:: Real Christians Don’t Watch Porn ::

Real Christians Don’t Watch Porn

Real Christians don't watch porn, and don't excuse masturbation. I use the slogan "Real Christians Don't" so as to make a point: WE SHOULD NOT...

There are reasons why we engage in these sins, but they are not to be used as excuses. And the reasons are not about needing relief, but about why we believe the lie that it gives us relief, while we block out the whole backdrop and real nature of said relief. The price being paid for us to indulge in our sin is catastrophic, and as long as we ignore it, we're no better than a drunk or a drug addict who's sacrificing their own family's need, because all the money is going toward providing them with a fast-track to their obsessive entitlement for immediate twisted pleasure.

I am a believer. Over the years, I’ve battle with masturbation and pornography and realized that I really am not alone. Two years ago, in the midst of an important spiritual struggle, I finally experienced a breakthrough and ever since, have not engaged in watching any porn, either on the net or printed-paper. And temptations are so few they’re almost non-existent.

Like I said, I was in the midst of a huge struggle, work-related and spiritual. As a member of a Board of Director for a University Community Radio, and Dj of the same, I was faced with the acting out of really nasty spirits of control and discrimination. A bastion of lesbianism, and pagan worship, the radio station had been under severe attack for many years, and men in particular were the targets of vicious attacks aimed at kicking them out. Anything would go: loosely using the Union, harassment, lies and deceit, manipulation, false accusations, etc.

I didn’t succeed in bringing much actual change. My health was badly affected and weird things started happening that were signs that real danger for my wife and I was approaching. In the end I resigned because I couldn’t continue my duties and enjoy it in such an ambiance. Or maybe my time was up, who knows?

However, as I fasted for weeks, the Lord showed me that if I wanted to conquer those spirits at work through those people, I would have to draw a line and conquer the influence of the same kinds of spirits in me. Pornography, sexual deviance and violence go together. The Lord gave me a few pointers and I had an about-face that changed my life. All I needed was to be determined and focused. The addiction stopped having power over me almost overnight.

There are a few things that need to be addressed in our societies about pornography and how it is culturally and economically accepted, justified, encouraged, created, packaged, delivered and protected: that is the objectification of women and men. Make no mistake, the saying is true: the younger the better. If you’re a father, think about this one.

They call it the world’s older. But prostitution is only the final destination of a need to act out the many fantasies spawn by pornographic impulses. Watching and taking pleasure in porn defiles the viewer as well as the object of its lust. Once on the fast track of masturbation, it’s almost impossible to back-out.

During my time of denial and sexual dysfunction (sickness), I’ve seen the most horrible things you can imagine while surfing the porn sites. Yes, there are such things as bestiality, child pornography, children forced to have sex with animals, homosexuality, orgies, outward demonically and ritualistic abuse sites, unashamedly promoted incest and rape of children from the crib up to adolescence, web cams galore, peeping toms, etc.

You don’t even need to surf all these sites, because they pop-up on your screen while surfing other sites, trying to lure you deeper into defilement and eventually pop out your credit card. Ever wondered why they invented pop-up screen stoppers? So people could watch porn without being bothered. The Internet is by far the biggest pool of sexual deviation and twistedness you can find, and your children may easily have access to it.

Do you watch the sex scenes in popular movies or TV dramas? Or do you flick the remote or fast-forward to resume the movie? Do you take your time to follow the lines of the body of a woman or man on a billboard? Do you “check-out” people at work, or while waiting for the light to change, do you get lost looking at ladies cross the street? When in church, are your eyes roaming free to watch young girls or boys? Or the people on the worship team?

Do you ever catch yourself in the process of doing any of the above and not feeling it’s wrong? Do you then go home and surf the net, or buy a magazine to finish off with the stormy emotional lust that’s been unleashed? Or do you feel it’s wrong and wish you’d find a way to stop? There are a few things you can do.

The first one is: call it what it is. A sin. A dysfunction. A deviation. Using people as objects. It’s sleeping with the enemy. It’s a crime too. The only difference is, you’re not there in person. Or maybe you are? Maybe you go to those places where anything goes because it’s called “adult” entertainment. Bestiality is a crime. Child pornography is a crime. Kidnapping is a crime. Rape is a crime.

