Outreach Octagon

I know I have not posted a blog in awhile but I really have not had too much too say. But one thing I have been thinking about for sure is how churches do not reach out to their community and if they do it’s never news worthy enough to grab anyone’s attention. But what makes me think of this problem is that I really get annoyed by the fact that churches put phrases or slogans on their church sign that you can read as you drive by (and you know they got that phrase from the internet, they did not think of it). But I do not get annoyed because they have a sign its because that sign sitting on the front of their property is what most churches consider their “outreach.” You will never see them go out and bless the community with anything…ever. They expect them to just come to church and worship with them, just because they should. But this sign becomes their outreach, by putting a phrase on their church sign that says, “Try Jesus and if you don’t like him the devil will take you back.” Seriously? is that the best you can do for your community is condemn them as they drive by? You might as well hire a guy and pay him to hold a sign outside that says “you all are going to hell so don’t expect us to leave our church and do anything for you except for let you read this sign thats on our property.” That is so stupid, just absolutely stupid to think that those phrases are actually a good form of outreach or for that matter a good form of anything.

Yet when these churches see or notice another church, possibly a new church that is more vibrant and exciting than them, doing outreach to the community by giving away things or helping out in the area; that church will be the first to get angry by the fact that that church is growing from the work they put in to save people. Not only do they get angry but they will say the stuff their doing is pointless and is only enabling those people to not do anything with their lives. Really? Seriously? Just because you have not gotten outside of your four walls since your church was incepted back in 1946 does not mean that the people of your community do not need help. And if such outreach tactics are pointless than why did Jesus feed thousands of people when they came to listen to him? We put so much emphasis on the “church” part of church that we forget about the people that are outside of those Sunday morning gatherings that may not have the GAS money to get to church in these hard times. So giving away gas to a community is not only loving on them but it is also provoking them into the presence of God where the atmosphere is conducive for salvation. Which is why we have church, not so we can look like glorified hypocrites trying to reach and grasp onto an impossible holiness, but to reach the lost and show that Jesus gave it all for us so that we did not have to “kill” ourselves by trying to work towards his grace. Its free not something you have to pay for or work for.

Yet these non-outreach churches get mad about growth in other churches because of their outreach. And so there willing to fight or argue (hence why I entitled this Outreach Octagon for MMA rings) about outreach being useless for people and pointless. Well my statement to them is, “I am sorry you feel that way about helping people and your community, but do not get mad that that church has been open 4 months and done more for the community than you have done in 50 years.” That stupid sign outside your church that you think has some funny or catchy phrases is what’s stupid. Get up and do something for your community and quit expecting them to read a sign outside your church. Or expecting them to just come to your church because your there. That is absolute stupid thinking and heartless at that. Because until you show how much you care, they will never care to show up. Go do something today and help out your neighbors they are probably in need of it.

We Have To Change

Who dictates what a church service should be? Who dictates that there has to be music or even a sermon? Well technically no one dictates this to any church. The Bible does not lay out a specific order or design for how many songs, what kind of music, or even if a sermon must be preached. I mean why would you need a sermon if God has already moved in such a way that no sermon could do more than what God has already done that day? So why as a church body do we look at church as music, maybe a drama or special of some sort, and then a sermon? It most certainly is not because there is scripture to back it up. It has to be because it is a traditional way to look at church or in other words a religious way to look at church.

iChurch is not here to be like other churches, we are not going to do things like other churches, period. Nothing is or will be traditional at iChurch that is our slogan “Simply Church, Redefined.” We are a church that has a mission in reaching Generation Y, which would be anyone born in the late 1980′s to now. Why is that our mission you ask? Well because, as Pastor Tiger reported at our last service, that only 11% of 18-32 year olds attend church as shown by a recent CBS study. Are young people the only people we want…well of course not…but if we don’t begin to flip these percentages of 89% of my generation not being in church than the church is in trouble. See I hear older preachers speaking against our generation saying we need to conform to the old ways of church, and that new ways are wrong. Well if the old ways were so great than why has the old church lost 89% of my generation! It literally ticks me off that the church continues to sit in its tradition and religion so much that it thinks my generation is the crazy ones for not following a God that slaps them in the face with a gigantic rule book. If the church still wants to be religious, than Jesus should have never came to kill it in the first place.

