Saturday, February 26, 2011

Contemporary, Cutting Edge Church of Outside The Box; Featuring Innovative, Radical & Current Heart Longings of An Average Believer

*Disclaimer*
Opinion Alert! I am no expert on how a church building should be run. The radical wish-list below is meekly based on what I believe the Bible says a church should look like and my experience of being part of one.**
                                                                                                                     

1) TEAM Leadership, Not Dictatorship

Team foundation facilitates transparency & accountability. Monetary and directional decisions are made with wisdom, prayer and careful advising --consensus based rather than mandates hinged on autocratic whims, emotions & circumstance. Team-Leaders are free to lead within scope of their gifting and not micro managed. Being Team-led encourages relationships, unity & active enthusiastic involvement. Secrecy is avoided and integrity of everyone is preserved.



2) Church VISION & Emphasis On 5-Fold Ministry
Team-leaders of the house should be Pastors, Evangelists, Apostles, Prophets and Teachers. One man or woman cannot and will-not embody all the ministries. God set it up this way on purpose so we would be dependent on Each-other!

Present the WHOLE gospel, utelizing the entire team of leaders. Don't be exclusive to evangelism. Tell the un-churched why the good news is good news--help them distinguish from what is the bad news.
The salvation message does not rest solely a Pastor's shoulders. And the alter-call (or response card) is not the apex of a church experience. ALL Christians are expected to spread the gospel and not just on Sunday. It is the Holy Spirit that calls and persuades anyone to receive Christ. If the non-believer doesn't respond to the preached message, it doesn't mean we've blown it. As long as we are obedient to speak the truth, let us be satisfied that its not their time yet to receive. At the very least we have planted seed or watered the God that is already at work inside them. The harvest belongs to the Lord, not the Evangelist.



3)Head-Pastor A Shepherd-Pastor: (Preacher/speaker or not)
Pastors are not herders of cattle. They are shepherds of sheep! The Pastor should be a friend to his congregation, an elder that offers counseling and guidance. One who is humble and gentle and invests their life and time into discipling & KNOWING, exhorting and feeding their sheep, running after those who stray and apologizing when necessary. A church body should not be led by executive or administrative CEO. Church is  a FAMILY, repeat/referral network based. We are not Hollywood, a corporation, or a retail marketing business.


4) Benchmark For Churches 'Success' Measured In Fruit, Not By Number Of People Who Showed Up Or Filled Out A Communication card.
Fruit: Are needs 1-10 listed here being met?  Does the church have bountiful volunteers?  Do the regular attendees bring visitors? The question we should be asking is--do they want to volunteer, are they proud to bring their friends? Are folks genuinely excited to be there?
The answer to that cannot be quantified with numbers. Growing a church based on statistics cannot be applied to an entity like the Church because it's innately personal, cellular and creative. To do so ties the hands of God and puts him in a box.  Who needs the Holy Spirit when we have all the answers in a database?




5) The Preacher(s) To Minister Authentically: From The Word AND From Their Own Reservoir Of Life Experience (truth & light, water & salt)
The minister should be vulnerable and transparently giving of themselves to congregation in order to connect, engage and identify with the people. Ministers should seek to hear from God through the Word and prayer and utilizes their own unique strengths and personal testimony in order to get the message across in an authentic way only they are anointed to do so.  Not with stock lessons, borrowed sermons, or by researching what is 'relevant' teaching in today's popular church. Tell the WHOLE truth and do not sell out, no matter what looks are on their faces.


6) EXPRESSED Appreciation, Gratitude & Respect And Honor For Volunteers/Lay-Leaders & Committed Members.
We all need to be encouraged! Jesus & the Apostle Paul made time for it, the Pastor(s) should make the time as well. Love; Kindness,  hospitality, generosity and friendship are the constitution of what makes PEOPLE a Church, if we don’t have love amongst each other, we have nothing. Where there is no love there is discouragement.  If the people continue to be discouraged the church will soon be divided and after awhile, we wont have a building to stand in.


