Search and Rescue

Every faith has its up and downs. Every faith is challenged by the extremities. We are each a microcosm of the different influences that have impacted our faith. Many that are reading this have been turned off by faith and religion. Oh, many say they are spiritual but not religious – yet when challenged to show the spiritual disciplines that they follow there are none – they are just deluding themselves of their self-righteousness and holding onto something else.

For too long people have worried about their reputation when redemption is the real goal of faith. While there are obvious abuses from various faiths, we abuse ourselves when we state that we need none of the community involved in different faiths and congregations. Whether we are in a congregation that is worried more about the way it looks, or we are being personally hedonistic and spiritually self-absorbed we are in fact living the same basic principle. So what then does it take to be authentically spiritual in our lives – in both person and corporate community settings?

I think that we first need to realize is that at some level we are all lost. Oh, maybe not in all areas, but we all have situations where we honestly HAVE NO CLUE what to do or how to be. We often put on a brave – (actually denying) – face because we want the illusion of control and the reputation that it brings. A reputation for being the one that has it all together – rather than the one that is lost and needs help finding their way out of the woods. Countless people have died lost because of they were to prideful to accept that they needed to be found and redeemed

I know of friends that did not like the feedback that they were getting from other friends and so they labeled them as fakes and frauds instead of friends. My question(s) was and is to these people – was it Monopoly Money that they gave you when you could not pay your bills? Was it a Barbie doll that sat with you in the Emergency Room? Was it a ghost that said that they disagreed but would be supportive of you as a person? So many times we are more focused on something that does not matter than on the redemptive and building qualities that we should be gaining from our relationship with God and others. If you push away redemption you will never be found – and eventually they will quit looking for you.

Look into your life and REALLY see the way that it is being lived. Look at the incompleteness that is there when others are not found and how we need to be involved in the search for them as we wait to be found ourselves. May you be patient and persistent in your search and rescue efforts.

Blessings,
Pastor Greg

Wounds and Scars

Last Saturday I helped some friends move and while taking an entertainment center up the steps, I got a splinter in my finger. At the time I could not get it out so I just left it. On Sunday my finger started to hurt a little. By Sunday night it was really hurting. So, I took the splinter out. It was really painless and my finger started to feel better. Today, there is still a little scar and it still hurts a little, but that scar is still there, and probably will be there for about another few days or so.

My finger probably would have been much better if I had taken that splinter out Saturday night and put a bandage on it instead of trying to "tough it out". We have that mentality with life many times. It's better to be tough and not deal with problems thinking they will go away, instead of facing issues and allowing ourselves to heal.

Sunday, January 27, would have marked the 43 birthday of my best friend. Cancer took him away from us three years ago. To this day, I will tear up when I think about him and how much he has missed with my life.

The first year after his death, I still wouldn't talk to anyone about it. I was afraid to, no one knew what I was going through...or so I thought. Granted, not many understood the friendship and what he really meant to me, but the more I was able to talk to people about him, and about how I was feeling, the better things became.

I wrote a poem shortly after his death, and it is framed and sitting beside my bed.

God has held my hand through this time. Earlier that year, I had lost a cousin due to an auto accident, and also lost a friend who took his own life. Over the past nearly four years since the deaths, I have learned how to really live life.

God has a way of helping us go through those rough times. He sends people to stand by us. God sent Rick to help me through a very difficult time, when God called him home, there were friends and family who were there for me. We may not always know why people are there, but when you look back on things, you will begin to understand why these people were brought into your life.

The thing about a physical scar, if you do not put any type of ointment on it and bandage it up, it will never heal. Emotional scars are the same way, if you do not give it the attention it needs, you will never heal.

God did not intend for us to go through life full pain and hurt. Keep your heart and eyes open for people who enter your life. You never know you be there to help that person, who in turn can help you.

As you sit at work or school, look at the people around you. You have been given an opportunity to be the world to someone. You have been given an opportunity to help someone start the road to healing.

There's a saying, "it only takes a spark to get a fire going" and you never know when you are going to be that spark.

