Vertical Church: Chapter 4 An Epic Failure

The church in North America is fading - fast.  If you are a Christian that sentence should hit you hard.  If it didn't, please take a look at some numbers that James MacDonald lays out in this chapter (pg. 130):

• 6,000 churches close their doors every year
• Only 1 in 10 pastors retire while still in the ministry
• Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church
• Only 15% of churches are growing numerically in the U.S.
• 800 new church plants survive each year
• 10,000 new churches would be needed each year to keep up with population growth

If you are a numbers-person like I am, than those numbers should hurt.  If you're a growing Christian who is sold-out for Christ, you should be concerned.  If you love the Church, you should want better.  We need better.

We've tried the horizontal approach.  We've welcomed business leadership principles, man-centered strategies and entrepreneurship to teach us how to reach customers - the unsaved.  We have replaced lethargic legalism with competency church.  Our approach has been wrong. (p. 134)

I urge you to pick up a copy of this book.  I read this chapter 3 times, and it hurt every time to read it.  I'm not a pastor, I'm not an elder or a deacon.  But I'm sold out for Christ and I want the church to be healthy, growing, thriving and making disciples.  I want that for you.  And I want that in my church.

If you've followed our story, than you know that this winter Joel and I found Harvest Bible Chapel.  Our lives have been changed as we work alongside other sold-out Christians to plant a church near where we live.  We are excited to be part of a church that is ridiculously excited to build a Christ-focused church where people are saved, lives are changed, disciples are made and God is glorified.

I don't know where you are in life as you're reading this - if you go to church, if you're growing in your church - maybe you're church homeless right now.  But God wants you in a church where He is welcomed, His Word is preached and the Great Commission is fulfilled.  So, how do you know if you need to look for a new church home?  I sat down with our pastor and we discussed some Biblical reasons for leaving a church. I pray that these reasons may give you some guidance and peace.


When to leave a church...

1. When a church isn't preaching the Gospel.  Either the Gospel isn't been proclaimed on Sunday or the church has adopted a false version of the Gospel.  (Gal. 1:6-9)
2. When a church is not preaching/teaching sound Biblical doctrine.  (Romans 16:17)
3. When the church leadership does not model or promote a Biblical lifestyle.  (Phil. 3:17, I Pt. 5:3)
4. When the church refuses to practice church discipline.  (I Cor. 5:6-8)
5. When your spiritual gifts are not being used.  (Romans 12:3-8)
6. When you're not growing in your walk under the leadership of the church.

If you're a Christian, Sunday should be your favorite day of the week.  You should look forward to Sunday morning all week - and you should leave the church doors saying I can't wait to go back.  My prayer is that would be your experience, if not, pray what God would have for you.

10 Things to Smile About: August

Well, summer seemed to come and go way too fast.  We had a great time together as a family and made some very special memories.  But I have to admit, the last two weeks before school started were hard - lots of meltdowns from my oldest min-me.  She was ready for school.  And I was ready for a routine.

Here are 10 things that made me smile in August:

1. Seeing the Stanley Cup with some good friends.

2. Starbucks' Refresher in Very Berry Hibiscus - amazing!

3.  Some haircuts before school

4.  Crossing some important to-dos off my list for our church launch.

5. Rescuing my parents from an unfortunate my-keys-fell-in-the-river incident and coming across this sign...

6.  Some incredible quiet time reading My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers - every day the message speaks right to my heart.  

7.  One last hoorah before school started - took Gracie to her first baseball game

8.  OPI's Germany collection.... I thought it would be very un-German of me not to buy at least a few

9.  Hunger Games on DVD!

10.  School started & my 1st grader finally has her routine back - and so does her very happy momma

What did you love the most about August?  Link up with my friend EmmyMom!

7-Day Cleanse: My Thoughts and Results

Last week, I started a seven day cleanse.  Some of you may have followed along with my results on Facebook... I've received a lot of questions about my experience and thought it may be useful to put them in a post for you.

First off, I've been asked why I decided to do this?  Well, Grace started school last week so I'm trying to get back into the routine of getting to the gym regularly.  I thought the cleanse would be a good jump-start to working out 4-5 times a week.

Here's the guide that I used for last week - What do you think of the GM diet?   The link has the food schedule for Sunday - Saturday with a recipe for a special soup and then some other guidelines and things to consider.

