Beach Days

Sprouting Wings

Pray for my Mom, she is leaving Connecticut tomorrow to visit with my sister for a while and then she'll be down here in Florida to visit me. I know she would appreciate any prayers for safe travel, as she travels alone. Thanks.

How can it be??????!!!!!!!!!!!

81 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

What a Sight!

Okay, like(gag me with a spoon), this is the third time today that I have tried to fix my 2 year old Sarah's clothing and each time I have she strips down in another room to change them back to the way she had them. There must be a method to her madness because she keeps putting them back exactly the way she intended them to be. Both legs are through one side of her shorts. The shorts are shoved up so high up under her shirt that it looks like she's not wearing any shorts. Her shirt is methodically taken off and turned inside out and Blue on the front is a shadow of the dog he is when she wears the shirt right side in. Her flip flops are on the wrong feet (foot?) separating the wrong piggies. That's gotta' hurt. The next time you wear your flip flops take the piggy divider (or whatever it's called) and shove it between your pinky toe and the one next to it(ya' know... the one that didn't have any roast beef). Yeah, ouch. Needless to say, she's loads of laughs on a regular basis. Soph says, "By my peeps and hopes y'all be having a groovy Summer so far." You didn't know she was saying that? Well, uh, she was thinking it, I can read her mind...

Seeing Things From a Different Perspective, Part Two

Article by Colin Thompson

An Open Letter to the Church in Gateshead, England.

You may be asking yourself, who is this letter addressed to? Who or what is the Church in Gateshead?

Let me ask you some questions that may help.
How many churches are there in Gateshead?
Answer: One.

Who started this church?
Answer: The Lord Jesus Christ.

Who defines this church?
Answer: The Lord Jesus Christ.

Who gets to say who can be a member of this church?
Answer: The Lord Jesus Christ.

Who is the head of this church?
Answer: The Lord Jesus Christ.

Where does this church meet?
Answer: The Lord Jesus Christ says; “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst.”

How does one become a member of this church?
Answer: By believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ and living in Gateshead.

So. Are you a member of the church in Gateshead?
If you are, then this letter is addressed to you.

If you believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and live elsewhere, then you are a member of the local church where you live. You may wish to carry on reading and apply the spirit of the letter to your own context, substituting the name of your locality for Gateshead.

I hope you are aware of the local church that you are a part of.
Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, the builder and maker of this church.
It is His body here in Gateshead.
Jesus laid down His life for this church.
This church is His representative and witness to the people of Gateshead.
No other body, organization or party can be the church of Jesus Christ in Gateshead!

Brothers and sisters, fellow members of the church in Gateshead, we are meant to continue together in visible, practical community.

I don’t even know who most of you are! We don’t seem to be aware of one another.
While we may occupy ourselves with commendable pursuits within many various organizations, we don’t seem to be involved with one another within the one body of Christ as we should.
The fact that I have to try and define the local church in un-ambiguous terms demonstrates that we have a problem here in Gateshead.

We have inherited a scenario filled with a plethora of groups and organizations largely independent of each other, mostly acting as if each were a self contained body of Christ.
Personally, I am not a member of any separate group or grouping of believers, other than a member of the church at Gateshead. But I am not trying to criticize those who are.

We may not be responsible for how the church has come to be in its present sorry, divided state.
But we do have a responsibility to Christ to receive one another and to submit to His headship.
We also have a glorious opportunity to confess our division, repent and receive one another as He received us.

The enemy of unity within a local body may not be sectarianism, but indifference.
What is my appeal?

That we ask our Father for revelation about the true identity and condition of the church at Gateshead.

That we be willing to do His will, knowing that His thoughts are not our thoughts.
That will mean that everything may come up for examination by the Spirit.
In Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth he asks “while you are divided, are you not still carnal?”

We may not fix our problem of division by our own efforts, but by depending on Christ and His life in us.

I was given the following instruction some time ago.
‘Don’t try to make the group of folks you are in fellowship with into the local church.
Make the local church the group of folks that you are in fellowship with.’

Please get in contact with the saints who live nearest to you, rather than just those with whom you share common goals.

My prayer for the church in Gateshead is that we will find one another, receive one another, continue with one another and forbear with one another.

‘By this the world will know that you are my disciples, that you have love, one for another.’

Feel free to contact me at colin@cthompson.org.uk
All the best,
Colin Thompson, Gateshead, England.

