the journey

I know you may have been missing me … but I have been super busy and not doing a lot of blognation. I am excited to introduce our new myspace presence … not for the church per se … but for a new music venue in Pilot Point. In November we will be kicking off a weekend ministry for teens and young adults. the journey will start on a one night a weekend schedule and prayerfully will increase with popularity … right now we are in the process of booking local bands for the month of November.

the journey will have a “doorish” feel … but our focus is three fold … showcase and promote new bands, create new markets for existing bands, and provide a safe and secure environment for local teens and young adults to hang out and have a good time.

As with most of my endeavors … they are faith based and totally supported by volunteers and gracious givers. We are also in the process of securing a “worship jam” night in November with several local small churches for a fun night of jammin’ and eatin’.

our myspace address … http://myspace.com/thejourneypilotpoint …

Michael put the myspace page together for me and did a great job. Thanks.

wg

 

again, stick a fork in it

(this is a reprint of a previous post, please excuse) Being a preacher for a bunch of years lends itself to times of hearing stories and seeing images in your mind … linking that together in some sort of logical form … for the purpose of teaching that truth to others. Today, while we rode the Goldwing, this truth came to me.

First off, it is no secret that the modern church has became spiritually obese. By that I mean … most believers think that the purpose of the church is to “feed them”. I have a visual of the Mike Myers character in the movie Austin Powers … saying “get in my belly.” That is not the purpose of the new testament church.

I can’t tell you how many living rooms I sat in … visiting prospective church members when I could recite this line from 90% of those visits. “We left our previous church and began visiting your church … because we just were not being fed.” In my mind I was going “oh great, if they come to my church I will have another mouth to feed.” I always wanted to stop those very sincere folks and ask … “how old do you have to be as a follower of Christ before you start feeding yourself?”

Anyway, today I got this visual of a FORK and began to think about the four prongs of the fork and began to ask myself … How do I know if I am getting spiritual nourished as a believer? I also remembered a cliche that has been around for several years … stick a fork in it … it’s done. Here’s how you will know if you are “getting done.”

F = Are you making FRIENDS and being friendly. Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves … but friends.” Let’s not confuse the term friends and fellowship together. Fellowship is a church word that describes an activity. Friendship costs something … time, effort and love.

O = Is your OUTLOOK on life going forward?

R = Are you RETURNING to others better than what you receive?

K = Are your actions and attitude kind? Do you invent acts of kindness toward others?

This is a simple straight forward way of finding out if your Christian Education is just increasing the size of your head … or increasing the size of your heart.

I hope when others stick the fork in me … they can say … he’s done.

wayne gooden

 

motorcycles and cool air

I don’t know what it is about fall (or fall like conditions in Texas), but it clears my head. 65 – 75 degrees minus humidity … makes me crave getting on the GW and heading down the road … and even if I can’t ride, it makes me want to turn off the AC in the car or truck and ride with my head out the window. Strange sight. It just seems I can think when I am riding. I can’t explain it well … it’s just a love affair with freedom.

It’s on brisk mornings like this that I contemplate all sorts of things. I question the things I do and ask … are they bringing me joy? Why don’t I do that on mornings when it’s 95 by 8 a.m.? I don’t know … maybe because I know I have to keep moving or I will melt in sun.

As you know, I also love to blog and read blogs. Recently, I have grown tired of reading certain types of blogs … religion, Christianity, church, theology … all used to be tags that I would peruse. All boring to me now. It’s the same old dribble. People arguing and debating biblical loggerheads. Christians bashing other Christians for not being like themselves. It’s almost like we have gotten to the point that WE made GOD in our image and not the correct thought. In light of the last couple of days and the great stone throwing at Ray Boltz … I hang my head in shame of qualifying myself as a Christian. Some bible blogger out there will call be a liberal for having compassion for the man and his family, while the gay blogger will consider me a hater for being a Christian. My question is … when did one sin become so much worse than another. Let’s think back … in church world before their was the “homosexual sin crisis” … there was the “divorce sin crisis”. You might be too young to remember … but divorce used to be the sin of all sins. You couldn’t go to seminary if you had been divorced! Wow … how quickly we forget. Lets move on.

I thought I would follow the presidential race … only to be sickened again by peoples course rhetoric on why the other candidate should not be president. I am constantly being bombarded with facebook 20 somethings that tell me I have to be informed about the OTHER evil candidate. I am 51 years old and I learned a long time ago that no matter who sits in the oval office, and how many great ideas they have, and how they preach change, it rarely changes anything. The only person that can change is … me. The only people that can change are those that want to change. Barack is not the answer … of course neither is McCain. Don’t get me wrong … it is interesting. But so is Pro Wrestling, Police Wildest Chases, Intervention and Dirty Jobs. These campaigns are just good TV. Not a good movie, mind you … just good TV. I will vote, but don’t expect me to get into a debate with you unless you would like to discuss how neither one of these guys will achieve a fraction of what they promise.