The young people are not the crazy ones in this situation, see they are actually the smart ones because they have left a church that desires to be like the Pharisees and Scribes back in Jesus’ day. We young people know fake when we see it, and we know that church has become to man-made and man regulated rather than God-made and Spirit-lead. See because the church preaches forgiveness but we don’t actually show it, and we preach love your neighbor as yourself but we definitely do not do it. So no wonder my generation has left the church, who wants to follow a God that says He will forgive but His people can’t. We would much rather keep our church membership looking like saints and run a sinner out rather than deal with the issues like were supposed to do. See people in church act like they got it together so well that it makes you wonder what they were saved from in the first place or why they even needed a Savior in the first place. We forget the scripture that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Yeah! Actually we see it more like “I’m saved now so everyone else has fallen short of the glory of God,” somehow imperfection is thrown out the window when we get saved. We also do not teach the scripture in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. See Christians should boast in their faults because His power is only made perfect in us when we do. Rather than cover them up like they never happened or that we still don’t do it we should be boasting or bragging about our screw ups so His power can be at its greatest in us.

We need to quit putting on a fake persona of perfection because its making my generation sick, and I can say that because maybe you forgot about the 89% fact because that is a landslide majority. We are so ugly on the inside and that is what God cares about most. Just look at 1 Samuel 16:7: “…God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” See you may be able to fool man, but you can’t fool God and that’s what matters. It’s about time we boast in our weaknesses and begin to redeem what the old church has done. My generation is dying and on it’s way to Hell and to me, it just looks like the church is not willing to change and does not care.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one convert, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. – Matthew 23:15

Jesus > Religion

iChurch is seeking the best way to reach these young people and breaking religion is just the start, but iChurch is on the right track! It’s why iLove my church!

Pastor Joel

Expectation

I am going to be brief in this blog post. I have little to say about this, as to me it is not a complicated thing to wrap our minds around, but rather something lacking in our church and in the body of Christ. That thing is expectation. When we enter the House of God, I feel like we at times take advantage of the fact that God has moved before in our church. But what about the fact that He can move every single service, to me He should be moving in every service. But it is so clear to see that no one is expecting Him to move at all. Now let me pose a question: How can we ever expect God to move freely in our church if we limit Him and tie His hands from service to service? I am just sick of the plain and sick of the mundane that we continue to go through in service, I left the church I grew up in for 18 years because I finally was introduced to Pentecost, and was sick of belonging to a dead congregation that just came to sit down. When I come to church I come to experience God!

EXPECTATION leads to EXCITEMENT, which leads to EXPERIENCE, which then leads to EXPONENTIAL growth. That is the “element” that we are missing in our church and in so many churches around the country. We should be hungry for His presence and for Him to move, not content with what has been done in the past. If He makes all things new than He surely can do a new thing in service once a week, but He will not if we continue to tie His hands! Let me give you an example in another church of what expectation is doing for them.

Elevation Church, a mega church, is currently holding a revival called Code Orange Revival. We follow this church as they are doing epic things and want to do ministry like them, but the thing is they have huge expectation for God to move! See every night at their revival service dozens are getting saved every night and are packing out every seat to the point where they have to turn people away. So in order to get a seat their members and visitors are literally coming hours before the doors even open just to get a seat(expectation)! They are tailgating outside the church hours before the service(excitement)! These people are so expectant of what God is going to do that their willing to wait outside for hours upon hours just to get in.

That’s expectation and if we could just put it in our church we would EXPLODE! We would be expecting God to move, rather than just merely existing when we go to church, so let’s start expecting. I promise its what we are missing, and its not just for our members its for leadership too, but when we come together and are expecting God to move, He will! Let’s not put God in a box anymore, I am sick of it and so is God! He wants to move so let Him!!!

Pastor Joel

We’re Worth It

Negative or low self-esteem is an epidemic in our world today. But it effects our young people the most. We live in a world dominated by a false sense of beauty! It can be found everywhere nowadays such as billboards, magazines, TV, movies, the media, and the list goes on and on. Striving for a false sense of perfection is only driving our young people deeper and deeper into a depression that is leading to diseases such as anorexia, body dysmorphia (a disease where a person is overly concerned about one imagined or minor defect on their body), and even suicide. But it is even leading to under age sex, as both genders will have sex to make themselves gain confidence in their body.

