lots of musings :|

Recent(-ish) musings......

I had been intending to write about Urbana12, but somehow I don't really many words for it. As with all similar events there was good and bad and it's hard to write everything down in one sitting. I'm probably not going to do a whole good-bad-ugly kind of post about it, but things I've learned/thought were useful will probably pop up here and there.


1) Loving my home church - I remember that around this time last year I was quite determined to leave my home church and go church-hunting during the summer. I remember being so disillusioned by the lack of desire to really know and worship the God of the Bible and the prevalent worldliness I saw that I really dreaded going to church on Sundays. Recently, however, I feel like God has burdened my heart for this church. The truth is, I love this church and the people in it. My heart yearns to see revival and the turning of our eyes toward Christ and things above. I have especially been burdened by a desire to see the youth of this church come to truly know God and deny their own sinful flesh as a example to the rest of the congregation. I am very encouraged by a lot of my younger brothers and sisters who really do desire to know God more, but I can see that there is an extreme shortage of committed leadership and the godly leadership that is there is stretched really thing. It seems like no one is willing to invest in this next generation, and that breaks my heart. I also had a bit of an awful time on the worship team during the summer b/c I felt like it wasn't always Spirit-led and I don't know whether it's me or the system, which leads me to.....

2) Spiritual discipline of worship - I remember being very convicted about this during Urbana. I was very uncomfortable at the beginning of Urbana b/c the style of worship was so very different than what I was used to at church and CCF. I rmbr praying all through the first session that God would work through the conference to reveal to me things that I needed to change in my life and to bring me to uncomfortable places if He needed to, and worship was definitely one of these areas; I think I'd never realized before that my worship was quite self-indulgent and I really didn't have a very high view of God in my worship. It wasn't even an issue of pride that a lot of worship leaders struggle with - it was the fact that my worship to God didn't reflect that He truly is the God of all creation and of all nations and I was very focused on some aspects of God while completely ignoring other aspects. I was also very set in my ways in that there was one good and comfortable way of worship and that was it. How deluded we truly are until God deigns to open our eyes! I've just been really convicted to study the Bible and see what biblical worship looks like and discern from that how I am to lead worship and also what kind of "worship music" I should listen to/lead. And from this point I can generalize further to......

3) Doctrine and theology - I know nothing about doctrine. Absolutely nothing. I believe that the Bible is God-breathed and should be our only guide/standard, but that doesn't mean I know a thing about how to study and interpret it correctly. I guess a lot of people that I know are getting in doctrine and theology and throw around a lot of buzzwords and schools of thought and people are always saying so-and-so's preaching isn't correct or so-and-so's teaching is super legit and I'm just completely bewildered because I have no idea what it all means and I don't want to be swayed by a teaching just because it sounds good and Biblical. So much discernment to be prayed for ;____;  I don't know how we think we can get anything done without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And that barb was directed entirely at myself (sigh).

In essence this is a strange kind of period in my life. I am unsure about many things and wanting to learn many things, but don't know how/where to start.

Recent reminders-to-self:

"For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous." (Romans 2:13)

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." (Colossians 1:13-14)

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:4)

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself." (2 Timothy 2:13)