Today's Sunday was an especially good day. Big things have been happening in growing God's church in Yokohama. So big in fact that car trouble couldnt event stop us.
Every Sunday my roommate drives the van to be at whatever location church is that week to get there by the proper set up time. With the senor pastor coming from Tokyo to fill in in the absence of our current one being in Australia the plans for today were big. But as the key turned in the ignition something didn't quite happen as it should. The car was completely silent. Our battery had indeed died. To make a short story much shorter.. after a bit of "omg! what do we do??!" and some phone calls and line messages, 2 more guys with a car from church came to the rescue. We were ready to just get the families to bring some cars and toss everything essential into the trunks and back seats.. luckily after some heaving pushing and a jump all went well.
For those who don't know how our church operates.. No van= a very acapella and acoustic church. Not a bad idea and maybe one day well try it. Every week a miracle happens when we load and unload the van.. All the equipment from instruments, sound, media and cafe comes from that van.
But the highlight of my day was the entirety of 2 services and ps. Rod's discipleship meeting. Well ok, specifically Re-mix was amazing. So much energy and so pumped up that i was moving around with the electric apparently inventing my own movements.. and played hard enough to break the high e-string. My second broken high-e in 3 weeks. T_T But it was fun. The teaching.. the messages from both services spoke to me.
Things have been very different for me every since i picked up this quiet time/ journaling practice. Somehow I managed to stay a christian for years without it. But because I never did it I would get stagnant, leave church, start believing im the gatekeeper to my own destiny.. only to have that backfire and find myself back in church.
Today's topic was "Vision Sunday" Ive come alot closer to seeing what my vision is in the scheme of God's church on earth. I have an idea of the broad vision and its starting to trickle down into specifics. But I can't have change in the spiritual without it trickling into all the other areas of my life... but more on that another day.
During Ps.Rod's huddle I learned about Big Ministry and Small Ministry. Both are Ministry but they are a little different from each other. Jesus in his lifetime seemed to always be doing one or the other. As I had been imagining in my mind, my idea about this church was right.
Big Ministry is for everyone.. A message for the Christians and the non-Christians. Like in Luke 6:17, Jesus goes down to a level place, people from all over come.. Jews and non-Jews... from Judea, from Jerusalem.. and then from Tyre and Sidon which were not necessarily Jews. Big Ministry is like our church service. Its a welcoming message for everyone.. Church is always for everyone. Alot of people come to church for the reason that they want God to do something in their lives.. and thats ok. This is a place where they come to hear about Jesus.
Small Ministry on the other hand is like small groups or coaching. Now this is for people who want to grow. There comes a point when you can only receive and receive so much that you hit a wall. You get to a point where you want more, you start wanting more of what God has for you.. that is the time you go to small ministry, your place where you get coaching. Unlike big ministry which is always for everyone all the time, coaching is for when you want to grow. Its where the hard questions and challenges will come. Like in Luke 6:20, when Jesus wasn't talking to the big crowds and healing tons of people, he was in a huddle with his disciples. "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." When we come to small ministry and submit to our teachers, when we submit to God, we admit that we are in need, and thats when God helps us find the gap in the wall to fill. Thats when he helps us overcome other walls that put limits on us. Small ministry is where we learn to stop being spoonfed by our pastors and we learn, with guidance, how to feed ourselves. A huge part of that is Journaling daily. Asking God to teach you daily. Asking God to reveal you things that need to be seen. Giving God permission to change you and to change your life.
If I lived today a year ago, I may or may not have been asleep in the pews. In my university days I went to church but I was never involved past attending, nor was in a small group, team or doing any sort of journaling. I think its a miracle I never walked away considering the childish attitude I had back then. No wonder I was asleep all the time. But today, I was alert. Every word spoken by someone, God's presence was there nodding, telling me its time to throw the limits off. My biggest prayer for the start of this year is for the limits to come down and that God would change me to be the man I was meant to. To be someone who no longer needs to be spoon-fed, but someone that can do something in the Kingdom.