Ah, motorcycles and cool air … now that’s where I want to be.

<–wg

 

end of the day humor

Ok, it’s 5:05 p.m. I have had a very, very frustrating and busy afternoon. I run my own business. We print tshirts and make signs and banners. I do a lot of graphic design. I get an email two weeks ago from one of my brokers who has sold (or hopes to sell) a banner. The clients instructions … a 3 X 8 banner of a lighthouse with this text … blah blah. That’s it. So, I design the banner (top picture) and send it back. I get word back from my broker … he doesn’t like it. That’s cool … I deal with rejection everyday … it didn’t hurt my feelings … my question … what does he want? I get this today at 5:05 p.m. (bottom picture) with the instruction … he wants it to feel more “cartoony”. I have stared at this for 10 minutes … and all I can do is laugh and think … what a day this has been.

<– wg 🙂

 

morning moon

This was an unusual sight out my back door this morning. At 6:15 while the sun was rising on the east side of the house … the moon was still visible on the west side.  It was great … I could see great detail of the moon from the reflection of the sun … it was the clearest I have ever seen the moon.

It may not be a big deal to some … the air was cool and crisp. A welcome change to the humid air that we have had the last few days.

I reached my brother in law by cell phone this morning … he lives in Houston and is doing ok. No power … but minimal damage to his property. The folks whose horses have been staying with us the last few days also went home today. They were excited to go home.

<< wg

 

shepherds vs. ranchers

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.” The analogy of sheep and shepherds in scripture is ever present. I chose Matthew 9:36-38 for my passage for the first message at Journey Church. It simply is a story about sheep and shepherds. As a leader in the body of Christ … I had to decide what model of leadership I would follow. Would I follow the mentoring of Jesus in the New Testament or would I opt for the hybrid of the modern church of rancher/CEO. The rancher model is tempting. In the rancher hybrid … you manage people and space. You are distant and basically you are suppose to “care” for those who “care” for others.  Really, it’s just management. Shepherding on the other hand … is not so glam. You get hurt, sheep smell, and things are on a much, much smaller scale.  Yet, Jesus constantly emphasized to His disciples not to become a calloused manager … but a caring shepherd. Here are some differences between shepherds and ranchers. Ranchers have to mend fences to keep their herd together. Shepherds spend time with their sheep and the sheep know their voice. Ranchers are territorial and are constantly trying to improve their brand. Shepherds spend their time running around trying to get the sheep healthy and growing. Ranchers cull out the non-productive and sell them off to someone else.  Shepherds are stuck with what they have. Ranchers drive. Shepherds lead.

No where in scpriture does it ever imply that a pastor is a CEO or a rancher. Legalism creates ranchers … or should I say … ranchers create legalism … (which came first the chicken or the egg?). Jesus was moved with compassion … because they were distressed … like sheep without a shepherd.

<< wg

 

it’s not mayberry

Over 2000 counties in America are considered rural while a little over 1,000 are considered metro areas. Even though most move to small towns to escape urban sprawl, they leave behind spiritual and moral values. You would think that crime and it’s counterparts would be less in small town America … you would be wrong. Kids in rural America fared worse than their age group counter parts in 34 of 39 statisical categories including immorality, substance abuse and crime. Agriculture was the norm for rual American in 1920 … but less than 2 per cent of Americans are considered farmers. Industries are moving to small towns to find a more cost effective work force. 

Why am I blathering on about this? Rural America needs new churches too! In spite of megachurches, no county in America has a greater church population than it did 10 years ago. In a message brought by John Piper in November of 2007 … he brought out 8 observations about church planting. I won’t list them all here … but here is a nice recap.

I do want to highlight just a couple of things Piper has observed. 

• Each year 3500-4000 churches close their doors forever, while only as many as 1500 new churches are planted.

• Today, of approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.

From the same link as above … the author of that blog Jeff Noble, a church planter in Little Rock made these observations. 

• Church planters often resort to “business models” and demographic studies to determine where to plant their church.

• After such studies are made, inevitably a growing suburb of a large urban area is selected.

• Even churches reknown for their focus on planting other churches tend to use an event model, even though the church of origin most likely did not start that way. You hear of “Launch Sundays” and the like, but there is no space shuttle, only a church-in-a-box, complete with musicians and in some cases, fully-supported, multiple staffs.

• Our current church culture encourages new churches to be “up and running” as soon as possible, and as a result, seems to discourage a bivocational model for church planters.