Countless boys, girls and teenagers are abducted every year to serve in the porn industry, drugged up, beaten, and subjected to the most awful defilement imaginable. Even in their own neighborhood and families, these young people are groomed or lured into reprehensible behavior. And seemingly, the legislation is postured to encourage sexual deviance by listening to those who call for lowering the age of consent.

Addiction to pornography and deviant sexual behavior is excused in our society. Mothers don’t mind watching their daughters being dressed up like pin-ups to the delight of passerby’s. Church goers find it hip and cool to have their teens dress up in provocative ways, not completely oblivious to the charm and the lustful rewards for them. And if some find it offensive, they won’t speak, in fear of making a big deal of something that could blow up in their face: “So, why were you looking at her there? You have the problem, don’t bother my daughter trying to make her feel like a slut.”

Did you know that every year, I hear of government offices and corporations putting out numbers about how many of their own employees have been caught watching porn at work. If you do that, you’ll be found for sure. It’s only a question of time. You can do something about it NOW.

1- When looking at pictures, imagine that woman or man in their real life. Find that place in you that asks if that person is doing these things because they want to, or because they’ve been drugged, beaten, kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Then shut the computer.
2- Pray for the person you’d abnormally be lusting after.
3- Porn isn’t a life, it’s an industry, an image, a bait for your money, but also for your soul. If you’re a father and engage in porn, you are opening your home to the enemy. And he will come in, I guarantee you. You’re exposing your whole family to the demonic spirits you are in bed with. Don’t focus on how badly your teens are acting out, wonder about how you have given access to the warfare they’re stuck in.
4- Tell your spouse or a trustable friend about your problem. You don’t need to name specifics, just that you’re battling with this. And tell them every time you’ve fallen. The first step to reinforce the sin is to hide because of the unbearable shame that could ensue. The first step to deliverance is to stop hiding from the horror pornography actually is.
5- Do not sacrifice your money or substance to the porn idols, for you are actually sacrificing to demons. Masturbation is called “shaking hand with the devil.”
6- ACTIVATE that adult-content filter on your Internet computer. Stop going to any adult video store, change to a video store that doesn’t have an adult section. Throw away any magazine with suggestive pictures. DO NOT linger before the magazine stands in convenience stores, or look at the top shelves to see what’s there.
7- As soon as a thought comes in your mind that would usually drag you down to sin, shake it off you, like a spider from your shoulder. It could be while checking the street before turning, looking at a billboard, seeing an ad on TV, etc. Picture the thought in your mind and see yourself holding a sword and aggressively shred the thing. This should take half a second. Repeat as often as needed. You will quickly overcome.

There is a life after porn addiction. You will allow your spirit to awaken in a way that’s much more alive and crisp than before. You will stand as a guard over your household and not as a traitor who’s negotiating his/her pleasure by exposing your family to the enemy and his filth. Your life will become intercession for territorial purity.

Pornography is a plague. Children are sacrificed to its demons. Relationships, families and ministries are wrecked because of it.

We can do something, if we stop accepting as normal the gradual pull downward from this Age into the mire of defilement. We can’t conquer the sin out there that hasn’t been conquered inside of us. I do hope this blog entry has inspired change and action in your own life.

Let’s stand and be counted.

:: THANK GOD FOR RENEE!! ::

:: STUMBLING TOWARD FAITH ::

I discovered Renee Alston's book on Andrew Jones web site. Here is what she's posted there:

my name is renee. i'm the author of stumbling toward faith, and this is my message for much of the church.