Be a friend and help others with their scars...and in the process you will be blessed.

The Responsibility of Privilege

We want everything for free. Have you noticed wanting something but not wanting to pay the price for it. Maybe you want six-pack Abs, but do not want to go to the gym. Maybe you want to be wealthy, but do not want to do what it takes to amass that wealth (which is to spend less than you earn). We have become obsessed with getting things for nothing. We do not want them to cost us anything. But that is not the way that the world is created – or the way that God will let you live.

You must choose. You must choose to be fit, or sit in your lazy-boy recliner and do nothing. You must choose to spend less than you make or keep buying the latest toys that do not add to your net worth. You must choose today and determine the cost you are willing to pay for what you want – or need. If you want something for nothing it usually means it is worth nothing. A fortune not earned honestly will be lost quickly.

Jesus is clear that our faith MUST cost us something if it is to be real. We cannot claim faith and it not cost us something. Most reading this article today do not let their claim of faith even cost them an hour on Sundays to gather for worship – much less infuse the rest of their lives. We want faith to be convenient and easy – never a choice that is difficult and costly.

Jesus said: “…, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

His words haunt us, because we do not want anything to have a real, tangible cost and yet he challenges us to see that our decision to follow him – to believe in God – MUST have a cost if it is to be real and legit. That just rubs the wrong way it seems. Faith should be about receiving forgiveness, grace and mercy – RIGHT?

While we do receive a great deal in faith we also have to make choices that cost us something. What is most important to us? What are we willing to give over to God? What is so important to us that we will not let God redeem that part of us? There are legitimate questions we must grapple with. They are questions we will wrestle with for our entire lives and must actively answer and respond to as we seek a real faith that transcends just our needing something to our being something of worth and value.

Have you heard the saying: “As useful as Teats on a Boar Hog?” It speaks to how something is not useful, helpful and in fact is often distracting. Sometimes we have things that do not help our faith, but in fact show that there is precious little of it in us. A person who is only looking for something from faith and never gives to that faith is – pardon the expression: “As useful as Teats on a Boar Hog.”

Faith is not privilege – it is responsibility. A mutual responsibility that leads us to a higher plane of existence and openness. Today I pray that you take that responsibility so that you may have the full joy of it’s privilege.

Blessings,
Pastor Greg

Humble not Humiliated

Obsession. There is nothing else that can describe our way of viewing the world today. We are obsessed with how people will look at us. We are consumed by the need to be the person at the center of the action and attention – in short to be the person with a place of honor. We are obsessed with the desire to be in places of honor.

Gaining honor for something is not bad – it is the inordinate amount of value we place on that portion of our lives. If we only do things for the honor we will get or do not do something because we do not think there will not be a honor there we have determined that our lives will be focused only on the veneer of what life is and can be.

So what is the answer to the dilemma and obsession which consumes us? How can we move beyond the need to be honored to where we need to be? It starts with being humble. Jesus shares a story about seeking honor and how it can actually lead to being humiliated and embarrassed because we jockey for the place of honor instead of letting ourselves be lifted there by how others view us. So real honor comes via being humble and building a life that serves and honors others via that service.

This week I went to view the build out of Covenant of the Cross’ new facilities and it was a reminder of how we look at things on the surface. We look at the color of the walls, the fabrics used, the art on the walls, but do not think about the structure that underlies all of that. Please understand that the colors, fabric and art do matter, but so do the things that underlie them. In the end if the structure is not sufficient the colors, fabrics and art will not keep the building standing.

The same is true of honor that is real. It is not something that is just color, fabric and art. It is the wiring, HVAC and other things that make up the “bones” of a building – just as character, service and other things that no one will see as pretty – but ensure that the color, fabric and art have context and thus meaning.

Honor is something that should come from others looking into our lives and service to see that our concerns are not for getting honors, but rather for being people that serve in such a way that honor is a result of a humble and open life. We are almost guaranteed embarrassment if we focus on the honor rather than the substance of a life of service.

