflect the light from the more sunny side of life.

Yet in spite of the danger of being overwhelmed with the wash of such dark feeling, God has somehow deepened my fellowship with Him and awakened something more spiritual within me.  It’s nothing short of spectacular how He can produce light where there is none.  I hope that anyone experiencing pain who may read this will hear that there really is hope beyond the dark.  I don’t fully understand how Jesus does this, but he manages to somehow draw us nearer to him in all these kinds of things if we will simply trust him while we’re in it.  I found a renewed nearness to God before any real relief began to present itself.  And it has been that nearness, that presence of God Himself, that has sustained me.

Most of us approach hard questions with a sort of lens or filter through which we sift our information. This “lens” is your worldview – your life experience, values and consequent assumptions upon which your thinking operates. Your specific worldview creates the framework through which you approach all of life and its difficulties. Most people are largely unaware of the assumptions that exist in their reasoning.

The two primary competing worldviews at work in our culture are the secular humanist and the Christian worldviews. These views are polarizing and are, strangely enough, both growing. Some may object that I mention only two. This is because they are the vastly predominant modes of thought we encounter.

Questions about God and His role in the world and your life can create serious challenges to your worldview. These challenges can rock your world. For the next 5 weeks we will provide responses to some of the most difficult problems people typically face when dealing with questions of a spiritual nature.

Mindless Christianity?

One of my pet peeves is the false belief held by many well-meaning Christians that Christians aren’t to engage in logic, philosophy and reason. Through a faulty theology they somehow believe that our minds are capable only of deceiving us and producing “worldly wisdom.” This is problematic in that God speaks to us through language employing logic and reason. In fact the word logic comes from the Greek word logos, one of the very titles given to Jesus in the gospel of John.

Scripture itself encourages humans to use their minds to examine truth claims. As Paul writes, “Test everything, hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians. 5:21). It turns out that you have to practice the first part of the verse — testing and questioning — in order to build the wisdom to recognize, choose, and hold on to what is good.

1Peter 2:2  says, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” The phrase, spiritual milk (logikón gala for you Greek buffs!) means literally “logical milk” or “rational milk.” Lógos, from which logikós is derived, means reason, and is often used to describe God’s intelligence expressed in human speech or form. So the Christian is to “grow up” into rational and logical spiritual reasoning.

To adapt a line from Wordsworth, “the questioning child is father to the truly committed man.”

So I invite you to join us on this journey of rational, logical, spiritual reasoning. For the next 5 weeks beginning Easter Sunday we will tackle the most difficult and controversial questions about Christianity. There are free books available and small groups are forming around the area for casual and friendly discussion of these topics. I hope to see you at Lake Hills Community Church for The God Questions.

Related articles: Is God Real?, Is the Bible True?

Check out the list of resources for the God Questions on our Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/6zuqqr5

Wow… Wow! I’ve just finished an intensive study on tithing vs. giving.  I’ve looked at numerous Bible verses, read famous Christian leaders and preachers dating back to the second century, read books, articles and theological pages from both points of view and by people I like and don’t like.  I’m dazed by the struggle and attitude that’s raging within the church.

For those unfamiliar with the subject or terminologies, in a nutshell, tithing is the Old Testament law and standard for how much a person should give to God.  It was required of herdsmen and farmers.  The word tithe literally means tenth (1/10).  There were three tithes required in the Old Testament, bringing the total annual tithe to about 23%.  I had not known that prior to my study.  One of the tithes, collected every third year, went exclusively to widows, orphans, the poor and marginalized.  That’s part of the tithe system that not not many churches teach and do these days!

Giving is the means in which the New Testament treats the same subject (2 Corinthians 9:6-11). It is handled on the basis of a person deciding how much they can give, and then giving it cheerfully.  It is incumbent on the giver to seek to discern what the Lord may be prompting or leading them to give.

There are so many scriptures and so much subject matter available on the subject that I can’t even begin to scratch the surface in one brief blog post.  So I won’t try.  I’m going to give some generalities, a great link to a site loaded with tons of good material and scripture verses, and invite you to listen in on the message this coming Sunday, Mar.13, 2011.  It will soon be available for download on our site.

What I Was Taught

I grew up being taught by the church that tithing was the only way to receive God’s blessing, and if I didn’t tithe, my financial life would be under a curse (Malachi 3:8-12).  I knew that we weren’t bound by Old Testament civil or ceremonial laws (Romans 6:14), but I was taught that tithing is part of the covenant God made with Abraham before the law was given, and that if I’m going to be blessed in that covenant relationship, I must tithe.  Anything less is a lack of faith and is disobedience.