(thanks andrew! for the opportunity)

i want to talk about the things that people don't want to think about. i want to talk about power, and how it has potential for unspeakable damage. i want to talk about pain, and how we spend countless breaths trying to force it away; to fix it. i want to talk about grace, and what it has meant to and for me, underneath my pretending.

i believe that much of institutionalized christianity and its christian bubble culture has created a world that will inevitably leave us less human. the church has become a place that justifies its treatment of people with (in) the name of god. the church has a short tolerance for grief, for brokenness, but it has a timetable for treating it. the church has an instant answer, a heavenly prozac: the lord jesus himself.

i know that for me, on some days, i can't get out of bed in the morning. i'm no less a believer than i was the day before. i'm no more a sinner than i was before i awakened. but healing, and trust, and moving on, is a journey. it's a cycle. it's one moment after one breath after one sigh. and somehow, i don't understand it, and some days i don't even believe it, but god is there in those moments and breaths and sighs, and god waits with me in my sadness.

when will the church be willing to enter into its people's brokenness? when will it learn the value, the necessity, of holding a friend's hand and being silent? when will it allow people their own journeys through their pain? their own timetable for being well? when can the church truly believe, and accept that even in sorrow (and perhaps, especially in sorrow) itself we find god?

Please, READ MORE!! on Andrew Jones blog site...

"AS YOU DISCOVER, CONSIDER..."

Consider:

- every step as transitory
- every articulated goal as an incomplete sketch
- all efforts as naturally needed exertion
- most discoveries as recoveries
- most recoveries as personal advancement toward maturity
- confusion as mainstream as can be
- the medium and message as symbiotically interacting
- the medium and message as sharing the same obscure quality of morphing according to outside and inside forces
- the medium and message as retaining the same essence while maturing into a higher form of incarnational reality

I totally have stumbled into EVERYTHING that have determinedly inspired change in my life. It's only when the bicycle is cycling that one can change gears. Standing still does not engage the gears. Seeking is everything: findings will find me.

:: SPONTANEOUS QUOTE ::

Things that come to mind when thinking about a dear friend's ongoing ordeal, who's calling it 'a prison'...

"...the prison of the thorns in our side...

EMERGING CHURCH: love it...

Emerging Church (excerpt)

From Wikipedia:

While there is no co-ordinated organization behind the emerging church globally, and no guarantee that the Emerging Church will mature into a coherent movement at all, the term is becoming increasingly common currency among both leaders of Emerging Church groups and Emerging Church thinkers. Many of these leaders and thinkers have written books, articles and/or blogs on the subject.

So far, Emerging Church groups have typically contained some or all of the following elements:

- Highly creative approaches to worship and spiritual reflection. This can involve everything from the use of contemporary music and films through to liturgy or other more ancient customs.

- A minimalist and decentralised organisational structure.

- A flexible approach to theology whereby individual differences in belief and morality are accepted within reason.

- A more holistic approach to the role of the church in society. This can mean anything from greater emphasis on fellowship in the structure of the group to a higher degree of emphasis on social action, community building or Christian outreach.

- A desire to reanalyize the Bible against the context into which it was written, in search of a reconstructed theology that is free from Modernist baggage.

The Emerging Church movement is closely related to the House Church movement in that both of them are challenging traditional notions of how the Church should be organized. Not all House Churches are as influenced by Postmodern philosophy as the Emerging Church, but many Emerging Churches are also House Churches.

I think

:: Cir-convict-vo-lo-cation ::

:: Reflexions about the necessity of being part of a local church ::

My wife and I have wanted to move to this here town since we left Manitoba. This past June, we finally got a house rental... In the meantime, the churches we so wanted to be part of, and who sooooo wanted us to be part of, have demonstrated a solid stucture of denominational leadership and function. I am talking about churches who could be seen as surfing the crest of the wave of the renewal/prophetic.

Even with all the best intentions and professed desire to walk into "the new things of God," as some need to define "growing onward into deeper maturity," they find they cannot function out of the paradigm of the greater circuit of churches who follow the evolving contemporary movement of apostolic/prophetic.

We have become friends with many of the people, getting to know them through attending church, or outside of the bounds of church life, as we both work with believers who attend there. But still, evey time we would go to a Sunday meeting, something just doesn't feel right. Worship times are basically when we really connect corporately with the Lord and coffee times, with other people.

I would benefit from more of these, but loike someone said, some of the rituals just drive me nuts. And hanging out with them would just bring me to a place of questioning the way things are, and I'd put my foot in my mouth far too many times in search of proper words to define my quest, and why I just can't sit in church anymore and really feel it is the Lord and our Family I am communing with in an unrehearsed way.

