Redeemer and Community

This past weekend, I rejoined a community that I love for a brief weekend of fellowship and learning. Community was the topic of the annual Redeemer women's retreat, and it hit me in so many ways. Our speaker, Stacy Bartholomew, is the wife of Tuck, an assistant pastor at Redeemer in New York City. During her first talk, she said, "It is not the words from the pulpit, but how you live together as a community that will make or break your witness to nonbelievers." How true is this? How many times have you heard that people are turned off from the gospel because "christians" that they know don't treat others well, or the "church" isn't inviting? People outside of the church see how we, the Body of Christ, interact with eachother. They see us taking meals to their neighbors, helping people move, loving on eachother's children, and overall, loving those around us. However, they also see us doing the exact opposite of those things. Thinking about this really challenged me to think about how I portray the church, and ultimately Jesus, to those around me. Do I embrace the community that I am in, and give those outside of my "community" a glimpse the gospel?

I am struggling right now with what community looks like and what mine at this particular stage in life should look like. My small group talked a lot about what our ideal or dream of community is rather than the reality of what it is. This was very convicting for me, because I think that I have raised Redeemer Athens on this pedestal in my mind of being the perfect community. Yes, I realize that there are faults, and Redeemer is made up of sinners, but at the same time, I find myself not embracing the community I could have in Atlanta, because I want what I did have at Redeemer, or it might have even been, at times, that I wanted what I saw others had at Redeemer. I go to Westminster PCA in Atlanta. This church is over 100 years old, and to look in the congregation, you might think that some of the members are as well! It is made up of a lot of elderly people, a lot of people 40 and older, and a lot of children 12 and under. There are about 20 high school and middle school students, and a small handful of single adults, mostly over the age of 25. Basically there is no one my age, and therefore, I feel that there is no chance for me to have community there. Anyways, I have also had the attitude of, I am new and these people should be seeking me out and helping me feel involved, without any effort from me. This weekend I realized how selfish and "uncommunity like" that attitude was. God has me in Atlanta, and He has me at Westminster, and I should seek out ways to exemplify community to those in the church and those around me regardless of their efforts towards me. I don't know what it will look like to begin to embrace my community, but this weekend definitely got me thinking and praying about it, and it was another reminder of my selfishness. It's not enough to help with the youth group and reach out to them......they should be a part of my community, not the whole of it.

Personality Test

After reading howboucha's blog, I decided that I would as well take this personality test. Let me know what you think. I think it's pretty right on.

I am an ENFJ- Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging

ENFJs are the benevolent 'pedagogues' of humanity. They have tremendous charisma by which many are drawn into their nurturant tutelage and/or grand schemes. Many ENFJs have tremendous power to manipulate others with their phenomenal interpersonal skills and unique salesmanship. But it's usually not meant as manipulation -- ENFJs generally believe in their dreams, and see themselves as helpers and enablers, which they usually are.

ENFJs are global learners. They see the big picture. The ENFJs focus is expansive. Some can juggle an amazing number of responsibilities or projects simultaneously. Many ENFJs have tremendous entrepreneurial ability.

ENFJs are, by definition, Js, with whom we associate organization and decisiveness. But they don't resemble the SJs or even the NTJs in organization of the environment nor occasional recalcitrance. ENFJs are organized in the arena of interpersonal affairs. Their offices may or may not be cluttered, but their conclusions (reached through feelings) about people and motives are drawn much more quickly and are more resilient than those of their NFP counterparts.

ENFJs know and appreciate people. Like most NFs, (and Feelers in general), they are apt to neglect themselves and their own needs for the needs of others. They have thinner psychological boundaries than most, and are at risk for being hurt or even abused by less sensitive people.

ENFJs often take on more of the burdens of others than they can bear.


Now, there is one part of this quiz, that I am surprised howboucha didn't display. It gives you a list of famous people who were also this type. Now, number one on my list was
David, King of Israel. Now how do you think that they went back to biblical times to test King David? But atleast I have the same personality type as the man after God's own heart!
Also, I am happy to report that I share the ENFJ title with other such as Sean Connery, Dick van Dyke, Oprah Winfrey, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Jordan, Bob Saget (not sure if I should admit that), Andy Griffith, and many others.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

A New Blog and Forgiveness

I caved in the other day, and decided to get a blog website from blogspot. Most of my friends use this one rather than xanga.

I volunteer with the youth group at my church. On sunday nights, I am with the youth director and the middle school class. This year we have been going through the Life of Joseph, and although I have always known the story (sidenote, when I did YoungLife we were instructed never to use the term story for a biblical account because it means it is untrue. I however, disagree and therefore use the term story), I had never before looked into it this much. It is an incredible story of forgiveness, repentence, and reconciliation. On Sunday night we were at the point in the story when Joseph basically set his 11 brothers up to be caught for stealing his silver cup. At this point in the story, although Joseph did set them up, he had shown in various ways that he had in fact forgiven his brothers for selling him into slavery 22 years prior. However, with the brothers, they had shown signs of feeling guilty for what they had done, but the Bible shows us no evidence of repentence. In Middle School Youth Group, we have not finished the story yet, but it ends with the brothers repenting, Joseph revealing himself to them, and ultimately a great reconciliation of a family torn apart by hatred, mistreatment, and pain.

In the past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness. Do we forgive people only when they repent, admit their wrong and apologize? Or are we called to forgive no matter what the offense and no matter how much the other person doesn't recognize their wrong? The story of Joseph made me think harder about this. In surveying my actions over the course of my life, I tend to forgive only when wrong has been admitted and apologized for. I can put things aside for a long while, but seeing as how I generally "blow up" eventually, true forgiveness did not take place when I just set the offense aside. I discussed this issue with the youth director. He too tended to think that forgiveness comes after repentence. Playing devil's advocate and in light of the evidence in this story of Joseph's life, I argued that maybe forgiveness comes first. When were my sins forgiven by Christ? They were forgiven the day He died on the cross.

Mark 11:25 says, And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

I read this whole passage and it never says anything about what the person who has done something against you. It only commands you to forgive.

Then, Mark 4:11-12 says, And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that
“they may indeed see but not perceive,and may indeed hear but not understand,lest they should turn and be forgiven.”

Is this turning that Mark speaks about repentence? And why is it placed before forgiveness?

Then in Luke 17:3-4, Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

If he repents, forgive him? The more I read, the more confused I get. I find evidence of both. It seems that in most stories about how people lived and acted, especially in the Old Testament, forgiveness usually came before repentence........or is that evidence of forgiveness, evidence of a "readiness to forgive". It also seems that throughout the New Testament, when people are being instructed, repentence comes before forgiveness.

If, forgiveness comes first, then I am not saying that repentence doesn't need to happen. Christ calls us to repent of our sins daily, but I say that my sins are forgiven before the repentence takes place. I think this because Christ is still at work in my heart, He is still revealing sin to me that I never knew existed, and if I were to die without repenting of the "individual sins" I committed, I am confident that I would be in heaven with my Savior. But what does that mean for us? In how we relate to others?