Cheese and Meatballs.

Who's to say that you're the one,
Lost and heartbreak, come undone
I may not treat you like I should
Believe I only want the good.
Love entangles more than fear
Fear holds love and is unclear
About who knows this mystery
Take my leap in history
Figure out just where we'll go
In the end our love will grow.

Don't try to tell me how to go to church.

Today marks a landmark for me. Today is the first time in my entire life that I have ever wholeheartedly disagreed with a sermon, and it's really grinding my gears. To be perfectly honest, the entire church service made me angry but the sermon in particular was icing on the cake. I'm going to break it down in sections (as church services usually are) and provide reasoning behind my anger and disappointment.

First: Worship.
 I have been to churches my whole life and heard many different kinds of worship. I have heard contemporary Christian, hymns, spoken word, call and response, Celtic worship and other forms of praise to our Savior. I do not have a problem with any of it. If that is the way someone worships Jesus, that's great. It's always a joy to see people kneel before the feet of our Lord. However, there is a sort of reverence and respect that accompany the songs we sing. It is with good reason that we don't just sing whatever comes in our heads as a congregation- it would be a jumbled, muddled, mess. The worship leader has a responsibility to the congregation to oversee the flow of the song and choose songs that are pleasing to the ear; otherwise, we simply wouldn't need a worship leader and team. We could have some form of individual worship time instead. This would be fun on it's own, but not the intent of a "body" of Christ. Having said that, I enjoyed the two songs we sang first. They were great to sing as a body and rejoice and bask in our Savior's love and presence. However, the third song was extremely poorly written. It was hard to follow, had no rhythm, and yet we sang both verse and chorus repeatedly. When i say repeatedly, i say at least eight or nine times; further, i felt that the worship team was forcing us to sing this song when people weren't super into it.

Second: The Reading of the Word.
After worship there is a time that the congregation as a whole reads a passage of Scripture out loud. The Scripture chosen was in the Psalms, and the translation of the day was "the Message." I personally do not like the Message, but understand that some do understand it better and so it is more of a personal Bible so that those who don't read the best may still enjoy devotions and gain learning. However, we read it as a congregation, and it sounded like a conversation. Not something that we hold reverent, and not the words of God himself. We forget that although Christ may have come as a man, He was also fully God and a lack of knowledge does not give us the right to "dumb down" the Bible.

Third: The Sermon.
ohhhhhh boy. The sermon. The title of the sermon was "how not to become a big church and to be successful." Excuse me. The pastor explained that he meant it satirically, but his entire sermon was how he had personally attempted to keep his church small, and that when it got too big, he would send out people to make bigger churches. That is understandable. However, let me just explain to you a few things. My dad, the pastor of a small church, has worked his entire pastoral career on helping people by outreaches and drawing people into the church, only to be met with opposition. He is not successful making a big church- and as a result, my family has suffered. There have been times when we couldn't even afford a Christmas tree, all because the members of our congregation didn't want to make our church "successful." And be not mistaken- we have not wanted for anything. God has provided for our every need and I have found my joy and riches through Christ. But don't you dare stand up there and tell me that you don't want a successful church when you can afford to send your daughter to China for a year, buy her an Ipad, and save enough money to send yourself and your wife there twice a year. That is ridiculous and it is obvious where your priorities lie. All your talk about how you simply want to disciple people- let's see how that is when your money is taken away because your congregation is split and then quits tithing. Let's see then. It is unfair of you to judge churches simply because they have many members- Greg Laurie's church, Harvest, is a huge discipleship church. They are the starters of the Harvest Crusade- they live to serve. It is wrong of you to condemn large churches and wrong of you to assume that everyone has enough money to pay the bills by being an unsuccessful church. And don't even get me started about how the only Bible you used was "The Message."


Fourth: Communion.
Loved it.

Dear Previous Me

Dear Diary,
I just want to be treated like I matter.
Like those around me see the girl
God created me to be.
But being rejected just makes me sadder
And the opinion of the world
Starts to matter to me.

Dear Previous Me,
I read the words you wrote the other day
I read them, and I just want to say:
No matter who hurt you,
No matter how bad,
No matter the reason,
No matter how sad,
You're going to be okay.

Take Your Like and Raise You Love

Colors, once bright, now fade to grey
Light doesn't matter at the end of the day
Fear steals in when you start to say I love you.

This is wrong, this has to be wrong.
You can't put feelings inside of a song.
Heartbeat short, and silence so long
All because you said I love you.

Don't say it.
Please don't say it.
Hold it inside, save it for the hail.
Save it for the rocky times
When meaning, above all else, is a verb.

modesty and discernment

Modesty is a large issue in our generation's culture. Questions are constantly being raised about what is right or wrong to wear, Judgments are always being made about contextual clothing, and people are constantly getting hurt.
The only thing that sticks out to me in that previous sentence is the fact that people are constantly getting hurt. There is no longer a fine line between chiding and rebuking, and it causes confusion among the masses that make up the young women of America.
One question that specifically comes to mind is the issue of wearing two piece bathing suits, or bikinis at the beach or another swim setting. Christian churches across America remind their teenagers to not cause teenage men to stumble by parading around in arousing clothing, but are we not also causing those same women to feel uneasy about their own bodies and temples that the Holy Spirit resides in? We have been stuffed full of images and media that portrays women a certain way and that if you are unable to achieve the "norm" you do not deserve to wear a two piece. The message that the church is sending is agreeing with that stimulus, albeit subconsciously. They are failing to recognize that women are beautiful creatures and that we are shaped differently than men; why then are we called to a standard that requires us to hide our beauty talked about and revered in Psalm 139? Now- by embracing our bodies and womanhood I do not mean that we should consciously allow ourselves to use a contextual piece of clothing to attract sexual attention. I simply do not understand why the church blames women for the bodies that God has given us, no matter what it looks like.
In this issue, I call upon the reason and discernment that God himself has given us. We should be allowed the choice to love ourselves first- before conforming to a standard that those who cannot control themselves have thrown us in.

Sunshine

I told somebody something personal.
I’m working on it. I’m surviving. Somehow, I’m getting better. I’m healing. I’ve bitten the dust and gotten back up. I am alive.
I have no regrets; only a past spattered with shotgun shells. Light shines holes in my heart like stained glass. Slowly my lungs fill with air; I can breathe tonight.
Don’t ask me about tomorrow.