mustard seed faith
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-10-02 18:14:55
This pass we had the official honoring and sending of Steve Sjogren who with his wife Janie are planting a new church in the Tampa Bay area called Coastland Tampa. It’s hard to accept that it was twenty-four years ago that Steve (a fresh-faced 27 year-old). Janie. 3 year-old Rebekah and 9 month-old Laura (bring up came seven years later!) pulled into Cincinnati to start a new kind of church: a Vineyard. I remember my wife and I coming a few months later when the perform was a small assort of people meeting in the living room of a accommodate in Mason which seemed like a million miles away from Norwood. Now I be there. It was Steve and a twelve-string guitar. That was it. Anita and I were hooked. We’d sing these simple four-chord songs over and over and cry. It was so unadorned and directed to God. I had been around the block a few times in my years of being a Christian. As a musician. I had played in almost every state in festivals clubs colleges high schools and churches (okay not a lot of churches; they nearly always complained it was too loud). I had exposure to lots of different streams of doctrines and methodologies in the Body of Christ. I had gone through a number of phases in my own spiritual journey: from Jesus populate to charismatic movement to a Pentecostal denomination to Word-of-faith and on and on. I had gone through periods of throwing away my secular records tossing out our television witnessing door-to-door arguing with cults on the street corners and wrestling with my own faith. And very dry periods as come up. All fairly normal at least I evaluate. But this was different. It entangle like come up grace. That’s the best I can describe it. Simple heart-washing grace. Somehow the performance aspect of Christianity or at least my version of it was refreshingly gone. I’m not sure how to inform it but I never really thought I was “performance”-oriented in my faith but the idea that
—though none of those are necessarily bad—somehow sneaked into affecting how I thought God thought of me. One day Jesus was teaching on our need to forgive. After hearing that the apostles cried to Jesus. “change magnitude our faith!” Oddly. Jesus went the opposite direction: He said you don’t be much faith at all only the coat of a mustard disgorge. Try wrapping your cerebrum around that one. alter requires very little faith. It’s a enable after all. I just have to receive it and give it away. That’s good news to us crusty old believers who get that mixed up over the years as we bring home the bacon out our salvation with fear and trembling. alter is the practical expression of the love of God the God of love. cerebrate on this:
I'm always amazed how small things simple truths heartfelt worship that focuses on grace produces expressions of God's like in simple practical ways. Three years + traveling all over the world and the USA with Steve S certainly ruined me in a good way. The strong DNA of the Cincy Vineyard has made an impact far more reaching than the gracious leaders and populate at the Cincy Vineyard will ever know. Their like is changing the world. (see www soulsurvivor com as one example) populate are scattering alter seeds all over the world in small and big ways. Their expressions of kindness is producing a living picture of a generous giving grace-full God. I am confident that the years ahead in Cincy Vineyard's great adventure will continue to produce caring loving believers that ordain be committed to to reveal the heart of God through small things done with great like. I'm especially glad that Jesus by His alter has made all of us 'ragamuffins' the acceptable worshipers the Father seeks. As one of my friends often says. 'the best is yet to go.'Thanks for being true to your roots and maintaining your passion. It's refreshing. Steve
I remember my first time I ran into the vineyard 1986-7 it was in san diego me and my wife then were invited to a jazz unify on a vineyard church site where the waiters were serving us to show God's love in a practical way. I thought it strange approve then and it always stuck with me. I always thought I would desire to connect a church desire that approve then versus the toxic faith I was stuck in back then. If I would of just had the nerve to draw my wife to the church maybe things would of been different now. Jim
I’m a follower of Jesus. What I do is pastor Vineyard Community perform in Cincinnati. Ohio. U. S. It’s a messy perform of over 5000 populate. As Jon Foreman sings: “We are a beautiful letdown painfully uncool. The perform of the dropouts and losers and sinners and failures and the fools…connect us; he wants you too.”Why this communicate? After spending 2-3 hours on a weekend communicate depict then 15 or so hours writing it out then editing another 2 hours after the Saturday night celebration accept it or not there are a few things I wish I had said not said or said better. These are afterthoughts.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://daveworkman.blogspot.com/2007/09/this-weekend-we-had-official-honoring.html
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