1 corinthians 12:27-31

"[27] All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it. [28] Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church:

first are apostles,
second are prophets,
third are teachers,
then those who do miracles,
those who have the gift of healing,
those who can help others,
those who have the gift of leadership,
those who speak in unknown languages.

[29] Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? [30] Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not! [31] So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts."

-[1 corinthians 12:27-31]

i have never been much for denominational differences. don't get me wrong, i am constantly gaining a love for the Christian tradition and the many different ways we, as a Body, have found to worship our Creator, but the damage done by the divisions will eventually outweigh the good.

i love hymns, a gift from the liturgical churches, i think it's so amazing to be able to sing the same words to the same tune that Christians for hundreds of years have sung; i also love 'contemporary' praise songs, a pretty recent gift from the mainline church, i think the energy and excitment conveyable through them is unmatched by hymns because people who sing hymns sing like they're bored. i also love gospel choir music ('nuff said!).
i love to take notes when i hear the preacher get up and start to speak, a mostly white church thing, it helps me focus and learn better; i also love it when i can't pick up a pen because i am enthralled by the passion of the speaker and the interest of the congregation, an event typical in the black church.
i love to see the Spirit move visibly, as in a pentacostal church; and love to see people quiety contemplating God, as typical of most other churches.

the problem is, we are so opposed to accepting the gifts other denominations have to offer into our own congregations and these gifts stay centralized and polarized.

i used to attend a charismatic youth group on wednesday nights in high school. i went because the worship was amazing (my 'main church' was united methodist, but i couldn't tell you half of the theological differences). everyone in that room was seeking God, and you could feel it. there were many times when people were driven to their knees, arms stretched in worship, or down right 'slain in the Spirit' to use some insider jargon (knocked down by the powerful presence of God's Holy Spirit). most nights, someone would speak in tounges. i longed for this spiritual gift, because it was so cool to me. i felt as though i was really missing out on something big. the church there preached a separate baptism in the Holy Spirit to receive such gifts (from the text in acts 2) (now, i believe that we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe in Christ, it's a package deal, and so is the baptism ("...in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...") ala galatians 3), so one night i went to meet with someone from the church to have them pray over me and baptize me in the Holy Spirit. my heart was expectant and my mind was believing, and he prayed over me for a long time, and then i prayed as well, i wanted so badly for there to be evidence by speaking in tongues, but it never happened. i was dissappointed and wanted an answer so i started to read up. i was being taught from a one-sided theology. i read the passage above along with 1 corinthians 14 and i began to understand. paul says that not only will everyone not speak in tongues, but that other Spiritual gifts are much more useful, and that we should desire those that are most beneficial to the body. i saw that teaching, leadership and service were all gifts from the Spirit as well and useful to the body, i saw where paul says it might be better for those who speak in tongues to stay quiet during church if there's no one there to interpret, and i began to seek out the gifts that i had been given.

[finally a point!] i began to see that the church i attended on wednesdays had a corner on the market for people who spoke in tongues, i saw that my 'home church' had a corner on people gifted in service, and i saw that churches like the one i attended in college had a corner on people gifted to teach and my church here in logan had a high percentage of people gifted with faith.

i began to see that that was no good.

we, as human beings, love to gather with people that are similar to us; but We, as the Church, have just ended up with one church that is full of hands, and another that is full of feet [1 corinthians 12:12-26] to be the Body that God envisions for His People we MUST get over ourselves. we must not be content being around a bunch of like-minded ears forever [v.17]. it is our diversity that makes us strong in our testimony as a community and proclomation to the world. our differences cause us to dicuss, to defend our beliefs (in turn learning what we really believe), and to discover what's really important. they teach us how to truly love others by loving people we don't always agree with. our diversity keeps us credible.

the Church is sick. we are divided.

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i know, i know, it's been a long time, and a lot has happened. i have a p.o. box, a west virginia license, a bank account, everything. I had to move from the annex, to room in the church last week because a mission team was in that needed to use the annex for sleeping, i moved back at the beginning of this week, but on the way my computer fell to the ground and now the bottom row of letters doesn't work. i can't use zxcvbnm,. or /. so it's been a little while until i could find another computer to use. the youthworks staff is letting me use their office... they're so sweet!
well, i recently got some contacts from tyler cannon's mom, robin, and she gave me a few meetings to attend to meet some local pastors and community leaders. one is with the P.R.I.D.E. in Logan County group's Family Resource Network which is focused mainly on children and the elderly, and the other is with a drug prevention group called P.I.E.C.E.S. (prevention is everyone's concern, especially schools!) so i'm really excited, as they sound right down my alley. i also have taken the opportunity to dream big and have my eyes on a building... this one:

it's on the corner of dingess st. and stratton st., the prime location in town, and has been empty for years and years. i have some phone calls to make tomorrow and am going to inquire about a price someday. i'll let you know how scary it is when i find out.

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i'm actually here. its pretty strange. when i'm just sitting around, i all of a sudden remember that i live here now. this morning i woke up and walked outside and i saw this...


...and thought, "i live here now." it's pretty cool to live somewhere.
yesterday when i got here, i pretty much just settled myself in and went to get dinner at taco bell. then i stayed up until about 12:30 playing guitar and worshiping. i could barely sleep last night, my mind was just racing, and kept waking me up. i couldn't even make it until 8:00 this morning, i was up and ready to go. i couldn't even focus to pray or read anything either, so i just played and worshiped more. finally i went out to try and set up a p.o. box and a bank account. i got the post office and they wanted a driver's license and a voter registration card. i went to city hall to get a voter registration card and they wanted a piece of mail with my address on it. i went to the bank to set up an account and they wanted a west virginia driver's license, proof of physical address (read: mail), and proof of a mailing address (read: more mail). so basically my day is a bust, because i know the dmv will want proof of physical address too, and the title of my car needs to get switched before i can get license plates for it and i have to get it inspected before i can get the plates too. surprisingly, health insurance was the easiest to get out of all of them. they sent the card the other day and it should be here soon. mail. the first key to the puzzle. all this and it's only 11 in the morning.

