Homosexual Christianity
I am just going to be completely honest this morning. I feel as though I am fighting
these feelings of depression, being overwhelemed, and at the same time I am so excited about what God is doing. My depressed feelings I think are more aligned to the lack of sleep and the continual headache I have had since yesterday afternoon, but I find myself just wanting to just lay down and stare at the ceiling. I want to just relax and maybe have a little arguement with God.
Our Charis Girls Ministry addressed the issue of homosexuality last night. I honestly had no clue what the night would be like, and how many of the girls would react. I was nervous for older women being a little tainted and critical of the topic, and it ended up where it was just me and Julie with a group of girls listening so earnestly to the pure honest testimony of a jacked up girl that has Jesus in her life. I completely believe God had been softening our hearts for last night.
Julie came and gave her testimony of how she has struggeled with homosexuality and how God is helping her overcome this struggle in her life. I would encourage you to click on the link below if you are reading this post. Check out the link to the ministry that has served so many in Julie’s same position. I was amazed at how many of our girls came forward confessing sins that they were dealing with. Not just with the issue of homosexuality, but sexual sins, thought processes that weren’t honoring God, they were all across the board. The Holy Spirit was at work in so many of our girls lives, and at the end of the night crawling into bed at 12:00 a.m. I couldn’t sleep at all. I felt this burden of what do I do? How can I help all of them? What do I say? Why do they lie to me? Why do they lie to God? Why is it so hard to not get too deep and too involved?
A line from one of Josh’s previous posts kept running through my head, how our neighbors, our friends, even majority of the church will go home and fall right to sleep with no burden, no brokenness, and I am laying there tired as ever unable to sleep because of the hurt and jacked up lives we live. God help them, God help me. Thats all I could think over and over again.
I wake up this morning and it’s automatically on my mind. My heart is so heavy for our girls, the girls I see every week that are so tired and so weary, and living this lie at church because of fear of not being loved anymore and not being accepted anymore, when that is more than likely the root of their sin. The need to be loved, the need to be accepted, this need for Jesus to restore and heal them. I can’t help but fight the thoughts of what criticism and negativity might come from other members of our church that find it dirty and shameful, and want nothing to do with it. Those that will judge our girls and probably shun them because of their sin.
I feel like there is just the overwhelming number of broken hurting girls and there isn’t anyone to hold them and love them. There is this vacancy of those that want to fill the role of an encourage, a mother figure, simply a christian. It’s amazing what an honest and open story of what Christ has done with a sinful and imperfect person will result in genuine and broken repentence, but instead we have adults we have youth, we have children holding everything in, holding onto their sin, unloved, still broken, and living lies before their Creator that just wants them to be themselves.
Where is our message of love? Where are our Christian, our church members, our family when we need them? Where do we go from here?
Negatives of Church
This
past Sunday we had our Sunday school lesson on Acts 2 and the first church. I was able to teach the 7-10th graders. I started off our discussion with asking them why they didn’t like church. These statements are not their overall opinion on church, but instead just the things they see are lacking and need work:
“Its so early in the morning.”
“The old people judge us.”
“It is predictable.”
When I asked them if they could come and be themselves at church I got an overwhelming, “NO.”
It seems like we have these two extremes in church. The ultra-conservative where if you were anything outside of a tie and suit and skirts, and dresses, or a button up shirt than you are being disrespectful. On the other side we have have those that believe if you walk through the doors in anything other than a t-shirt and jeans with holes in them then you are keeping the Spirit from moving. In both instances there is a heart of pride. How on earth have we replaced the look in our dress instead of the position of our hearts.
When I asked the girls if they could come in with a problem and express a struggle that they are going through, they said they would be judged and don’t feel comfortable talking about it at church. Instead they talk to their friends at school and such.
We have gotten it soo backwards! The people of God can’t even come as they are and as broken as they are, without someone judging them. A person goes down to the alter and people automatically think, I wonder what they have done, or what their problem is instead of just praying for that person.
Every Sunday in between services you have a lane of older people and a lane of younger people going opposite directions and no words exchanged, no hugs given out, just stay where you’re comfortable and talk to you friends, and come in broken and leave just as broken. We play this masquerade. Put on a smile for Jesus and sing praises to His name and deep down feel more lost, more broken, more bitter than ever.
It’s funny how there is more community in our local bars Monday through Sunday instead of in our churches twice a week.
Busy Bee
Bible s
tudy, school, cooking, cleaning, laundry, taxes, talking, shopping, work, deadlines, stress, kids, practice, tutorials, band, soccer, softball, homework, illness, T.V. programs, visitation, more work, and list can go on and on.
Has anyone felt the pressures of how busy our culture is lately? This week I feel as if I have been slapped in the face by this sad and deadening truth of our world, of our country, of our homes, and of of lives. I started to just feel incredibly overwhelmed. Our calenders seem to constantly fill day by day with ministry, family, etc. and you find that there is hardly any time for a marriage, theres hardly any time for quiet stillness with the Lord, hardly time to breathe.
I wonder if there are so many divorces outside and in the church because of our state of business. We use the typical scenario of the man who spends too many hours at the office, but what about the member who is involved in every program in the church, or the minister who spends more time going and preaching or visiting instead of spending with his family. We have also equated this idea that if parents spend all of their time at their child’s sporting events and at their recitals that they are focusing and loving their children. Although this is support, its not the love, it is not the guidance that that child needs.
We have equated love and family into nothing more than a penciled in game, or Saturday into the busy calendars of life. Why won’t we slow down? Why can’t we take some time to just relax.
Matt Chandler made the quote, ” we keep ourselves busy and going and going because we are so scared once we stop that we will hate who we are.”
Pretty heavy words. Stop planning so many things! Stop running from soccer to church, to everywhere else because your kid wants to be involved in every single sport, and sit down and have dinner together, stop seeing your spouse for only 10 minutes before bed and when you wake up, and spend some time loving one another. Pretty much, just slow down, pull the break up, and breathe!
