Tim and Naomi

Sometimes you just have to return back to the original words God spoke to you. About 7 years ago, God spoke to me. He told me to pack up and leave Twin Falls, where I owned a nice house and had a good job. God told me to head up here to Boise and get involved at the Boise Vineyard.

As usual, we thought we had a better plan than that. We ended up in Nampa at first, and then moved even further from our target. We ended up near the border of Idaho and Oregon. In a way, we must have had our fingers in our ears, doing the “la la la, I can’t hear you” thing. So, like I said, here we are. Now we’re trying to pay better attention and find out just what we should be doing here. Life happens.

Returning to the words God spoke to me has really been a great re-aligning for me. And it’s good to know that God is faithful to keep his promises when we fail.

Personally, I need to rediscover a “Kingdom Mindset”. A friend recently referred to it as living great kingdom dream instead of the great American dream. So, I am here, rediscovering the Kingdom inside of Christ. It only comes when we leave isolation and join with others in a sort of organic Christianity where we become authentic Christians who love people.

Have you ever ignored God only to eventually bend to His will? I’d love to hear about it!

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Faith, Organic church

I’ve been working over my thoughts on Christian music for a while. Many of you know that I have been a strong advocate for Jesus music. I still am. However, my views have grown, guided by the Spirit. I would like to share with you what I have been learning (I’m not done learning yet).

A Secular Industry

The Christian Music Industry is secular in nature. It is an industry with the purpose of generating revenue. The Gospel message is mostly a pitch or ploy to generate cash flow. Without a flow of cash, the industry will die. God does not work on a cash flow basis. Neither does genuine ministry. Pure ministry has no prerequisits other than the working of the Holy Spirit.

Secular Artistry

Most Christian artists perform and record music on a secular level. The God thing often shines through in a real way, but the music or performance is itself not ministry or sacred. It serves the purpose of a profession. Professions are not sacred, in my opinion. They are a means to a worldly end. It would do the Christian community good to end the current flow of Industry music they are producing. We should stop selling it as sacred and stop placing it on a pedestal. We should continue to have Christians performing and recording music.

Worship on Sale Now!

Worship of our Lord. For sale. Those two phrases are now somehow hard for me to swallow together. Like offering doves and unblemished lambs, we parade our best like a top 40 countdown. We somehow feel inadequate in ourselves now that we hire professional worshipers in our churches. We think that to do it right, we must. After all, people won’t warm the seats if the songs aren’t performed perfectly. We have an image to uphold.

I am all for worship, and I love when music sounds good. But I find that the commercialization of what we call worship music is also largely secular. And by secular, I mean worldly in it’s nature. And in the process we have damaged our view of worship and our own ability to worship. We have, in a sense, become spiritually dependent on an industry instead of our Lord. We change fellowships if another place is playing more modern or better produced music. We can’t “feel the Spirit” without the propper mood setting manipulations. In a way, we’ve been fooled into making (worship) music a sort of god.

We’ve taken something we loved in the world and painted Jesus on it so we can continue loving it.

I Think I Stepped In Something

So where do I go from here, now that I’ve painted myself into a corner? Have I forgotten to offend anyone? Do you have any insight(s) that you can share? I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Christian Music, Organic church

If you’ve had the great experience of reading or even studying the Old Testament scriptures, you will come across sacred objects. These objects include things like the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:16), the Temple (1 Kings 6:1), and the alter (Genesis 8:20). Sometimes people died when they failed to honor and respect God’s commands in relation to these objects. Each of these objects were a foreshadow of the coming Messiah. That is a subject for another time.

As a result, in the new testament, a lot of things changed, including the use of these sacred objects. We no longer looked at the objects that pointed to Jesus’ coming. We now look to Jesus. We no longer need the foreshadows of his coming.

However, it is in our human nature to try to lean on once sacred artifacts as if they hold the key to touching Jesus. I have been exposed, worshiping Jesus kneeling at an alter, thinking that it would somehow draw me closer to Him. I have been caught going to the temple, thinking that God would meet me there. But God is not bound to those things, nor those places. God placed His son on the alter of a cross as a final sacrifice and chose to dwell in me instead of a building. Revolution!

But my sinful nature still doesn’t want to completely let go. I revere other objects and artifacts with undeserved special reverence. I’ve purchased jewelry and religious nick nacks, to illustrate my religiosity. From bumper stickers to t-shirts, music to movies, and books to software, I have purchased indulgences. Then those items receive special treatment and offense is taken if they are disrespected. Let me be clear, God does not desire these things for us. God only desires us to be with Him. No special indulgences required, requested or even allowed between Him and us.

The pitfall is not so much as the items we revere such as statues of angels in our gardens or a cross around our neck. But more a matter of relying on those things as a sort of connection between us and God. We quickly begin depending on them in a religious sense. We begin to feel closer to God as a result of a thing in our lives and not as a result of communion with God. The same goes for religious ceremonies, dogma, and traditions of man.

The end result of living as a consumer of Christian artifacts and objects (nick nacks)… I hate to admit that I’ve purchased the following embarrassing items…

“warning: in case of rapture, this car will be unmanned” bumpersticker
Countless terrible sounding Christian music albums
Testamints (little mints)

That is just a start. I hope you will add to this list here. And I hope to restrain myself from placing things on such a pedastal again.

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Organic church

I know people hear me speak often about organic church topics. The truth is, I’m exploring what scripture says with more of a blank slate approach. For past year I’ve wrestled with God over our American popular culture church experience. I would like to share what I’ve found in my journey thus far.

First, I would like to address my fellow believers who attend a traditional church. By that, I mean churches that are incorporated, have positions which must be filled, an order of service, and is led by clergy.

1. God uses traditional churches.

2. Many people who belong to traditional churches are Gods children.

With that in mind, please read this knowing that I have been blessed to be a part of several healthy traditional churches.

I’m my Christian journey I can remember times, places, and people that truly resembled the Church spoken of in the New Testament. They were times of rejoicing, repentance, failure, and success. Each one of these times, there were people involved and often they were affiliated with a church organization. I come from a churched background.

I always thought of churches as a place a Christian would fall under the authority of a seasoned Christian pastor. That pastor was then responsible for providing spiritual direction for everyone in his church. Church was also a place where Christians would fellowship, have pot lucks, and hold special meetings. The sanctuary was considered holy, special rules applied when you were there. I was taught to revere it as if the Holy Spirit could be chased out of the building due to a child running down the isle.

But through all of that I was taught and understood that the church Jesus wanted was really a group of people, not a building or a club. And I was taught this in traditional churches. However, when it came to practicing this teaching, there were practices and doctrines that conflicted with it. This was an acceptable compromise for me, because I had to pick a church or denomination to be under the authority of. I had accepted less than what God had intended to be His Body.

I began searching for answers to questions.

What does God ask of me?
Do I add to His Word, substituting my own view point as His?
Do I follow rituals and traditions like the Pharasies or do I follow in the footsteps of Jesus?
What if I read the New Testament with fresh eyes, not applying my own religious background?
Do we naturally follow the same patterns as the New Testament church?
What would it look like if we did?

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Organic church