I just finished a class at Full Sail University about Photoshop, and I learned some very interesting things on this subject. Like how we as humans see a person more beautiful the more symmetrical their face is. Sounds crazy, but trust me it is quite true as my professor gave an example on it and I was blown away by how true it was. Also my professor gave us another video to watch where a model was shown taking pictures and than her pictures were sent into photoshop and edited so that person had a perfectly symmetrical face. That is the false sense of beauty that I am talking about.

Now I know as a youth pastor that this is something that my youth probably struggle with on a daily basis and God has really been speaking to me about it the past few days. I know that this was a particular problem with me when I was in high school and I would not conqueror it until I realized that the only place I needed to look to for my self-esteem was to God. The world and its media will never be able to raise my self-esteem as I would only be pursuing a false sense of beauty, or false sense of handsome if your a guy (trust me us guys do not strive to be beautiful, to be handsome yes, but beautiful…no). So I was taught by my Pastor, which is still what I stand on today, that “I cannot ever fall in love with someone else if I do not love myself first.” This made complete sense to me, so began my paradigm shift in how I thought about myself. I had to take all the things I hated about my body and self and begin to put them in God’s hands that He would either make those traits better or show me how they are not flaws at all. I had quite a few too, from having a receding hair-line that I inherited from my father, to the fact that I was not very outgoing or a very good public speaker.

Now I do not care about my receding hair line and God has increased my personality traits where I once lacked through just simply living my life for Him. But I want to encourage some people today with some scriptures and truths about your self-esteem, where hopefully after reading this you will begin to only look up for our self-esteem rather than looking around you for it.

So what does God say about who we are and how we should view ourselves? Great question…here is some scripture.

You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you. – Song of Solomon 4:7

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:27

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7

I could go on and on about this with scripture but I am not because despite all these wonderful scriptures declaring how you have no flaws, you were created in God’s image, and even how God does not look at the outward, like man, but the heart (which is what truly makes someone beautiful). I am going to finish this blog off with the number one reason why you are perfect the way you are and the reason you were created the way that you are. And it goes straight back to the Gospel and the title of this blog. You were worth enough to God for Him to send His one and only son down to earth and be sacrificed, just for YOU! The sacrifice of Jesus is enough to know that you are worth more than anything in the universe, as His sacrifice is not something you can earn or even work towards, you were just plain worth it all. So next time you don’t feel beautiful or handsome enough for someone, know that if your good enough for God to give everything for you than your good enough for anyone or anything. Don’t let this world fool you anymore, you are worth something and it is more than anything that this world can ever try to buy or obtain. You are just simply worth it!

Pastor Joel

Obsession

Well it has been a little while since I have blogged, a lot longer than I intended anyways. It’s past midnight now, I had already turned my computer off, (after finishing my college work up so I can enjoy Christmas Break),taken a shower, and was going to go to bed. But, while I was in the shower I was thinking about what God spoke to me two nights ago in the shower, (He speaks to me a lot in the shower if you cannot tell already). So I decided to turn my computer back on and blog, while my thoughts were still fresh on my mind. So after that rabbit trail here it goes…

I always listen to the music on my iPhone when I shower and I only have and own Christian music, so its all capable of ministering to me during that relaxation time. But anyways, the song Obsession by the David Crowder Band came on, and I began to listen and take in the lyrics, which is really what I do with Christian music so I can get a feel of what God is trying to say through that song. (Not trying to sound hyper spiritual or anything, thats just how I listen to music.) Again anyways, I was just listening to some of the lyrics and one phrase just hit me like a semi and it was in the second verse, “I carry pride like a disease.” Now I have had this song minister to me before and is one of my favorites from my favorite Christian artist, even though they are not pentecostal I still think that David Crowder can right one heck of a deep song. And if you have ever known me past or present it is easy to pick up on that I can be a prideful person as I hate, and emphasize on hate, being wrong or doing something wrong. It always has to be someone else’s fault, sounds like pride right? Well I do carry it like a disease, it always is with me and the symptoms can flare up at anytime, and that can bring about anger when it does because if your prideful you get angry at the possibility that you are being accused of being wrong. It’s really an awful thing, but I have really been working on myself with this pride issue and trying to apply what I am preaching to Aftershock to my life. And my last message to them was to challenge them to make better decisions and to really focus over Christmas Break and into the new year how you can change your bad habits or even how people view you by making good decisions rather than bad ones. I really opened up to my youth and told them how I was working on things in my life too, (the pride thing), and asked them what they could make better about themselves.

