Lori's Blog

Ok, so like 11 months have gone by since my last blog. Wow, I can hardly believe it. However, it is also a symptom of a busy life. I finished at Liberty in May and started my Master's of Divinity in Apologetics at Luther Rice Seminary this fall. I had an awesome opportunity to take the kiddos to mom and dad's house in Colorado for a month and had a wonderful time of fellowship and rest. Brandon came home in September and we hope to see him again before the Air Force deploys him to the desert in January.

So what was the prompting to finally update my blog? Well, simply put God's amazing healing power. Now I would love to tell you that He has healed me from my physical thorns that affect every aspect of my life but He hasn't. No instead it is much deeper. We all have hurts, wounds, scabby places in our heart that God has healed or in the process of healing. For me it has been 2 1/2 long years of this. I also had questions surrounding my career and His call for where we serve and live that felt unanswered at the same time. While there is truth that time heals all wounds, sometimes it takes an act of God to finalize the process. After months of feeling like living in a spiritual desert, God did this for me a couple of weeks ago.

It started on Thursday 10/28 as I studied for my Spiritual Formation midterm. I spent more time weeping and praying than I did studying. Then on Friday and Saturday I had an amazing opportunity to attend Integrity Music's Seminars4Worship with Kathryn Scott, Paul Baloche and Brian Doerksen. For those of you who might not recognize the names, some of the more well known songs by these artists are Hungry, Hosanna, and Come, Now is the Time to Worship respectively. It was a wonderful time of worship, fellowship and training. It was the most laid back yet jammed packed conference I've ever attended. During the times of worship and some of the things Brian preached on, I felt like God was really speaking to me. During the whole weekend God did three things. First, He confirmed His call on my life which in turn affects my ministry and continued education. Secondly, He confirmed that we are living exactly where He wants us to serve. I think we can finally put down emotional and physical roots in New Hampshire. Lastly, and more importantly He put an exclamation point on His finished healing work. Not only do I feel the wound has scabbed over but it has now resorted to a faded scar all at once. Praise the LORD!

We all have moments in our spiritual walk that are turning points, a "y" in the road or an epiphany. Whatever you choose to call it, that weekend was it for me. I am not the same person I was on October 27. Sometimes God provides an opportunity to not just take one step towards Christ-likeness and spiritual maturity but rather a giant leap.

At the conference Kathryn Scott led in worship one of the songs on her latest album. While I had heard the song before, that weekend it had new meaning. I encourage you to check it out. It's called "We Still Believe" and below is the iTunes link to it.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/we-still-believe/id385297318?i=385297645

The most amazing line of the song for me is,"Though the journey has been hard, we will confess your goodness God."

So now I continue to follow Jesus and praise Him for His work like never before. Is life perfect? Of course not, it never is. But wow, how exciting to start a new chapter in my life. The lesson in this is to never stop praying. We are taught in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 to, "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Just because we don't think God is listening, He is. We may feel like we are in the spiritual dry desert, but He works in those times to shape and refine us. But He is listening and He will answer our prayer - one way or another. Praise Him for His healing power!

God bless,
Lori

It's been awhile since I've posted. Last year was a very busy year. My oldest joined the Air Force and we had the privilege of seeing him graduate at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. He will soon graduate from Security Forces tech school. He was able to come home for two weeks for Christmas and it was great to have him here. I had forgotten how much I missed living on an Air Force base and being a part of that community.

I have also been working hard on school. Later this spring I will begin my Masters of Divinity in Theology and Apologetics. I took some time off for the holidays and to be hostess to company but I am looking forward to starting school again in a couple of weeks.

Of course my husband and kids have been at their usual busy schedules. Between music lessons, sports and clubs they keep us busy. I am so grateful for the way they have blossomed in school.

The last two months I've been off from school have given me time to count my blessings, evaluate the future and reflect on priorities. Often this time of year we think through new goals and plans for the year. God was gracious to give me the luxury of time to pray through these. One of the things I have been reminded of is the importance of time and priorities. There are so many things I want to do and of course there are all the things I have to do. So many of the things I want to do are all great opportunities. However, I also guard my family time and many of these things would intrude on that. I can't tell you how much I enjoy playing Scrabble or the Wii with the kids, reading a family book together and of course, praying together.

So as we start the new year, what are your priorities in life? Not every opportunity or event that comes along is presented as a calling by God - even when it is an opportunity to serve. However, the flip side is also true. Are you doing enough for the Lord? Sometimes we can so protect our family that we end up doing nothing for the Lord outside of our family. There must be balance.

Now is a great time to evaluate balance in service to the Lord.

Happy New Year!

I really hate spammers. Yes I said "hate". For example, I have all kinds of "traps" on my website and blog to stop these guys. People can leave comments on the blog, but only after I approve and post them. Obviously some guy selling fake viagra or knock off purses is never going to get my approval. I also have box trappers on my email so this kind of junk doesn't get to me. Every once in a while I go through and check to make sure something important didn't get stuck. It is here I see the ridiculous email spam that I get. You would think they would learn.

Now I know that most of this garbage comes through by "bots" crawling the website. Thus why it can be difficult to blacklist them since they change their subject lines, ISP's and emails daily. But yesterday it really got me to thinking - do we do this to God?