This week I invite you to join in the honorable life of service that will give you more honor as you let the build out of your life design a context for the way people view you.

Blessings,
Pastor Greg

A New Year...A New Start

We have a chance to start new every day. We may not be able to erase yesterday's mistakes, but we have a chance to learn from those mistakes and to make amends and basically start over.

We have a tendency to beat ourselves up over past mistakes or we remind others of their past mistakes. It is so easy to go back to the old habits and not grow. We are given a fresh start every day and when we use that to grow, our lives become healthier and we are able to enjoy life more.

Society has a habit of throwing past mistakes in our face. It is so easy to get caught up in that mindset and stay on that same road of destruction. Our lives are not meant to be lived in the past. We make mistakes every day, we wrong other people...we cannot go back and change it, but we can make amends and ask for forgivness when we wrong someone.

Is this the easiest thing to do? No. Does the other person always forgive? No. But that is between that person and God. But growing is never easy, if were that easy, we would all be happy. We fall at times, but even if we fall forward, we make progress. Falling face down may hurt, but you still moved forward.

This year, start fresh. God gave us life to enjoy it, not spend it worrying all the time. Take small steps towards a big goal. Don't get stranded in trying to make everything happen at once.

Make 2008 a year of happiness. Make 2008 a new start

Happy New Year!!

I certainly hope and pray that it will be, but I know each year holds its share of challenge and sorrow as well. May we all rely on God's Grace, Mercy and strength to get us through to the joy that comes in the morning!

As I look forward into 2008 I see change and growth for our church:

Pastor Greg has shown his faith in his flock by stepping away from his day job and believing that the Lord will provide.
Linda is working with Derrick, Steve, JR and others to bring the new facility to life. We anticipate the sale of our current facility sometime in the future. I know that they will be blessed by this space, because the Holy Spirit has visited us here so often that the walls radiate with peace and love.

If you haven't visited Covenant before, 2008 will be a GREAT time to join our Family. We are growing and going, and the good Lord is our guide.

Look for me. I'll be there. :-)

Start with Praise

Watching and helping people blossom into their potential is one of the greatest things we can do. We have a unique gift in seeing people be transformed by the circumstances and encouragement that they can get when things are not so easy. We believe that we are doing a favor for people when we allow them to focus solely upon themselves and we think that we have to be “perfect” to be a person that God finds joy and potential in. To reach the potential we have we need to start with some basic building blocks that will allow us to move forward.

First, start with praising God. So often we end by praising ourselves and giving ourselves honor when the one that really brought us through and provided for us has not been even acknowledged in any REAL way in our lives. To praise God we first honor who God is then progress to acknowledging what God is going to do – before God does it. Now that takes some faith to see it through. It takes some hope that no matter what happens you know that God will carry you. Lastly it takes some love for God and others to move beyond our limited understanding of the world. Praise God and you will find that your issues pale in comparison and that all those things that you worry about will become manageable with God’s grace and mercy.

While it starts with Praising God it continues by depending upon God. We have been told all of our lives that we cannot trust that others will care for us. While that may be true to some extent with humans, we generalize that is such a way that we trust in no one or anything other than ourselves. We need to learn to trust in God and develop a discerning spirit to find people whom we can trust – people of faith that look for potential not perfection. It means that we must clean up our filters so that we can determine with clear ability the motives and intentions that people bring to the table when they approach us. The only relationship that has no secondary motive is the relationship that God has toward you. Most motives are good and helpful to both people – but they are there and they are to draw us closer to the motives and intentions of God as we assist each other in maturing.

Praise and depending on God leads us to the natural result. It leads to growth as a person, especially as a person of faith. So often we think that growth is about us, but it is only to the level that we achieve the potential that God has placed in us. The growth that we have is to assist others as they assist us in redeeming our pasts to be delivered to our futures. The only growth that remains is the growth that draws us closer to God and develops a character and ability that mirrors that of the creator. Everything else will pass away – fame, fortune and everything else.

This week start praising and you will be on the road to the best person you can be!

Blessings,
Pastor Greg