But beyond the being prideful issue I really have been pushed my God here recently also to take my position(s) much more seriously and dig deeper into who God is and His Word rather than other stuff that really does not matter. And that’s where the last part of this song hit me again after it had already hit me 2 minutes earlier in the second verse. David Crowder closes the song out with repeating these lyrics, “my love for You, my life for You, my heart for You, all I have is You.” And it just really made me sick to think that the existence that I call a relationship with God is really pathetic, I give him the minimal amount of time necessary to study for my message each week for youth and really don’t go much further in His Word, (and I told my youth kids I needed to improve on this also). So what I asked myself is am I personally able to sing those lyrics in that song, is my love truly for Him alone? Is my life truly for Him alone? Is my heart truly for Him alone? Is everything that I have Him? That’s obsession! To have God as everything is obsession! So the song is written rightfully so. And that is what God has been telling me to do is become obsessed with Him and think about Him and Him alone rather than other stupid stuff I put before Him on a daily basis. I am seriously sick of building idols to false gods, and not living everything for the One who saved me from Hell and captured my heart and made me new again. The One who took this sinner and made him so much greater than he ever should be, and redeemed this broken vessel that seemed shattered from life’s experiences.

I am just really fed up with myself to this point that I do not go above and beyond for my EVERYTHING. He made me, saved me, and everything in-between those two, but yet I continue to push him aside and only give a measly portion of my time to Him. I have told God too many times that I am going to do better but I just don’t! That’s why I carry pride like a disease, as much as I want to get healthy, I just choose to stay sick and continue to carry it around rather than going to the One who can remove any disease, whether it be physical or mental. I just want to be obsessed with Him and I want my youth kids to see it and follow my example, the problem is these days pastors are not living an example for people to follow and this especially goes for youth pastors. Who nowadays carry other things like a disease and will take a youth kid or kids down with them because of this “disease” that they carry (by disease I mean sin or temptation). It’s really giving those of us who see these kids as more than just people or things but as children of God a bad name. I refuse to be any one of those people, I would rather kill myself than take a youth farther away from God than they may had been already. It’s all about integrity, and not many people have it nowadays, thats why I am driving it into my youth like crazy! Integrity will take you far in life no matter what you apply it too, its just a HUGE thing that we should have, so I am going to make sure I keep that and also make sure I become obsessed with God and nothing else. I’m sick of the fake, and sick of putting other things before Him. If I can’t give him all of my love, life, heart, and everything than I am not doing my youth kids a favor, but if I become obsessed than they will too. That’s what I want!

Pastor Joel

What If We…

What if?  One of the greatest questions ever asked, but most of the time the one left unanswered as well.  Honestly though we ask this question so many times in life…what if this….what if that.  Yet normally we continue living or carrying on in life dealing with that same problem or same situation and not doing one thing about it.  So I want to pose another “what if” question to you, one that will hopefully motivate you to do something with the life you have been given.  ”What if you just did it?”  That’s right, I said it, why don’t you just do it?  Not trying to be pushy or anything but if you know you need to fix something or have been called to fix it why don’t you just jump?  Why don’t you just do it instead of leaving it the same.

Now that may not be for anyone in particular but I was just thinking about my title of being a youth pastor now and all and how it all happened, or so it seems, so fast.  I have been a youth pastor for a little over two months now and have been able to minister to some kids that, to say the least, really need to hear the Gospel of Jesus.  But I know that this position does not simply come naturally to me at all as growing up I never was much of a public speaker and have never been the “social butterfly” that my best friend Courtney is.  But you see I know I have been called to do this since I was 7 years old!  So I knew it was deep down inside of me…somewhere.  I had no idea when this gifting was going to come out of me at all, I felt like even at the young age of 22, that I was not moving quick enough to fulfill this calling.  I mean about a year ago I preached my first message! It was short, but I preached it anyways!  A couple months later I preached again and it too was rather short in time length, but I really felt comfortable that second time, I felt like that was what I was supposed to be doing.