So, onto my daily diet:
Sunday - all fruits except bananas
I loved the first day!  I ate a ton of melon, some grapes and two fruit smoothies - I love the Naked smoothies.  This day I drank over 90 ounces of water.
By the end of day one I was down exactly 3 pounds.

Monday - all vegetables
This was a hard day for me.  I started out with the recommended baked potato for breakfast - I put a tiny bit of butter and salt and pepper on top.  For lunch I grilled a mix of onions, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes - a batch I ate throughout the day.  By about 4:00 I was extremely weak.  So I went out and got the ingredients for spaghetti squash marinara and felt much better after dinner.  I drank about 80 ounces of water and 2 cups of black coffee.

Tuesday - all fruits and vegetables
I had 2 more of the Naked fruit smoothies, and the leftovers of the spaghetti squash marinara and the grilled vegetables.  I drank about 80 ounces of water and 2 cups of black coffee.

Wednesday - bananas and milk
I started the day with 2 cups of coffee with a splash of 1% milk.  During the day I drank 3 glasses of 1% milk and ate about 4 large bananas.  I drank about 80 ounces of water and had 2 cups of black coffee.  Surprisingly I felt full and satisfied and noticed my cravings for salt and sweets start to fade.

Thursday - feast day - beef, tomatoes and lots of water
They call this feast day.  I think I would give it a different name!  By day four, I was ready for some protein, although I could not eat the amount of beef they recommended.  I made three hamburger patties made from ground sirloin, a little salt and pepper and some sun-dried tomatoes.  I ate 2 bowls of vegetable soup.  I had about 3 tomatoes with some onion salt on them and drank over 90 ounces of water.  I also had a glass of unsweetened iced green tea.

Friday - beef and vegetables
Again, not my favorite day.  Although I felt full, I remember wanting fruit on day 5.  On day 6 I sauteed some beef tips with salt and pepper and a tad of oil.  As for vegetables, I ate some more tomatoes, corn and green beans and also had a bowl of vegetable soup.  I drank over 90 ounces of water and had 1 cup of black coffee.

Saturday - brown rice, fruit juices and vegetables
I was excited about the last day!  On day 7 I made a batch of brown rice and had peas, carrots, mushroom, green beans and tomatoes.  I also had one Naked fruit smoothie.  I drank about 80 ounces of water and had 2 cups of black coffee.  That night, I slipped and had a McDonald's cheeseburger for dinner.

By Sunday morning, day 8, I was down a total of 8.6 pounds!

Some things I've noticed this week is that my cravings for sweets has really gone down.  I'm also drinking a whole lot more water than normal - trying to maintain about 80 ounces a day.  I may consider doing the cleanse again, but most likely will choose a few days a month to just eat fruits and vegetables.

On the link above, it gives a recipe for "special soup".  Nothing about it sounded good to me and I heard that it tasted horrible.  So my special soup consisted of vegetable broth, onions, carrots and tomatoes.  I put in some salt and pepper and a few bay leaves and let it come together for about 45 minutes.

Tough Truth for Military Kids

Yesterday afternoon, Grace and I had this conversation in the car on the way home from school...

Grace:  Do we still use canons?
Me: I don't know.  That's a daddy-question.
Grace:  Do they have canons at Daddy's work?
Me:  I don't think so.  But they have bombs.
Grace:  Bombs?  Like Fruit Ninja?
Me:  Exactly

Tonight during dinner, out of the blue Grace asks me this question...

Grace:  When will Daddy have to go back to Iraq?
Me:  Iraq?  I hope never again.  The war there is over for us.
Grace:  There aren't more wars?
Me:  Well, yes there are still wars going on.  But Daddy doesn't have to go right now to fight in those.
Grace:  Daddy goes there to fight for us, right?
Me:  Yep!  Daddy wants us all to be safe.
Grace:  I wish there weren't wars.  Aren't you glad Daddy didn't die when he was away?
Me:  Oh my gosh, yes.  I'm so happy Daddy came home to us.

These are such hard conversations.  These topics don't come up often.  Joel's been home now 1 1/2 years - the longest stretch since Grace has been born.  So topics like war, soldiers dying and people being killed overseas don't come up in our house too often.  For the past 1 1/2 years, life here has seemed normal.  Not quite civilian-life normal, but still pretty quiet.