As the conclusion of this study I can no longer promote nor teach tithing as a principle, spiritual law, part of the Abrahamic covenant, prerequisite for God’s blessing, etc.  Jesus never promoted tithing in the New Covenant or the church; neither did the apostles, nor any other New Testament writer, nor the ancient Ante-Nicene church for centuries, including the earliest connections with the post-apostolic church we have.

I reexamined the validity of tithing as a pre-mosaic law, covenental condition (the view I used to hold); it’s not there.  It simply doesn’t exist. Furthermore, tithing as it is popularly taught today, wasn’t promoted in evangelical churches until the late 1800′s.  It’s yet another distortion from the “age of enlightenment” and the invasion of “new thought” into theological seminaries, colleges, schools and churches.

The New Testament leaves utter and profound silence with regard to teaching and promotion of tithing, unless you want to throw in Jesus’ rebuke to the Pharisees, which is still in the context of O.T. law (Matthew 23:23;  Luke 11:42).  The other instance that people try cling to is found in Hebrews 7, which is not even about tithing, but rather about Jesus’ role.  (Context is so very important!)

My approach to tithing is that it is an Old Testament Law/standard that reveals God’s heart and care for His people, His ministers, His redemptive work on Earth, and his promotion and maintenance of Israel as his redemptive agency in the world as a type of the Church, His redemptive agency in the world today.  There is no curse for the Christian who doesn’t tithe…the Christian is not robbing God if they don’t tithe.  However, it really amounts to the same thing when we have the means to help a brother or sister in need and we refuse.

Tithing has never been an issue for my wife and me; we just did as we were taught.  We also give to other ministries and charities.  After my study, I’m challenged to see how much more we can give in order to be more generous to the Lord and His kingdom.  A true understanding of giving as taught in the Bible can be life-transforming.  God does promise to faithfully take care of the generous (2 Cor.9:10-11).

I’m convinced that the tithe can be a legalistic burden for those in true poverty (which is honestly not that many in these United States).  It is also likely a relief to some who have abundance, because once they’ve given their 10% tip to God, they can blow the rest on expensive toys and fun, when in reality they could easily be much more generous.  In all fairness, many or most of those who give nothing or very little, probably can also fit into this category, too.

No, the goal of the generosity teaching of the New Testament is to move us from being materialistic, stingy, selfish people who grimace at the thought of giving away money, to being truly happy to have opportunities to be generous and to be a part of the spread of God’s kingdom on planet Earth.  The New Testament is filled with teaching on generosity, helping the poor, support of ministers, furtherance of the gospel, etc., as demonstrated in the following resource.

Great Resource

This site has an extensive review and presentation based solely on the Biblical basis for understanding why tithing is far inferior to God’s New Testament plan to create a lifestyle of generosity.  (Be absolutely sure to check out chapter 6.)

http://www.tekoapublishing.com/books/tithing/index.html

This article is a synthesis of some of my own writing along with partial excerpts from the book, Belonging, by Donald M. Bastion (Light and Life Communications).  It is an outstanding work on membership in the Free Methodist Church.  All excerpts and fragments are from chapter one in his book.

One of the best illustrations of membership found in the Bible is Paul’s analogy of being a part of “the body of Christ.”  The brilliant comparison is found throughout the new testament, but is shown most clearly in the popular verses found in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.  Another warm and inviting picture of belonging is the use of the concept of God’s family.  Whatever your view on the mere technical issues of membership, one thing is certain: God wants us all to belong and to know that profound sense of belonging.

The Cost of Belonging

“For many, the cost is not consistent with our central focus… the cross and a sacrificial death and life [of Jesus]. By its very nature, it must be costly.  Many of today’s seekers are dissatisfied with church membership, not because we demand too much, but rather that our demands are too small.”  (Elton Trueblood)

For the follower of Christ, our goal is to bring all of life’s commitments and obligations under one master commitment to Christ and His people.  Membership should call us to a threefold commitment:

1. to Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord

2. to the company of His people with whom we identify here on Earth

3. to the work He calls us to accomplish in the world

When membership is used well, it becomes a great tool for growth and accountability. Being accountable to others is an important commitment which, although costly, significantly promotes spiritual growth.

The Cost of Not Belonging

Membership was a much less casual thing in the early church than most people realize, and certainly much less casual than it is today.

