Jesus wouldn’t be welcome at church 2009/03/27

At Bible study Tuesday, we were talking about how people decide who gets to come into the church and who gets to leave. We’ve also been talking about judgemental and hypocritical Christians at church. I’ve been thinking about this all week, and I don’t think that Jesus would be welcom in the church if he came just like he was when he walked the Earth. He would be dirty from walking, his hair would be long, and he would be wearing clothes that weren’t clean and those clothes definitely wouldn’t be what we consider appropriate for church. People would stare, they would point fingers, and they would talk about him as soon as he passed and his back was to them.

I wonder how many of us have turned people away, not only at church but in life. How many times have we been to afraid to go talk to someone because of the way they look? How many times have we lost a witnessing opportunity because the person we see is to rough around the edges? How many times have we looked at person coming into our church and said they don’t belong because of the friends they have or who their parents are?

I am so thankful that I have a church that is breaking this mold. I have been on both sides and at both churches, and I know at some point I have turned someone away in life. I am trying my hardest to go outside of my comfort zone and try to make everyone around me welcome.  When you’ve been

This one’s for the girls 2009/03/21

Please let me take a moment to rant about the stupid things that girls do, and yes I am one of them.

No, I’m not making a list of things to get together for a wedding. It’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, mainly because I’m reading a book for the second time, and although it’s old to me it’s got a completely different meaning.  The book is called Knight in Shining Armor. It’s all about praying for the man God has for you and changing yourself to be a woman of God. The first time I read it, I was at my old church, and I can’t believe they made a group of middle school and high school girls read this book. How could we have possibly gotten the real meaning of it?

Now, as I read through the book for the second time, I’m not just thinking about the guy, I’m thinking more about myself than ever. I’m thinking that the majority of women spend more time praying for the guy than praying for themselves rom personal experience, I have been praying for the man that God has chosen for me for an insanely long time-since I did true love waits when I was in sixth grade; but I haven’t spent a quarter of that time praying that God molds me into the woman that my guy is looking for. I don’t want you to think that I don’t pray that God molds me into a Godly woman, I’m just saying that the ratio of me praying for someone else to praying for myself is like 4:1.

I can’t help but think that maybe  the reason so many girls complain about not having a boyfriend or husband is because they aren’t praying for enough for themselves.