Not too much later my Pastor asked to break apart the youth group and have a jr. high and high school youth group instead of having them together.  And to my surprise he asked me to be the jr. high youth pastor. (this is that “what if” moment that I was talking about, just in case your not catching on)  Now, I could have easily said, “let me think about it,” or “I dunno if I am experienced enough to do it.”  You know, think of some excuse to not take that leap of faith or put a bigger burden on myself.  But you see I was sick and tired of asking “what if” on this particular part of my life.  I was finished procrastinating on something I knew I was supposed to be doing.  So I just did it, I said yes without hesitation and stopped asking “what if” and started saying “I will.”

Normally these decisions are never easy and may cause you more stress than you had before, but this post is simply to encourage someone to just go and do it!  Quit asking yourself what it would be like if you did do that particular thing and go make it your reality rather than your imagination.  You simply cannot ever progress in life or learn if you do not step out into a place where you will fail.  I know I am going to fail at many things in youth ministry and ministry as a whole, but I cannot let that fear of failure keep putting my life and destiny on hold.  I had to make my dreams a reality, and the only way I could do it was to quit asking the questions and just go find the answer.  It really is the only way you will learn anything.

Pastor Joel

We Don’t Have Any Stones

We were asked by Pastor Tiger to blog about John 8:1-11. So I am going to combine it and the most current thoughts on my mind from my latest sermon for Aftershock, since they kind of go hand in hand. In the scripture the Pharisees and scribes bring a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus and say they should stone her according to the law of Moses, (They were trying to trick Jesus into saying something wrong). But Jesus ignored them at first and wrote in the dirt. They persisted in getting an answer out of Him so He stood up and said, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Than wrote in the dirt again and everyone left from where Jesus was, not saying another word realizing that Jesus had just schooled them at their own game. He than dismissed the woman saying their is no one to accuse her and neither does He, so leave and sin no more.

Now I spoke most recently about forgiveness to my youth in Aftershock. Probably a message to deep for them at some points but a necessary message needed for them and their generation. Jesus in this scripture proves a great point that we as Christians and human beings need to remember when someone messes up or backslides a little bit. No one is perfect. I could stop right there and this blog would be fully accomplished. But let’s think about what Jesus said. He stated a very profound, yet straight to the point message to the Pharisees and scribes. Basically He stated, how are all of you going to accuse this woman of sin, when everyone of you is guilty of sin also. Honestly that is what we do to Christians in the church too, the second they mess up or slip a little on the slippery slope that is religion, we slit their throats with statements like “I thought you were saved,” or “your supposed to be a Christian.” We even may attempt to outcast them from church for their mistake(s), or maybe force them into a public appology of some sort. Whatever we do we normally forget about the statement Jesus made in John chapter 8 and cast our stones. But what right do we have as people or even Christians to accuse someone else of screwing up when we do it on a day to day basis just like everybody else. Honestly what guy or girl does not check out the opposite sex sometime during the day and not even notice you did it? I guarantee you would find very few to say they don’t. (if they are being honest) Is that not lust? Or even an affair in your mind if they are married? I mean there are so many, many things that are sin! That it is just a proof of how stupid we are when it comes to this Christianity thing, we try so hard to have this persona of perfection and holiness when we are in fact quite the opposite entirely. Everyone is the opposite in fact. But yet we jump on the opportunity to kick our fellow brothers and sister when they are down. Rather than help them up and encourage them we would rather show how imperfect someone is and make ourselves feel closer to perfection. We would much rather cast our stones at someone than help them out. But the fact of the matter is we don’t have any stones! We don’t have perfection, we are not perfect so we don’t have anything to throw at anyone. Nothing, zero, zilch, not one thing.

As Christians we need to wake up and smell the failure because when it comes to sin and striving for perfection, that is what we all are, failures. But the good news is that is what Jesus died for was our imperfection. For every sin we would ever do, even all the tiny ones we do throughout the day and His grace is sufficient enough for all the “major” ones too. But it’s about time we start living and acting like we are all failures saved by grace rather than faking perfection and bullying other Christians who are just trying to figure out this Christian walk. You did not die on the cross so therefore you are not perfect, if we get that down, than maybe we can fix what we have messed up so far. Forgiveness is the only way because if Jesus, who is perfection, is capable of overlooking every little thing we do, than we should be able to do the same. People need help, not something else to hurt them.

Pastor Joel