When we pray, do we go through our list of wants and ask God help us transfer money to a bank account, "buy" into our latest and greatest idea, or to look the other way at our sinful minds and hearts. We spam Him day after day with mindless prayer requests, hoping He is reading our prayer-mail but never really looking for a substantive response. We never actually communicate with Him, listen for Him or ask what He wants us to do.

And what about His word. The Bible is God's true word, but sometimes we treat it like a blog. We can comment randomly on verses and expound on "what it means to me" rather than ask, "What is God saying here?" Then we expect God to approve our comments without any argument. We think that getting together in a group and discussing our viewpoints without anyone ever giving the real meaning of the passage as small group or Bible study. It's not! Studying God's word is work and it's about discovering God's meaning not ours.

So as much as spammers annoy me, I want to make sure that I don't "annoy" or disappoint God by praying like a spammer.

John 6:8-9 "One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, 'There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish - but what are they for so many?'"

Have you ever been asked by God to move forward and not know exactly how He was planning to use you? For instance, you sense God's calling to a new job, but it's not like your current job and you're not sure what He has planned. Or maybe you have experienced a loss and you think things will never be the same again.

It has been a little over a year since I lead worship in my home church. When God called us to New Hampshire, I once again was faced with a dilemma. Was I going to trust Him that He has a plan or was I going to lament my losses and not move forward. After facing numerous challenges to finding a church home, Kevin and I finally found one. After visiting for some time, we decided that this was the church God wanted us to join in fellowship. We didn't have any idea where God was going to use us, but we had fallen in love with the church. When we attended the Membership Class, we were asked our gifts, talents and experience. This question from the Pastor opened up several interesting needs. As a result I joined the music ministry in April and will lead worship next Sunday! From the outside, it didn't look like the team needed anything. But God knew differently. We also learned that the church had formed an Evangelism Team, something Kevin and I are passionate about, and we have joined this team. Kevin is helping revamp the website (it does need work) and has really connected with the Associate Pastor responsible for this team.

Has it been an easy road. No. I spent most of the last six months working on my Biblical Studies degree, which resulted in innumerable hours in my office and home, not really connecting with the outside world. 19 weeks down, 19 to go! Often I felt like I didn't have anything to offer. Surrounded by music and instruments my heart longed to make them useful again. Yet, God was filling my heart with contentment and so I was not in desperation. But the little boy in John 6 didn't have much to offer either. 5000+ people were in need and Andrew, the disciple always bringing people to Jesus, brought this boy and his lunch. And what a lunch it was. Pickled fish, often considered food for animals, and barley loaves, the least nutritious and cheapest bread available. But he was willing and gave it to Jesus. Then Jesus gave thanks, broke it, and 5000 people were fed.

All Jesus asks of us is to make ourselves available and let Him handle the details. I want to make it clear here that I am not talking about self-promotion. There is a significant difference. The latter requires work, manipulation and selfish desires. The former is simply saying, "Hey, this is what I have. It's not much. Do with it what you will." Jesus not only fed the multitude, but 12 baskets of food were left over. He takes what we have, uses it and always makes sure there is enough left over for us. How awesome. When we surrender, with no expectation - He blesses!

So when you wonder what your little can do, or how He might use you again, trust Him. Rest in His peace and know He has a plan.

I recently read a blog by Ed Stetzer called, "Theologically Preoccupied vs. Evangelistically Fixated". You can read the original article here: http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/.

He brings up the point that too often there is a polarization between the two camps - those who keep the rules of theology and slam those who don't and those who focus so much on being "culturally relevant" that they miss the depth of the Gospel. I pose that there is a third group in this mix - the "Shape Sorters". This group can fall into either of the first two, but instead of focusing on their own platform, they obsess with sorting out Christians into one of these two groups. Unfortunately this has the result of further polarizing Christians as many feel like they have to defend themselves.

Now I have been through a transformation of style and methodology in church over the last seven years. I see the benefits, based on where I live, of doing church a little different to reach those who don't like church. However, I also believe that the Gospel, in all of it's depth, is the end goal and hope for reaching people. Kevin and I can be described mostly as theologically conservative and we don't compromise the Bible to reach the others. However, if you visit the churches we have served at, on the surface, they could appear like the ones that do compromise the Gospel and Scripture. One of my pet peeves is for people who know me to assume we have crossed over to the "Dark Side" and have lost all theological grounding. Worse, some listen to authors/pastors and assume that the broad strokes used about contemporary churches applies to us personally.

So what are we to do. Ed Stetzer makes the claim that the two extremes need to learn from one another. I agree with this. But what about those of us that are somewhere in the middle. Well, first we need to stop "sorting" each other into the extremes. The truth is that most of us do not fit into either category. Secondly, we need to be careful to whom we listen. There are writers/preachers/consultants in both camps. We need to use discernment when we read/listen/watch anything and this includes Christian authors. Unfortunately we are not always right (don't tell Kevin, because I tell him I'm always right :)). Lastly we need to examine our motives. Are we working hard to prove we are theologically sound or show off how hip we are. Either way we have lost site of the mission - baptizing and making disciples.

So, where am I? I'm a theologically sound, culturally relevant, loving, truth proclaiming, God worshiping, Holy Spirit lead, missional minded, Christ following, Christian. More importantly, I am on my knees every day seeking to follow God's will faithfully and hoping I do it right.

God bless!