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romans 7-8

i have been going through mark section by section, but the other day i just felt really dead in my sins, so i took a trip over to romans looking for the "no condemnation" verse. i felt so awful because i continue to desire to get better, but my flesh never changes. i wanted to be able to remember who i am in Christ.
romans 1-8 is basically a long continuous argument that paul is having with himself, making a statement and then making another defending against the first counter-argument he can think of. so it just kind of flows and rambles. it's toward the end of this where he asks, "did that which is good (the law) then bring death to me?" [romans 7:13] and begins to talk about always doing the opposite of what he wants to do. he says if he does what he does not want then it is no longer him who is actually doing it, but the sin that dwells in him [v. 20]. that he delights in the law in his inner being, but sees his flesh following another law which is waging war with the law in his mind; making him a captive to the law of sin that dwells in his body [v. 22-23]. but then says that because of all of this there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus [8:1]. and goes on talking about how if you set you mind on flesh you will recieve death but if you set your mind on the Spirit you will receive life and peace [v.6] and discusses being "in the flesh" and "in the Spirit". and i wonder how with all this war within us and our bodies still being a captive to the law of sin we can have absolutely no condemnation come upon us. and it seems that the key is in the mind. as stated earlier he says the law of his mind and the law of his flesh are at war [7:23] and that those that set their minds on the Spirit will receive life and peace [8:6] and later in romans he tells us that we should no longer be conformed to the patterns of this world but rather, through the renewing of our minds, we should be transformed into the Will of God [12:2]. somehow these two kingdoms, one of a decaying flesh and the other of a refreshing God, live side-by-side with eachother in our earthly bodies, constantly at war with one another. it seems the only release from this tension is death. and though we are constantly in this struggle, our fleshes forever belonging to the world, our minds and spirits have been renewed and replaced by the Holy Spirit, giving us evidence of our salvationin the we can not stand our own actions.
this is why when we realize this dichotomy within ourselves, we groan for completion with the rest of creation [8:22-23]. enduring the pain of not being able to control our own selves and eagerly awaiting the day when this war within us will end. but we are not without help; these first fruits [8:23] include patience to endure and self-control [galatians 5:22-23].

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time moves so fast. i just got here (canton) on thursday and already it's almost time to leave. thursday i'll be in logan, finished with the final leg of my traveling journey, just beginning the first leg of my living one. it's pretty surreal. i'd say that on that scale we made last week it probably ranks somewhere between graduation and leaving murfreesboro, closer to graduation though. i am so excited and so over-whelmed. this is so huge, and it's so awesome.

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God never stops teaching. in fact, to even think He would when i was only 21 would be ridiculous. anyway, God's been teaching me how to mess up better these last few months.
four years ago, when i came to mtsu for the first time, i looked around for a church for a whole semester, finally landing at this little baptist church on the corner of campus where some of my new-found friends were going. while we were there, the pastor did everything he could to to accommodate us as college students. everything from staying up late to lock up after we'd been there on a weeknight to standing up to his deacons, putting his job on the line, to protect our place in their church family.
two years ago, after all but one of those friends graduated and moved away, i decided to leave. but i didn't tell anybody... i just left and never went back. not even giving the man who had done so much for me a simple "goodbye".
ever since then, it has weighed heavily on my heart. i felt awful for the longest time. i knew that God had drawn me away from that church to another one in the area, and that i was now at the right place to give myself away to a group of teenagers. but i had left so badly.
two saturdays ago, i was sending out some letters to announce my graduation and to ask for support through prayer for my move to logan, and felt it was time to do something about it. i wrote a letter to the pastor and put it in an envelope with a copy of this other letter and taped it to the door of the church. then sunday, i went back. i was so scared of what his reaction would be because i knew i had messed up. after the service, we got to talk and catch up, and it was wonderful. i must've apologized a dozen times in the letter, but in person, it was like those words didn't even cut it to explain what i felt. but he did not require anything of me. it was as though it was all old news. a marvelous picture of God's mercy on us.
God is teaching me the dire importance of reconciliation. his people cannot continue to be divided by petty differences, deep hurts and denominational boundaries. or as paul wrote:

"[12]For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. [13]For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. [14]For the body does not consist of one member but of many. [15]If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. [16]And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. [17]If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? [18]But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. [19]If all were a single member, where would the body be? [20]As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
[21]The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." [22]On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, [23]and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, [24]which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, [25]that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. [26]If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together."

-[1 corinthians 12:12-26]

"[4] For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. [5] There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, [6] and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all."

-[ephesians 4:4-6]

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today is the day. i start the first leg of my journey to logan this evening, but it won't be north-east, it'll be south-west. i'm going to my parents' house in jackson, tennessee for a few days, because they usually like to see me every once in a while. it's weird for this part of my life (in murfreesboro) to finally be over. it doesn't really feel like it yet, kind of like it didn't really feel like i actually graduated. for a few weeks afterward i kept expecting them to tell me i had to come back, but the only thing they sent me was a diploma. this, of course feels a lot more like i'm leaving for real than it felt like i really graduated... so if you're keeping track, you can create a little feelings scale to measure future events to. you're so craft-y.

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