7) High VALUE Placed On Organic Worship, Prayer & Holy Spirit Leading:
Worship sets the tone for the message being preached (if it does not serve as the 'message' itself). Worship prepares the heart to hear and scrubs from the inside. When prayer is incorporated, Holy Spirit is free to convict, transform & heal. Worship & prayer are the ONLY things God receives from the body in a corporate gathering. A trust-worthy Worship Pastor should be delegated the full scope of their responsibility, granted full-liberty to lead worship in whatever capacity suited to his/her gifts and ability including song choice, genre, style, be it solo, band or full choir. Administrative leaders and the like need not touch, micromanage, hinder and especially interrupt worship.

 
8) A Church That's Built On A Stable/Biblical Foundation: A Tried and True Model Of Love, Friendships, Worship, Prayer, Holy Spirit, Teaching, Giving & Invitation.

Creativity is NOT a foundation to build a church on...fluff, hype, gimmicks, 'contemporvant' packaging come last. If we build a church on creativity first its an upside down pyramid of a solid church model. If we copy everybody else, then the antiquity of gifts within our body are rendered useless. If every ministry within the church body is 'formulated' and minimized to the point that 'anyone' can fill the spot, then our individuality is discounted.



9) Be INVOLVED With Other Local Churches, Not In Competition
We are ALL one body. Regardless of where the tithe money ends up, NO restrictions or discouragement of volunteering or participation in 'another' churches activity or outreach, period. Enough with the competition between bodies! It's bad enough that Sunday is already the most racially divided day of the week. Again, we are all ONE Church.



10)Majority Of Funds Going Towards Outreach Not Overhead.

Mortgage payment eating up most of the tithe? Maybe its time to downsize. If the people of the church love their church (each other), it won't matter where they gather as long as there's room enough.



Friday, February 25, 2011

More to come...

My friend recently convinced me I have an eccentric family ripe with 'characters' that perfect strangers would be interested to read about.  I happen to think my day-to-day is pretty ordinary but she managed to rattle off a few incidents from my life that she finds worthy fodder for blogs. Our conversation got my creative inspirations flowing again, so below I've brainstormed some material that I may include on forthcoming posts. If you know me, feel free to add your topical suggestions, I just might blog about it! Thanks, Christina:)


The List of Potentials...
 
Embarrassing Perils of Audrey's Big Mouth

The Things I Say After 11pm

Why I Will Be Sad When My chicken Cat-dog Dies

The 5 Personalities of (my) Children

Why Jeff Carries a Murse

Baby in the Wash Machine

Words That Creep Me Out

Faux Pas of a Former Teen-Mom

The Things my Kids Have Destroyed

The Things My Kids Have Dumped/Eaten/Thrown-up

I Apologize In Advance, I Probably Didn't Mean What You Thought I Said


The Drama Queen That Is Our Son Jamey

Ninja Realtor by Day/Fledgling Country Music Star by Night

Cardinal Rules Of Garage Sailing

Why I Can Never Clean My Room

Baneful Dieting that WORKS

Rebellious Religion *HERESY*

My Peculiar Matrimony 

Why the Duggars Wouldn't Let Their Kids Play at Our House

Unorthodox Punishment: They won't do That Again

Magic Pills and Why I believe in Them

Living at Random on Purpose

12-Step Cheeseburger Addict

Why Liars Make Me so Stinkin' Mad *EXPLICIT*

I Can See Through You: Exposing My Secret Powers

Babies Are Awesome, 7-11yro Are Not as Awesome

Contemporary, Cutting Edge Church of Outside The Box

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Rambling here...just read and move along, or don't.

I'm supposed to be cleaning my room right now. I'm supposed to be doing a lot of things I'm not doing. The past few months have been a lesson in humility. I've fallen short in everything I set out to do. I have also learned communal living isn't for sissies, and I am one FYI. I think I retracted that blog I wrote about cohabiting with people that aren't your family, but in case you didn't read my comments, don't try it unless your single or a college kid. "You can never go back". Wisdom straight from my own 21 year old daughter, life experience for me. Oiy, live-n-learn, I guess. So this wont be a long blog, or it might, just checking in really. Gotta throw my fans a bone...heh, heh.

The short of it is, the economy has officially caught up to the Frey Fam. We tried having a live-in house guest from mid-November until the 3rd week of January and it just got weird, fast. Thank God that's over. But we are still in a pinch these days. We'll be fine in the end, but it's not good out there for Realtors like myself. Last month Clark County had somewhere around 340 total home sales. That may sound like a lot to you but Clark County has over 3,400 listings. If every Realtor had two listings that means, about 1300 of us didn't get paid?! Statistics are actually not as sunny as I paint them, however.