Malachi 3:16-18
16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another,
And the Lord listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the Lord
And who meditate on His name.
17 “They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts,
“On the day that I make them My jewels.
And I will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him.”
18 Then you shall again discern
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him.

Seeing Things From a Different Perspective

Today I took pictures of the kids upside down. I mean, I was upside down. It's neat taking pictures from all different perspectives. It puts things or in this case, my sweet Sarah, in another light altogether. Speaking of seeing things in a different light, my family and I have been on the outside of the church doors for a year and a half now. Talk about seeing things in a different perspective, the view from where we are sitting has been rather awe inspiring. I would like to share what we have learned from being on the outside looking in.



When my husband made the decision to take our family out of the church we attended faithfully for 8 years (at that time the whole of our married life), it was a decision two years in the making at least. He never took leaving that church lightly and really had every desire to "join" another church when he left that he would consider more like minded.



Well, a year and a half has flown past us and we have visited many churches and have finally come to these conclusions:



1. We (Christians every where) are the church. A building, programs, pastors and methods should not confine the believer to its way of thinking or doing, but a believer should freely move in the Spirit that Christ granted him through salvation. Christ tells us in the New Testament that He came to do the will of the Father that sent Him. We are priviledged to have that same freedom even if it goes against the confines of the religious institutions of our day.



2. Christians should actively seek fellowship with the body of Christ, but it should not matter what the setting is. Jesus Christ never "went" to church regularly anywhere in the New Testament. He freely moved and ministered to others in all settings and was never restricted by God or others...only the religious Pharisees of the day attempted to curtail and restrict Christ's personal ministry.



3. Denominations really divide the body of Christ in a terrible way. Many are on the inside looking out proclaiming how right they are in their particular denomination. I was among those who have done that. Where do we find Christ ever dividing the disciples and the believing multitudes that were healed into denominations? He asked them to deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him.



4. Church attending (not necessarily church-being) believers have associated faithful attendance to a builidng, their membership to that building and their un-swerving submission to it's leaders with how godly they are. We answer to God and although proper godly authority is good and necessary(if that person is even qualified by biblical standards), it should never draw the believer away from their personal relationship with Christ and His specific will for the believer's life. We have been counted as unfaithful flim flam for not attending "the building" church or becoming a member of something we already are. We can be faithfully gathering with Christians who are accountable for each other in the edification process, but still be considered unfaithful. We could reach the lost with the gospel message in our home, but we are counted as unfaithful. We could study the word, pray and teach our children the word of God, but be counted as unfaithful. We reach the poor and our fatherless and motherless neighbors, but we are counted as unfaithful. The list can go on and on. We have close friends (the church) who keep us sharpened and accountable and we do not take lightly who we are in the body of Christ and the spiritual gifts God uses in us where and when He chooses.



5. We as a family have been able to spend time together without pressure from "the church" to attend so many services, programs and functions that keep us busy and away from each other all day. Think about it...in the Old Testament the family breathed as a strong unit learning and doing everything together. Isn't it strange that on one of the only days that fathers and some mothers have off from work to spend time with their children they rush off to church and then split up in all different directions? Instead of fathers and mothers teaching their children the word of God and how to pray they rely heavily on the Pastor, Youth Pastor and the Sunday School teachers.



6. The pressure to perform spiritually for others instead of God is off. We won't be compared to the spiritually elite among us by not recieving awards for doing what only God has seen us do in our minstry for Him in private.



7. We have seen the body of Christ from all walks of life come together in unity in our homes that we share with each other. We may disagree in some areas as a whole, but the love we have for each other, God and His word is much and it movtivates us greatly to be a light in this dark world.



8. The condemnation we have felt in the past seems to have left us almost completely. We obey God when He tells us to do something. It would have been impossible to do this in the past without upsetting the leadership or others in "the church" because the will of God for our family would not have lined up with the agenda of the church. The Pharisees pointed out that Christ was healing on the sabbath day and many other things they thought that Jesus was doing that they(the highly religiously community) thought was unacceptable.



9. We have realized that we can get so fat on our fellowship (dinners, social events with each other, etc.) with believers that we don't do much else for the Lord because our time can be consumed with just being with each other in the church setting and its functions. The body of Christ should edify itself in order to branch out in their ministries to their own families, their neighbors and their community. Just doing that would keep us so busy for the Lord that we would never need to show up for the purpose of ministry in the church building again.



And so, the learning continues. We read the word for ourselves afresh and anew and our faith in Christ and freedom in Christ as the church is nothing but strengthened more and more each and every day on our journey.