So we are here, finding renewed hope in a community like Resonate that there exist life beyond the dummy Church we've created to try and represent the passionate pursuit of God that was sleeping amongst so many, and that the Renewal re-awakened.

I must say I do deeply miss the corporate worship and fellowship times, however, I can't shake the feeling that there is a collective agenda of self-preservation that confuses things. And that's what I'm staying clear of. For now. It helps trying to perceive the actual true bonds of brother/sisterhood that makes a "natural intentional church" a faithful articulation of God's kingdom as a social unit as well as a spiritual one.

What qualifies a church as being a church? In my opinion, it is a local community of believers who gather together to worship God, take communion, and learn to love each other according to the Lord's command. That many groups around the country would affiliate themselves to increase their ability to serve the poor and missions seems to be a natural extension of such a clustering.

But then, they need to come up with a shared and common creed to preserve the homogeneity of the membership, and what happens when protecting the integrity of that creed takes precedence over the founding reasons of these affiliations?

Is there really a way to reinvent ourselves within each generations to follow God's leading?

Andre

BESLAN - RUSSIA - Sept 5, 2004

Beslan - Russia : the school massacre: around or over 350 dead, nearly 650 wounded, and close to 250 have disappeared, can't be found.

How can anyone even remotely think that killing children is a justified act of nationalism? This is beyond insanity !! Demonic at the core, perverse to the max. There is a wind of dementia that is sweeping our world. This was seemingly pre-planned suring the summer.

Those who believe terrorism is a justified war strategy have lost said war. I cannot buy any idea that steeps so low, even if those people have experienced injustice. I don't even have ears for those people. I am pleading with God to bring them to their knees and let them feel the pain of death of all the innocents they presume to use as bartering currency.

It is a abject as those who use children for pornography and prostitution. To think that God is going to allow sin to be expressed in its fullness in our societies... I cannot but ask: "why Lord?"

Why isn't God intervening directly publicly to stop these people?

US&THEM-ISM

On Resonate.ca, Marc has shared about a situation of "us and them" he found himself in, and the interrogations this brought him.

I have come to accept that the "us and them" serves two purposes:

1- to draw boundaries
2- to define individuation, trace the contours of individuality

Now comes the real problem: what we do with us&them-ism when it is active in a problematic situation, when "us and them" becomes the polarization of our inability, or unwillingness, to get to the heart of our real individual issues, which also can confuse the real issues: maybe someone needs to be confronted because their attitude hurts others. Or 'they' might think the same.

Any way we look at it, I believe 'us and them' is here to stay. Jesus even clearly states that at the end, there will be a "you and them." The Law of Moses is another example. Here is a quote:

The Rituals Which Set the Rules
"There are rituals, sometimes understood only in retrospect, which mark the turning of a page in the story of one’s life. Without a hint of self consciousness, and with the skill of a practiced teacher, my father, like Jacob of old, passed on the birthright in the only way that he knew. It happened in this way. Two sandwiches, a cookie or piece of cake and a small thermos of coffee, twice a day, mid-morning and mid-afternoon. This was my father’s lunch when he was working in the field. At the age of 6 or 7, it was usually my task, and not an unhappy one, I am pleased to say, to carry this repast out to him."

"These were the days when the farm implements were drawn by horses. While my father quietly ate his lunch, I would pet the horses. On occasion I would slip a stolen sugar cube from my mother’s cupboard into the mouth of my favorite, enjoying the slobbering lips against my palm as much as the animal relished the sweet cube. Such were some of my earliest experiences with raw sensuality!"

"By the time my father had finished the sandwiches and poured his second cup of coffee, I was back at his side, strategically placed for a ritual I had come to expect. Eyeing the piece of cake thoughtfully, he would say, “Well son, I’m not sure I’m up to the cake today, so could you eat it for me while I roll a cigarette?”

"While he performed his own ritual of shaking a measured amount of tobacco out of the small cloth sack into the thin paper, licking the edges with his lips and striking a match on the sole of his shoe to light it, I devoured the cake. The cigarette seemed to lighten the load for him, as well as loosen his tongue. When he talked it was usually as much to himself as it was to me. My role was to listen. It was not, you might say, a real conversation; hardly man to man, and certainly not man to boy! At the same time, in its own way, these times were intensely relational, as I now look back upon them."