• There is an unhealthy preoccupation with numbers, buildings, and programs.

The reason we decided to plant in a rural area … is 1.) we live here  2.) we felt a need to start a church without redefining the principles of the New Testament (people know what church is suppose to be)  3.) our small town is not Mayberry.  4.) people in rural America need Jesus too. 

<< wg

 

beyond reason

He came to the home of Simon the leper, not a great place to go in the first place as far as others would tell you. Dinner with a leper. Aren’t those the kind of people who were suppose to shout “unclean” whenever they were around a crowd? While at the dinner table a woman approached Him with a small container of costly perfume. She broke open the container and poured it over His head. “Others”, were concerned that this could have been sold and the proceeds used to help the poor. What an extravagance He allowed himself to enjoy. What’s up with that “woman”? It was a moment beyond reason. After all Jesus was all about helping and feeding the poor. What was He thinking? 

So many times I am guilty of thinking so … vertical that I miss the horizontal. It’s the whole so “heavenly minded” no earthly good conversation. I can get one tracked and forget that God is a spirit.  To worship Him … I do so “in spirit and in truth.” Spirit reaches spirit. You don’t touch Him with your mind. You know what touches Him … brokeness. Brokeness, beyond reason. Turn the New Testament upside down and you will see that “others” tried to understand Him with their minds on many, many occasions … only to be offended or frustrated. The people that “get” Jesus are those who find Him in their brokeness. 

The woman with the expensive perfume connected with Jesus on a different level of understanding than those watching and reporting. She connected with Him at her point of desperation and sacrifice. He got it! It wasn’t about Him getting a spa treatment. He later scolds the finger waggers … leave her alone, He says. She has done what she could. I love that. She did … what she could. It was the only thing she had of value and she broke it and gave it up. Why? Because she got it. She worshipped Him in Spirit and in truth. 

<< wg

 

sowing and reaping

So, I’m having my first cup devotional. (It’s what I call an infusion of coffee and ‘da word.) I am thrilled with the amount of business that is on our production board this morning … but, worried about how it’s all going to get done.

And I read … “whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” Galatians 6 is full of practical direction for everyday life. Today, it’s just kicking my tail. Just a few short weeks ago we were crying the blues about not having work … and spent two complete weeks making contacts to potential clients. Only to have the law of the harvest (mentioned above) blow in like a hurricane on steroids. Now what am I am sowing … worry. Two weeks ago I was sowing in some pretty daring ways … today, I am hunkered under mounds of paper and not sleeping. Now, you may ask, what is my fear? Where is my worry? Only because I want to rid myself of this fear will I share. My fear is … how long will it last. It’s not really how I will get it done … but will I find myself begging for business in another two weeks. It is a vicious cycle of faithlessness.

Here’s the revelation I have harvested today. You can grow life sustaining elements or you can grow vegatation that is not worthy of anything. Basically, you can trust God and live … or you can worry and produce seeds of doubt in everything you do. If I sow worry … I won’t produce faith.  I can’t continue the familiar patterns in my life and expect different results.

Today, I will not doubt, worry, or fret about tomorrow. I will enjoy living today, trusting God with the results. I’ll tell you how that works for me.

<< wg

 

no to gustav evacuees

I was reading Philippians 2:13-15 this morning. Enjoying my thoughts and God’s goodness … “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing; that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innoicent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation amoung whom you appear as lights in the world.”

Then I quickly remembered that I had not checked on the progress of Gustav in a few hours … and so back to the web for updates. It was while I was getting news reports from newspapers all over the gulf coast that I began to read about the evacuation plans for New Orleans and also two Texas counties.  It seems that officials are telling folks in Texas to evacuate to Houston. Which, in my opinion is still a coastal city and is very prone to flooding itself.  I then began to read comments from everyday folks about the newspaper articles … most of them very, very upset that evacuees are coming to thier town or city. Stories about a family who took in a family of 9 when Katrina hit only to witness other evacuees murder and rape victims in their small Texas town.  It seems the kindness that was available to evacuees during Rita and Katrina … is now met with disdain because of the crime that some evacuees brought with them to peaceful communities … just trying to help.

I tried to wrap my mind and my heart around the passage that I had just read and then the current event I was experiencing and asking God to reveal the truth that I needed to keep near my heart. In spite of the condition of man … it is still our mandate to “be lights”. Even if that means we are not appreciated for it. Here’s a truth … the world is full of good people and bad people. Just because you show kindness … kindness may not be returned. Does that type of love put you in harms way … unfortunately, sometimes it does. Should you cease from being kind even though you may get hurt in the process … that is up to each an every person to decide.

Even though I go through personal struggles and really bad situations … I for one have faith that “God is at work … both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

<< wg