1. Theirs was a commitment that may cost them their lives.

2. Paul teaches that to be out of membership is to be out from under spiritual protection and open to spiritual attack.  (1 Corinthians 5:4-13)

3. It communicates to others your feeling about making a commitment to the church.

4. You begin or perpetuate a pattern of not applying spiritual reality into practical application.  (i.e. – loving people in an abstract sense and not in any concrete ways)

5. You cannot affect the long-range planning or ministries of the congregation.

On an interesting note, in the Old Testament the sign of membership with God’s people was circumcision! Now that was commitment.  Thankfully, we don’t employ anything so radical.  ;0)

Church membership communicates people’s level of commitment to the pastor.  A covenant is a two-way street; just like God’s covenant with us, so is our covenant with each other.  When membership is offered and you choose not to enter that covenant commitment, than neither does the church have a covenant commitment to you.

Declining membership models inconsistency to the world.  You hold membership in other groups and societies, and you sign your name on the line for credit unions, credit cards, bank accounts, insurance policies, school enrollment, jobs and civic organizations.  In all these cases you belong for mutual benefit to various organizations, yet you refrain from belonging in the same manner to a company of God’s people.

Benefits of Belonging

At Lake Hills, membership is an important step in the way we teach and promote discipleship.  As we progress, we will offer four levels of membership, each one designed to engage and lead the individual to a higher place of personal spiritual discipline and maturity. (click here to see the four levels)

When considering people for leadership in the church, membership is one measure of the commitment a person is willing to make.  If one is not willing to agree to membership, then that person is making a choice that prevents them from leadership.

Belonging puts you in a position where you can affect the long-range ministries of your church.  You are not only eligible for leadership, but you can also participate in the planning for the future.  You become involved in major decisions for the church and in the promotion of others to serve in positions of leadership.

By belonging you make a positive statement to your family, friends, the church and the community.  Consider what it says to those who know you when you offer yourself for membership.  Consider what it says to the church itself; to the other members and to the leaders.  And consider also that if you withhold yourself from membership, that is also making a statement to them. In a world where spiritual values are declining, it is a good thing to take every opportunity you can to speak for God and His church.

An Important Closing Word

Some will say they don’t like membership or denominations.  In truth, anything more than one local church working by itself is a denomination. You can call it a “network” or a “family of churches” if you like, but it’s really just a selfless way to work together…we can do things together that we can’t do separately and we can help each other along the way. Membership in a local church can offer us the same opportunities.

“There may still be a sense of hesitation because your ideals of what the church should be are so far beyond what you perceive the church is…There is always a gap between the ideal and the actual – in the family, the business, the profession, the nation.  We discover that gap within ourselves, too.

“Committed members never surrender their ideals about the church, but they come to terms with its shortcomings and human blemishes graciously. They practice the ‘love which covers a multitude of sins.’ The more they love, the more ready they are to look for the best in the Christian brotherhood [family].  ‘Love hopes all things,’ refusing to take the failures they see as final.  They believe the grace of God will triumph in the fellowship [church] – and in themselves.” – Donald Bastion

The Next Step

If you’re ready to check out membership in a no-pressure environment, plan to attend our upcoming Membership class, Discovery 101: Belonging Saturday, February 26, 9:00 AM – 12:00 Noon at the church.  There is an online sign-up at http://www.lakehillsfmc.com/connect/membership/.

It’s impossible to have passionate Christianity without real repentance.  This Sunday’s message: “The Power of Real Repentance”.

One of the foundational elements of being a follower of Jesus is going through times of real repentance.  Not just saying “I’m sorry” or throwing up an apology to God for messing up, but entering into real, heart-wrenching, sometimes painful, long and serious soul searching.  If we will not look at and confront our sins, we will never live a holy life before God.  The Bible often refers to God’s presence as being like fire, a purifying fire that consumes the heart.  The kindling and fuel for that fire is our willingness to allow God to bring a deep renaissance of heart to our sinful lifestyles.

Read what David wrote in Psalm 51 after his sin of adultery with Bathsheba as he was going through repentance before God:

Psa 51:1  Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

Psa 51:2  Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

Psa 51:3  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

Psa 51:4  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

Psa 51:5  Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Psa 51:6  Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Psa 51:7  Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Psa 51:8  Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Psa 51:9  Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Psa 51:10  Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Psa 51:11  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Psa 51:12  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Psa 51:13  Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you.

Psa 51:14  Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

Psa 51:15  O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

Psa 51:16  You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

Psa 51:17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Here is a link to a tremendous article about repentance at foundationsofmorality.com.  It is very thorough and very long; long enough to be a small book, but if God is working on you and you need real life transformation, I highly recommend it.

Related Articles:

Fresh Start 2011