"He talked about the horses. Each had names so that they could be startled out of their laggard ways by a shout and maybe a touch of the whip when pulling the plow. Like Santa’s reindeer, horses respond to their names and their master’s voice."

"Star (named for the white splash on his otherwise brown face) is limping a bit, I think we better take a look at his hoof tonight. Might have a stone in it.” That was a promise of course, and that evening we, he and I, would examine the foot and perform the simple operation."

"The ‘we’ was his language of love. He often used it when speaking of his life and tasks including me as a participant. “We will plant corn in this field next year,” he would say, as though I needed to know in order to make my own plans accordingly!"

"I was not just a boy who carried his lunch, but a partner in the enterprise. He had no need, indeed, no language to talk down to me. Nor did he attempt to treat me as a man with the pretense of ‘man talk.’ What a marvelous word is ‘we!”’ While inclusive, it is able to allow for the difference between ‘you and me’ and yet equalizes the disparity of age, gender, race and yes, even religion. What I did when I was alone or with other kids never seemed of much interest to my father. If entering into the games of children and becoming their cheerleader are the skills and duty of parenting, my father was woefully deficient and delinquent. He excelled, however, in the ageless and timeless wisdom of the ‘we.’"

"As it was, the ‘me of we’ was not big enough for both him and me. My life was narrow and my pursuits were trivial. My peers were competitors as much as they were companions. My siblings were rivals as much as relatives. Yet, his utterance of ‘we’ was as deep as the bond of father and son and as broad as the common destiny on earth that bound man and boy in the struggle between faith and fate."

"[...] God did not call me away from the farm to some form of Christian ministry. I did not leave the farm and attend seminary, preparing for a vocation of pastor and eventually teacher, because I heard a specific call from God. It is seldom as simple as that."

"A new and vital life of faith in God, shared with friends and experienced in a community of love and fellowship opened a door which could never again be closed. Through this door my passion spilled out like a river that overruns its banks. At the same time, once this door was open, warm breezes blew in and swept over sleeping segments of my soul. I awakened to what I thought was the sound of God talking, as if to himself, knowing that I was present, “Tomorrow, we will go to those who are like sheep without a shepherd and bring them to a safe place.” It was the ‘we of God’ that reached out and included me!" [Ray S. Anderson - The Soul of God (Wipf & Stock)]

Although I don't think that I have to identify with satanists and rapists and refer to them as "us," I feel there is something in God that has, through the Incarnation, embraced the whole of humanity so as to say "we." And that's quite an exploration into God:

The human heart can go to the lengths of God,

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul men ever took,

Affairs are now soulsize.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God. [Christopher Fry]

I believe we are now entering the core of the Incarnational truth that leaves churchianity, as we called it, to its papier mache replicas of the Gospel. The life of God, as expressed through the life of Christ, and now through the Body of Christ, is inclusive in a way I cannot touch, and maybe through divine impartation I can long to one day attain to that. That kind of love is beyond me. I can do acts of kindness, and sometimes even feel love for the hurtful and abusive one, compassion even, but I have not found a way to walk this way 24/7. I cannot BE love. It is a mystery.

We're purposefully called the Body of Christ. Jesus' body walked the dusty roads and streets, that embraced murderers and prostitutes, the lepers and demon possessed, that body was a vehicle for the soul of God to touch humanity in its fullness. Emptying Himself, God took us in.

Of course there is a place where we have to be careful in our exploration of 'emergence' and not become judgmental. However, it is my opinion that we need something to define the 'before and after' of our evolution, and the 'us and them' of the daily status quo of our particular churches or movements.

Change happens 'within' a community, not outside of it. Otherwise it's just a new thing, not a change. Granted, sometimes, we need to get out to find our way and connect with others, because there is more life in a virtual intentional community than an unintentional local one.

As an aside, Pink Floyd's song "Us & Them" describes the natural, twisted and hurtful way some use the concept of Us VS Them. When paranoia moves leadership:

Us, and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it’s noz what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it’s only round and round.
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside.

