The Sleeping Giant

Nevaeh making friends at church

     Let me be completely honest.  I spend a lot of time frustrated with things in life.  I often times have high expectations of people, too high.  I have a way of only remembering how good people are and never remembering their faults.I often have a hard time understanding why people do things the way they do, because lots of things are just no brainer, common sense type of things to me.  These are good and bad things.
       Rebekah and I often have this debate where she tells me to lower my expectations and I tell her I cannot.  If I do not have high expectations for the people I am leading, then they will not exceed because no one ever expected them too. I would rather be frustrated than to just sit by and let people stay how they are without trying to help.(not to assume I have or will ever "Arrive" I have so far to go until I see Him on that day and am made complete) But I would have never reached anywhere near where I have without the influence of a few men in my life expecting me to do great things. Phillip Kissinger, Bill Battle, Jon Rissmiller, Chris Mcqueen, Coach V, Coach Beale, Jaco Lourens, and Dan Germo.  The influence that these men have had in my life is enormous simply because they had and still do have high expectations for me. So I will keep those high expectations because I know how much it helped me and if it frustrates me oh well that will just be the thorn in my flesh.

Anglican Church in Mwingi

    Which brings me to the whole point of this.  I often times am frustrated with the Church. Not just the Church in Kenya but the Church as a whole.  I read the Bible and have these expectations for us to be united as one for the sake of Christ.(John 17)  And then my American mindset slips in and I feel like the Church is a place for me as a Christian to be fed so that I can survive and be fed to go out and minister. I have heard it said that some people treat the church like a country club we pay our dues so that we can reap the benefits.
    I have been thinking a lot lately about this you tube video that was so popular in the last few months. Why I hate religion but love Jesus. It was amazing to see how many people got upset about what this guy was saying.

Righteous and Nevaeh in Sunday School

     
    People were and are angry they have done reply videos and everything.  Honestly if you do not try to dissect the message and take note that he is referring the the religion(the institution) as the world understands it.  He really gets it. I honestly feel like as Christians we are looking for something to fight with each other about because if we do that then we do not have to focus on the world and we are just more comfortable with each other.
     So all of this to say I have high expectations for the Church. And I will continue to because God does.

Me and my Buddy at Church

 
    One of the things I have learned is that the church is ministry.  Let me type it again the Church is ministry.  We have the misconstrued idea that the church is where we get filled up to go out and DO ministry but its all wrong. The Church is Ministry.  If we can treat it like ministry we can really start to have an impact on the world. The church across the world is The Sleeping Giant and the Father is calling her to awake will we answer?