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From: blksheep67
Date: Mon Aug 29 00:32:41 MST 2005 Subject: What I Like about the Village

I had been to the Village before a couple of times when it was meeting at Bethel Christian Reformed Church a while back.
Tonight is the second week I've attended the Village as a believer who is seriously interested in being a disciple of Christ and a member of the community. I was there on the Sunday nights of 8/21 & 28 2005.
On the 21st I enjoyed the simplicity of the communion/Lord's Supper/Eucharist (meaning thanksgiving).

I believe I mentioned in a previous blog that in the modern Christian service the choir/band and the Pastor is the main event like entertainment with the congregation as the audience there to be entertained. I recall following a service people turning to each other and saying how good the pastor or the praise was. This was brought to my attention a few years ago in a Christian youth magazine it was noted that the praise would be better if the hymns were chucked and contemporary Christian music would be sung by Jars of Clay or another Christian band.
With the band to the side they are not seen as the main event. The words of the praise song on the screen become the focus as you internalize the words. Nine years ago following my sister's death I visited an Eastern Orthodox Church and the choir was in a balcony behind and above you. To me this was appropriate. The praise and liturgy was lofting over my head and it seemed like it was going up to heaven.
In scripture God's view is the reverse of our view. In the modern view it is the Pastor and choir or band which has the attention and the honor but is different in God's Upside down view (which is actually right side up). According to 1st Corinthians 12:22-26: "No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, on these we, bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

Rod then began speaking of us picturing God as our Father, which is difficult, since some people never knew their fathers or worse yet they did and their father was a horrible person. Even the best father cannot compare to God. I had brain and heart surgery and people have asked me how I can believe in a God that put me through that. Now I am a strong believer in original/inherited sin and God is not the problem but the solution. Before my medical issues my relationship with my father wasn't good but God used my problems and pain to bring me closer to my father and mother. He tried baiting me last week after the service asking me if there was snake handling at the Church. I told simply said there wasn't but there was pizza handling and eating. They still drive me crazy but I'm sure I drive them crazy as I'm sure God is exasperated and frustrated at the choices we make but through it all he is molding us to be the instruments he wants us to be and his plan will be fulfilled. We'll either be doing the work he has for us as we ride his coat tails or steamrolled as children of disobedience and judged and cast out as unrepentant enemies of God

On the 28th I enjoyed how the message was like a participatory bible study. With Rod teaching and people asking questions it reminded me of the book of Acts in chapter 20 where Paul was at Troas and preached into the night.
I like the quality of the time of our assembling not feeling programmed although there is a schedule.
With Rod speaking on trust I know God can be trusted and have learned from myself we can't. God is perfect and perfectly trustworthy. Humanity isn't. We need to build trust with each other and as Rod said once Trust has been broken you have to build it slowly from the foundation. Trust needs to be earned which is hard work. As he was speaking on trust I was reminded of an Arabian proverb I read in a book of quotes once: Trust Allah (God) but tie your Camel.

I hope you don't mind my wordiness but that is me and it will probably continue. I think I'm similar to the Apostle Paul in the verse of 2nd Corinthians 10:10 "For his letters," they say, "are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible."
I may need to be called BLOGert or the BLOGinator or some other such nickname. Though you may not want it I'm writing my spiritual experience so I can understand myself better and people can know me better.
May you all be blessed by God.

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