Back to blogging...

Well, what can I say? I feel inspired to write again. Some cool things have happened recently that I wanted to write about. First, what is on my heart right now: Our church. First Baptist Church Richardson has been my church home for about 7 years now. When I moved here from College Station after graduating, my brother invited me to join him at FBCR. At first I was not too impressed. The church was HUGE!! My church back home was tiny compared to this. I knew everybody, they all knew me. I felt loved, I felt like I belonged. I remember getting lost on the FBCR campus for months after joining. To make a long story short: God made a place for me here. I can point to a single event in the past few years that has opened the door for my ministry there: losing my job 3 years ago. I worked in a lab in Irving, 1 hour commutes, and long hours left me with little time to be involved. God took my job, and gave me another one within two weeks. One that was 1/2 mile from church, with a much improved working condition. Within a year, God handed over the teaching duties of the 20-somethings Sunday School class to me, made me a deacon at the church, got me involved in youth ministries, and in turn missions.

Last week, FBCR welcomed a new Senior Pastor: Dr. Ellis Orozco. We are all very excited to have a lead pastor again after more than 2 years without one! Well, he has promised to blog every day for the next 100 days and it inspired me to blog again. And this time I wanted to say a bit about the Church. I love this place. We have so much potential, and so much to work on. I see two different types of people: Those who go to church because its what their parents taught them. They went our of habit, they go out of habit. There is nothing particularly wrong with that other than it makes Church your god. Church never saved a soul, if it had then I'd be living a different life right now, because it means Salvation lies in works not in Christ.

The struggle and the fight to resist any semblance of anything that might look "wordly" is puzzling to me. Loud music? Yes, its not for everyone, but can we not reach those who find true worship in that way? Street clothes and small groups. No, its not your parents' Baptist church, but if Christ is the center, why should it matter which way we do it? To be relevant in 2009, you have to act like you know its 2009. That means the church too. That means people can find you on facebook and you're reaching out to young people, and have a heart for spreading the Gospel in a way that people will LISTEN. Paul himself went to Athens, walked through their temples, read their literature, saw their altars, and THEN engaged them based on what he saw: A statue to an unknown God. We will never see that in if we're to afraid to engage the culture NOW, using tactics that were effective 50 years ago.