I just pray that God would grant me wisdom for these hard conversations.  These aren't things I would have ever dreamed to talk about with my 6 year old.

Do any of you military moms have advice for how to handle these hard topics?

Vertical Church: Chapter 3 Glory

to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus

throughout all generations, 

forever and ever.  Amen.  Ephesians 3:21

In February, I sat in a hotel conference room with about 40 other people.  We were all there to find out one thing - to find out more about this church plant we all had heard about.  We all came from various churches all around our area - God drew us together that night.  As our pastor was speaking and sharing about the vision for this new church, one word stood out to me - glory.  Now, glory is something we Christians hear about often and say and sing about frequently.  But there was something about the way our pastor spoke about glory that made me think.  Why is he so passionate about bringing God's glory to this town?  Isn't that what every church ultimately works for?

James MacDonald sums-up this big God-word in chapter 3:  Remember that glory is any manifestation of God, glory is evidence for God, it is proof of God's existence.  Glory is when we see something that could not be by itself, which is everything our eyes fall upon.  And while the creation is whispering His glory and the saved are singing His glory, the gospel of the Son is heralding the message:  there's a God, there's a God, there's a God! (pg. 99)

So, glory is a God word.  It's a church word.  We use it a lot.  We say we're doing it in the church. But are we really glorifying the Almighty?  Church has become a horizontal pursuit - proclaiming truth while ignoring grace, avoiding truth while teaching an ubiblical view of grace, clinging to personal comfort in worship, allowing preaching on the pastor's thoughts and experiences rather than proclaiming God's word... these are all part of the horizontal church (John 1:14, John 7:18, Mark 12:30).  But God never intended the church to be horizontal.  It is supposed to be Vertical - man seeking God's glory and God displaying His manifest presence.

Let's stop making church about me.  Let's put an end to seeking out our comfort zones within the church walls.  Let's stop using church to pursue our own desires, our ambitions.  Let's start proclaiming God's glory.  Let's start seeking it.

Show us your glory, Lord!

Our Summer in Photos

Since I've been a very naughty blogger, I haven't shared a lot about our summer.  So, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into our full and very fun summer in pictures.  Hope you had a wonderful few months!

Lots of time at our zoo

1st ride on a train in New Hampshire

A unusual smile from el Hub

End of a great 5K

1st trip to the ocean for the girls

Love lighthouses & this one was perfect

Many trips to the dairy farm in New Hampshire for yummy milk and eggs

Visiting my best friend from college & her awesomely patient husband. Love Seattle!

Did you know Bison & Buffalo are different???

God's awesome creation - Mt Rainier

Yummy Oreo martinis

Grace's 1st riding lessons

Our sweet friends and their new little one

4-wheeling with my best friend

Celebrating 9 years of marriage - and he even (kinda) smiled

Autumn sorting toys - love it!

Seeing the Stanley Cup

Hair cuts before school starts

One last "hoorah" this summer at a baseball game

1st Grade

Grace started 1st grade on Monday.  Each year, from preschool to now, I'm surprised that it's possible that she's old enough for school.  Why is my baby growing up???  It's a hard thing for me, as I'm gathering from all your Twitter and Facebook posts, is a hard thing for most of you, too.

Grace and I packed her school bag weeks ago - carefully reading and re-reading her list, labeling her name on about a thousand different items and packing and re-packing, until her bag was just right.  Her clothes have been washed and hung up in her closet.  Shoes have been bought and put aside so they aren't marked up until the last-possible minute.  All of this planning and organizing, and you would think that I would have remembered earlier than a week before school that I planned to work on her spelling and math with her this summer.  I bought a workbook the first week in June to go over with her... and now school has started, and we haven't even begun her "summer" workbook.  Oh, well.  We had fun at the pool, the park and New Hampshire... and fun is what summer is about anyway.

It was a good first day.  She goes to a very small school, so all but two of the students this year were in her Kindergarten class.  Grace seems to love her new teacher and is loving being in a school routine again.  That girl THRIVES on routine.

Can't wait to see how much she learns and grows this school year.  I can't wait to see her continue to grow in confidence.

And since her first day of school was a great success, I thought she deserved a treat...