I mean, they’re not gunna kill ya, so if you give ’em a quick short,
Sharp, shock, they won’t do it again. dig it? I mean he get off
Lightly, ’cos I would’ve given him a thrashing - I only hit him once!
It was only a difference of opinion, but really...i mean good manners
Don’t cost nothing do they, eh?

Down and out
It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?
Out of the way, it’s a busy day
I’ve got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.

PEERING :: THROUGH :: A :: MIST

I found out my tune on DarkDuck.Net is still available for download for a while. DarkDuck is a web site that promotes Ambient music of all sorts. The piece is called Peering Through a Mist, #56 on the list:

http://www.darkduck.net/drone.htm

My other piece "Impression of Car On Rainy Afternoon" is part of their first MP3 compilations CD DarkDuck released: DDP-MP3.

This link would work to download (right-click/Save Target As)the tune: Peering_Through_A_Mist.

Hope you let me know what you think...

You will also find great Ambient and quite unique alternative music at Epiphonic.Com.

Andre

ABOUT BEING MISSIONAL

On the Resonate.ca mailing list, Linea wrote:

"Sometimes I see the spurts of 'Missional" activity as a bit artificial, as if to show that we are doing some good deed for Jesus. You know what I mean? Then the activity is done and we go back to our own routines. Would be much better if our routines were missional wouldn't it? Like a light burning 24/7 in some dark corner rather than just a match struck from time to time."

I'd venture to say that living our lives daily and loving people, is missional. It's a lifestyle or letting ourselves be changed with regards to other people's perceived needs. Mission is to bring the kingdom to someone, ourselves being the vessel, and at times we're blessed to witness the response from the person who has, through these acts of kindness, been brought to the kingdom.

For myself, I discovered that programs were necessary, but for a season. They are field trips at the school of discipleship. However, yes, we need to graduate, and as the field expands, As I walk into the field by myself, and my exposure to its condition is unprotected, challenged by someone else's need, I can walk into the reality that surrounds me responding from a heart of compassion, where the immediate end-goal is not to see that person come to my church, but rather for me to love that person.

I've lived in Winnipeg for a couple years, and was part of the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard on Main (in the old place). For the first few months I was able to hang out at the Centre almost every day (I wasn't working), amidst the glue sniffing crowd. Sometimes, I was given $20 to go buy this guy or that one a pair of shoes. These people's stories are unreal. 99% native and often coming from families decimated by abuse, drugs, alcohol, violence.

The main room there was divided in two sections: on one side, a small kitchen, tables and chairs, on the other, chairs and a stage. There would be worship from 10:00 to 11:30 am, then sandwiches and coffee, tea or pop was available. We would walk around and pray over these precious ones, not try to convert them. We'd sit with some we felt led to, or simply respond to their invitation to talk a bit. Just being one suffereing human with another suffering human, although one's suffering can sometimes be more visible than the other.


After a few months of that, helping and being helped, I couldn't do it anymore. I was traumatized by so much brokeneness barging in on my own. I stopped going. I met those broken friends on Sunday, David (Ruis) insisted that all we were asked was to love them, not to convert them. Some of them only started to open up and tell their story after 2 years of coming to the Centre almost every day.

Early on, John Rademaker, one strong lover in action, asked me to drive the main drug dealer who hanged out at the Centre (!) to get some shoes as well. John knew who he was. But still. In my car, the smell coming from the man was so foul, I was driving my window fully opened, my head almost completely out, on the edge of barfing the whole time, there and back. He kept asking me to take him, and there, finally to take him home.

There was too much I could not process. My own needs were screaming out. I myself was going through horrible circumstances that left me emotionally debilitated for years, and coming to Winnipeg was the beginning of my healing. Now I was in the midst of a community that believed in loving the unlovable, the poorest of the poor. And it was really hard, every time.

One morning I was playing with the worship team, and afterwards I kept playing softly. Charlie came to the piano and just stared for a while, under the influence. He asked me to show him how to play some time. Charlie was a prolific poet. He loved writing. Inside I was screaming, unable to feel the moment, running from the implication of having to face my fears of not knowing how to be with people under the influence. I come from a heavy drug abuse background, and got very triggered by the intensity of the needs. I just could not see the person. And mumbled something to the effect that yes, it would be cool, and I'd do it... some time soon... I never created the moment for it, I never responded to that simple request.

