Pastor Killed, 2 Hurt in Illinois Church Shooting
Knoxville church shooting
Church shooting
Suspect in Missouri Church Shooting Charged With Murder, Assault
Victim in LDS Church shooting remembered
6 Shot At New Life Church; Gunman, 2 Churchgoers Dead

The last link has a different ending. “It seemed like it was me, the gunman, and God,” said Jeanne Assam, describing her feelings as she confronted a man who charged into her Colorado Springs church Sunday firing a weapon.Assam, a church security guard with law enforcement experience, fired her own weapon at the invader and stopped his attack, police say.”

It made all the difference.

For pastors, some compare it to the shepherd protecting his flock. It seems a little extreme or overboard. Until that person is needed. Then it just makes sense. But before you decide to carry a gun to church. You better train. Not just pass a training course, but regularly train. Carrying a gun to Church is a personal choice. But it seems to be a wise choice for some.

Maybe kids ministry isn’t about ministering to kids. Maybe it is about ministering to and equipping parents to minister to their own kids. Who gets more time with the kids? At the same time, it is crucial that kids have a voice in their life that does not belong the their parent, but is saying the same thing as their parent.

Option #1 Asbury Seminary. A certificate in Christian Studies. I would love to be more knowledgeable about the bible and church history and I believe it would help me in working in ministry. The classes can be taken mostly online which is a huge plus. But it is really expensive and I wouldn’t have a master’s degree after I was done.

Option #2 Friends University. I would like to go to Friends and get a Masters Degree in Family Counseling. I would love to work in a church as a counselor. This would keep me in ministry and working with kids to a certain extent. The program at Friends seems right on track with what I have been thinking about lately. The only downside is cost. Friends is expensive!

Option #3 Wichita State University. I could go to WSU and get a masters degree in counseling for a lot less money than Friends. However, WSU’s program is more focused on school counseling-which isn’t really what I am interested in. However the degree is not limited to school counseling only.

So I really don’t know what I am going to end up doing. There are other options but I have other priorities that come before a second education. Like getting a house. So where ever I go I need to be close to Wichita or able to do the majority of work online. Anyone know anybody that has been through any of these programs that would have some good and honest input?

Have you read them? Seriously. Don’t read on until you read the comments.

This is the view of people, Christians and Non-Christians, of “church.” The things that they say may be wrong or inaccurate. Or, they may be exactly right. But either way, it is how people view the church. Not just GracePoint. Not just United Methodism. But the Christian Church as a whole.

The one thought that comes to my head is we have screwed up, and not just a little, but we have screwed up in a huge way. It is becoming increasingly less attractive to become a Christian or to associate with the church. Who wants to be part of a group that is known for being judgmental, egocentric, and greedy? We know as Christians, we can be persecuted. But what if the “persecution” is fair? What if we have screwed this thing up so much that we are getting what is coming to us? What if the way to fix “church” is to watch the religion we have clung to die in order to see the real true “church” emerge?

So how is the “church” problem fixed? We can work on our image to make ourselves more attractive to people. We could distance ourselves from traditional church, show God’s radical love in a new way that relates to this generation. This could fix the church image problem pretty quickly I bet. It would draw in new people as well.

But I think there is another option. One that would take a long time, perhaps even generations. One more lasting than an image makeover. If I wanted a new image, I could go shopping for new clothes, get a new haircut, and stop hanging out with the people I have been hanging out with for many years. I might be more excited about who I am. But the problem is that my heart would be the same. I would be the same. Just in a different package. The church needs a lasting solution to her image problem. We need a dramatic transformation on the inside. And what is on the inside of the church to transform? Not what, but who? and that is us. How will you transform your heart to fix what we have screwed up? An introspective, but definitely NOT a rhetorical question.

If you are sick of hearing about GracePoint, don’t read this. If you know a lot about it, skip down a couple paragraphs to hear my lack of opinion.

Well here is something that has been on my mind over the last 24 hours. Here in Wichita, everyone in the “Christian” community is talking about how GracePoint Church has left the United Methodist Denomination. They are now called GracePoint Community Church. Apparently the U.M. conference is hanging on to GracePoint United Methodist and will try to start again with that name.

From what I could gather, GracePoint seemed to leave the conference for a couple reasons. 1 it is/was really difficult to launch a new church and/or multisite church in the United Methodist Conference. The counter argument I have seen to this is that C.O.R. up in the K.C. area seemed to do it and do it very well. However that is 1 success. How many failures? We don’t hear about them. The second reason GracePoint left I’ll quote from their website:

“We know many people today have grown up with boring or hurtful experiences in traditional religion.”

This may not be a reason at all. But if you were trying to reach people that had boring or hurtful experiences in traditional religion wouldn’t you want to distance yourself from an organized religious group (say the United Methodist Church)? Especially if the people you are reaching out to had a hurtful experience at a United Methodist Church. But maybe we, as a UM church, need to address that hurt rather than distance ourselves from the UM Church. Maybe there has been too much hurt though…

Jim’s Final Thought: I am not going to express my opinion about GP leaving the UM conference. I think mistakes have been made on both sides. Maybe one side more than the other. Yes, I am trying to be vague. Why? It is none of my business what another church does. I don’t know the countless meetings and prayers the leadership at GP had. I don’t know everything about the United Methodist Conference either. And if I come off as judgmental of GP it reflects poorly on the UM Church and my own church that I represent. And if I come off as judgmental of the UM Church, it is as if I don’t appreciate the great things they have done, are doing, and will do for the Kingdom. All I know is GracePoint Community church is in my prayers, I have a lot of respect for most of their staff. The United Methodist Conference is also in my prayers.

So my new resolution for Lent, pray each day for both ministries. Pray this is isn’t an argument but only a transition. Pray for success of both ministries. Both sides are striving for the same goal. They serve the same God. And as long as they both serve God and not themselves, everyone will be blessed.

We ate at Back Country Pizza last night and it was quite possibly the best pizza I have ever had. It seemed to be a local hangout for all the Eldora Ski Instructors and Employees.

Today is Kristi’s Birthday! So we are making cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We woke up around 7:30 and looked outside and it was lightly snowing!
Looks like it will be a great day. We are off to hit the slopes!

p.s. I used the squiggly (~) in Wal~Mart because that is the proper way.