I used to be so good with the family budget. Recently, I've let it go to pot cuz I never know when we'll have money to pay whatever. So this huge pile of envelopes is growing on my desk and its daunting. I'm afraid of it. So I let it sit there and torment me. Times are rough.

But we're changing things around here at the Frey estate. Pinching pennies and such, we'll be OK. Cause that's how the story always ends. Things have a way of working out. Trusting God makes it a little less stressful. Right now I'm just searching for the balance of my responsibility and where I'm supposed to allow Him room to direct our steps.

All this financial hubbub got me wondering what my life would look like if I didn't have to worry about making an income. Why, I could write blogs every day, I could scrap book and have time to convert all my family movies into DVDs. I could set aside time to write music and read and daydream and have lots of recording sessions. I could journal more, pray more, cook more, clean more. I would visit my sisters every day for coffee. I'd go to Africa and meet my sponsor children and stop by Hawaii to hang out with my BFF. I'd do concerts with my music friends and I'd buy lots of clothes and my house would constantly look fabulous and my kids and husband would be happy cause I would be happy, right?!
*sigh*
Meanwhile, I'm breaking out. I've never had acne before and now I'm on every medication, RX and over the counter. I'm determined to beat it. But if I would just drink about 6 more glasses of water a day it would probably clear up. Thing is, I just forget. Like I keep forgetting to pick my daughter up at the bus stop. I was writing this blog when I got a call from school that they brought her back because I wasn't standing outside in sub-zero temperatures waiting for her. Actually, I did go out there but the bus had come and gone and it was about 10 minutes of shivering and frost bite before I figured it out. No, I'm not blaming the bus driver. Even though I can see the bus from my driveway and it wouldn't kill her to pull up 100 feet to let my daughter off. Yeah, she'd rather teach me a lesson on punctuality by inconveniencing herself. Ah pffft. Join the everyone hates Lisa club.

Seriously though, I fear I'm a little discombobulated cuz I'm PMSing. I'm also empty-nesting, with two kids recently moved out of the house. I'm all confused on portion control when making dinner. After 14 years of marriage I'm supposed to be making sure to feed that, too. I'm just so distracted. I'm calling Jared 'Elih' and Jamey 'Jeremy'...I really just wanna got to the neighbors house and hang out. She is like 5 years behind me and her life doesn't look as complicated, even though I know it is. But but she makes me forget. We watch cable and talk about music and stuff.

I'm feeling old, too. I have  grown man-child in the Marine corps who could potentially be 4 months away from deploying to some God-forsaken desert to shoot people he doesn't want to kill. He misses home and neither one of us has managed to cut the umbilical cord yet. My 14 year old son has been on a massive growth spurt and is now as tall as me. My 9 yr old isn't far behind him as his once too-tight jeans are now in need of a belt. And Audrey, well if you know her then you know its like living with a mini me. She doesn't quit talking though. And she thinks she's 15. I guilt myself that I don't hang out with our 21 yr old daughter enough. Shes in her Jr yr of college. I'm so proud of her but I'm wondering how she got to be so old?? OMGsh and the possibility of grand kids just HAUNTS me!

So I'm at this crossroads. I have dreams I'm almost too ancient to achieve, and I gotta hurry up or forget about it. But if I gave up on them, I could focus on my job and probably make lots more money! I wonder how my life would look if I put all my energy back into my job?....ugh. I don't think I love selling houses enough. It's a lot of paper trails and phone calls and marketing and long hours away from my family and missing church. Financially, it makes the most sense so it makes me feel selfish that it's the LAST thing on earth I want to do right now. So I do short-sales instead. Have you heard of those? I'm an expert...No really, I am.
:-/
I'm frustrated with church too, BTW. NOYB why, I just am. It's a debacle, full of people who've messed it all up. Prayin' that will work itself out too... Lotsa prayin' going on. Maybe that's how God likes it. It's all on him now. I've done enough damage and I'm surrendering. The next few decisions I make are crucial, the life altering kind. I have a big chance to really screw up my future or an opportunity to start a new journey, maybe both. But right now, I just want a nap. Dinner is in the crock pot, help yourself, I gotta go to walmart and buy milk and fruit.

New day tomorrow:-)