In this post Dan Miller show how much time we really do have, and while he is talking about finding work you love it can also be true for your spiritual life.  If you can sit and watch t.v. you can turn that t.v. off and read the bible or do a devotional.  Once you have the discipline to start God will give you the discipline to apply what He is teaching you.

I Don’t Have Enough Time?? « Dan Miller’s Blog.

True Christians are not hate filled unloving judgmental jerks, and neither is Christ.  We are sinners just like you.  Yes A LOT of the time we do judge to quickly, but so do you.  Yes sometimes we make assumptions, but so do you.  Yes we believe homosexuality is a sin, but we also believe lying, stealing, promiscuity, pornography, beating your wife or anyone else; is also sin.  We believe these things are sin not because we made up these things but because we believe the bible is the word of God and we believe it is true (Some of us). I think you should hate us more for not standing for what we believe than what we believe.

Why are we the only ones that can not have a say in politics, or life for that matter.  When is the last time an Atheist Communist was shouted down in a college.  Why is it o.k. for fascists or socialists or pragmatists or hedonists to tell Christians they are wrong, but  it is not o.k. for Christians to fight back.  If it is o.k. for everyone else to stand up for their beliefs it is time for Christians to stop worrying about what others will think and stand up for their beliefs.

We are not perfect but many of us are trying to be. As Christians, we must love everyone, but we must love Christ first in order to love everyone else. Here’s a little hint; if you are a jerk you probably don’t need to try to show the love of Christ to anyone. You need to follow him and begin to learn from him.  Read the gospels and see how Jesus interacted with people.  When we begin to see him for who and what he is we will begin to love those around us enough to begin to reach out to them and show them the love of Christ, even if we do not agree with what they believe.  We must be changed first, and we must also stand up for what we believe.  My goal is to see everyone come to Christ.

I grew up in the small Arkansas town of Russell. In this town we were lucky enough to have a school house. It was bigger than most old red one room school houses that you see portrayed on T.V. it was actually 3 or 4,000 square feet so the only reason I can find to justify calling it a school house is because that is what all the adults who went to the school house called it. This functioned as the school for our community until the early 60’s when it was absorbed into the greater Bald Knob Metropolitan School District. The point I want you to see is that it was called a school house because of what went on inside its walls. Until I started studying to write this article it never occurred as strange that my grand mother would say when we were going to church lets go to the church house. She said this because that is what she thought went on inside the building was church. There may be some that still refer to their church building as the Church house, and I know the church I attend started literally in a house.

I want to focus in this article and a couple of follow-ups not on the church house but on the church. In case you don’t already know the Greek term for church used in the Bible is Ekklesia. It means literally “called out ones” In Greece these were the people called out to an assembly. For us as Christians we are called out of the world by Christ, into Christ. It does not have anything to do with a building.

In his book “Pagan Christianity” Frank Viola puts it this way, ”If your were to ask a first century Christian where they went to church they would have no idea what you were talking about.” They would probably look at you like you had 3 eyes. They were the church they did not have to go to where they were. They knew what their identity was in Christ. They understood what it meant to be called out of the world they were living in. This meaning is lost today by a lot of attenders. They believe that once a week they go to church and the other six and a half days the church sits empty. They have no idea what the church really is.

Today there are generally two ways of looking at who the Ekklesia are. First each local assembly is an ekklesia unto itself. Your home church is an ekklesia. That congregation whether a house church or a mega church is a local part of the body of Christ. Second the whole body of believers around the world is the ekklesia making up the body of Christ. This is also known as the “holy catholic church” with a small “c” meaning universal church. This is the belief of my denomination the Church of God (Anderson, IN).

Quoting Form the Church of God Beliefs on the website:

“The message of unity is that all God’s people are one (John 17) and are called to recognize that unity, to relate to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and to coordinate their efforts in mission to the world.”

Frank viola says later in his book that The first use of the phrase “go to church” that we are aware of came in a letter written around the year 190 from Clement of Alexandria and other than converted houses and catacombs there were no actual church buildings until Constantine began to build them over cemeteries where the bodies of their martyrs were buried. I know that the popular author Rick Warren says they did not have a building for the first 15 years of their church.

So my first post will end with this: having a building does not make a church.

I grew up in the small Arkansas town of Russell. In this town we were lucky enough to have a school house. It was bigger than most old red one room school houses that you see portrayed on T.V. it was actually 3 or 4,000 square feet so the only reason I can find to justify calling it a school house is because that is what all the adults who went to the school house called it. This functioned as the school for our community until the early 60’s when it was absorbed into the greater Bald Knob Metropolitan School District. The point I want you to see is that it was called a school house because of what went on inside its walls. Until I started studying to write this article it never occurred as strange that my grand mother would say when we were going to church lets go to the church house. She said this because that is what she thought went on inside the building was church. There may be some that still refer to their church building as the Church house, and I know the church I attend started literally in a house.

I want to focus in this article and a couple of follow-ups not on the church house but on the church. In case you don’t already know the Greek term for church used in the Bible is Ekklesia. It means literally “called out ones” In Greece these were the people called out to an assembly. For us as Christians we are called out of the world by Christ, into Christ. It does not have anything to do with a building.

In his book “Pagan Christianity” Frank Viola puts it this way, ”If your were to ask a first century Christian where they went to church they would have no idea what you were talking about.” They would probably look at you like you had 3 eyes. They were the church they did not have to go to where they were. They knew what their identity was in Christ. They understood what it meant to be called out of the world they were living in. This meaning is lost today by a lot of attenders. They believe that once a week they go to church and the other six and a half days the church sits empty. They have no idea what the church really is.

Today there are generally two ways of looking at who the Ekklesia are. First each local assembly is an ekklesia unto itself. Your home church is an ekklesia. That congregation whether a house church or a mega church is a local part of the body of Christ. Second the whole body of believers around the world is the ekklesia making up the body of Christ. This is also known as the “holy catholic church” with a small “c” meaning universal church. This is the belief of my denomination the Church of God (Anderson, IN).

Quoting Form the Church of God Beliefs on the website:

“The message of unity is that all God’s people are one (John 17) and are called to recognize that unity, to relate to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and to coordinate their efforts in mission to the world.”

Frank viola says later in his book that The first use of the phrase “go to church” that we are aware of came in a letter written around the year 190 from Clement of Alexandria and other than converted houses and catacombs there were no actual church buildings until Constantine began to build them over cemeteries where the bodies of their martyrs were buried. I know that the popular author Rick Warren says they did not have a building for the first 15 years of their church.

So my first post will end with this: having a building does not make a church.