After singing on the album No Fixed Address, a collective work from WCV with Kevin Hildebrand and Andrew Smith, Charlie was found one morning in an alley... he had been murdered, and I'm convinced it was for some stupid reason.

I never fuly recovered from that.

So yes, being missional is being who we are, where we are, where we're at, being exposed to the needs of people who are where they're at. And that is the stage where the Lord comes in and work in us at the very moment where we work for others.

My own dysfunction is still very much alive, but I found that at the moment of meeting with people in need, if I want to, if I have that mind in me, then there is the presence of Jesus between us, like a spark between two rocks. I only wish I could slow down time so as to take in the moment and be pliable to the movement of giving of myself. But more blessing than that would be that I'd be healed from the expectation that things should be different. Love can often be a sacrifice, it can hurt. Does it always have to? Something about boundaries?

I think I might have taken this beyond the point of the discussion, I hope you'll forgive me...

Being missional is being present in the moment of need as if this was a "Eucharist moment," taking communion. In reality, isn't it dying to self, preferring the other? Maybe one day this will crash the walls I've built for self-preservation, replacing them with the steady presence of God's Fatherness through the Holy Spirit.

Oh how I long for that day... !

I also think that loving people AND letting ourselves be loved is a very important part of God's design for reaching out with a kingdom heart. By me reaching out, God reaches out to and through me.

Andre

WORSHIP, COMMUNITY, AND FELLOWSHIP WITH THE TRINITY

All I really want to do is engage in worship with others who just want to go as long as they find life in it, usually a couple hours. And then move as the Spirit moves, not forcing anything on anyone. And it doesn't need to be loud and all pumped, just simply opening ourselves to the Presence, in the quiet. If I could find a group of people, and able musicians, who would want the same thing, I guess, for myself, that would "ignite the fountain" and feed me so I can live and work. I need that collective manifestation of worshipful longing and surrender, tender expression of passion, and receptivity to the wind of the Spirit.

Right now, it's all basically framed within a time slot, although at times, I've been in places where the people wanted the Presence more than the ministers, and for different reasons. Elaborating a program of "emergence" is just as human as the old order, I think we need to frame what we are exploring in a way where we 're-interpret' the traditional and mainstream Church in a new light to come out with an action plan. But if our reference is always the Church and how we can make it different, we should not forget that our reference should actually the heart of God as revealed in Jesus.

What I want to know is not how I can love my neighbour, or die to my self, because that is already a journey I'm on, and will be for life. What I need to see happen, what I'm trying to see articulated at last, is how I can "fit together with others," gathered around the Trinity, willing to meet them in those gatherings, cemented in a dynamic way by the bonds of love, as rudimental as it can be at times, to create a community, a social manifestation of the kingdom of God. We'll still need structures of government, concerted contribution of various giftings, sharing of projects and resources, or not.

For sure, we'll be putting things into words, write books, develop over time a definition of what it should look like. But ultimately, as the Studio will reveal in a very fascinating way, I'm sure, it's how we work it out, what we do when our enthousiasm meets the others' limitations, and vice-versa.

I believe that the very effort of trying to collectively articulate church is in itself the best we can do to honour God's heart desire for us to make room for the King and His kingdom, allowing others to be sweeped by the centrifugal force of a band of believers willing to grow. The "form" will take care of itself, and will be "regionally flavored." The core of it, though, nay!, the vibrancy of integral and intelligent passion, will become a node that will carry the signal and connect with other nodes from place to place in the spirit, and socially, and will illuminate a path for those who seek Life.

As an aside, France has decreed that any outward sign of religion will be outlawed, from the muslim veils to crucifixes, beards and bandanas, etc. Soon, it will be illegal to have any recognizable material signs promoting your own particular faith.

Here is a previous link about it:

http://www.voices-unabridged.com/article.php?id_article=55&numero=2

Watch the news tonight and you'll hear about it. School starts tomorrow in France...

That's an interesting step. I do not believe they could or would ban acts of kindness...

It's a process... and I'm getting a cramp ... ;O)

Andre