Hello! I finally attended church again after missing three weeks. It was good to be back. I will say I was very tired after church and took a nap that afternoon though. That still happens sometimes and I’m told that can last a while so I’m being kind to myself.
We started a new series in Sunday School focused on how to share our faith with others in a good way. I’m sure we’ve all experienced someone sharing their faith in a bad way and it’s not comfortable. The series is actually going to cover several tips that can help anyone in any situation. The video series is called “Tactics” and is on the RightNow media app if you are interested.
Sunday’s lesson reminded us that we all can’t be the harvester. Most of us will only ever be gardeners. Those that plant the seed of faith in people’s life. The speaker likes to say that he’s putting a rock in their shoe, something that will make them want to investigate when he has said. I’m really looking forward to it as I have opportunities for conversations often but I freeze as soon as someone says something negative. This week’s tactic is asking questions and I see how just saying, “Tell me more” or “That’s interesting, why do you think that?” can help me learn more about the other person and not jump to conclusions.
For church Pastor Mike has been going through the Fruit of the Spirit that are listed in Galatians 5:22 and this week’s fruit was patience and kindness. Patience is the ability to hold one’s temper or a reflection that we can’t always control our circumstances but we can control our response. Kindness is a helpfulness to others prompted by having experienced God’s love to us.
A couple of points I wrote down:
“Not all fruit comes at the same time. Fruit of the Spirit is a selfless love that comes for others.”
“Church is the locker room – where we develop strategies for how to live life. We draw out the X’s and O’s in church and then go out in the world and live.” I thought that was a very good analogy for church and why people should attend. Would players go out on the field and play without knowing some basic plays? Strategy? Even pickup games have strategy that comes from playing the game before. Everyone has been taught basic offensive and defensive plays and can recognize and execute what the other players are doing. Have you ever been a novice and tried to join a pick up game? How’d that go?
Just like we have to understand the basic set up of the game, plays, and rules we must also have this same understanding to be able to live life according to God’s will. How can we gain this basic understanding? By attending church.
Diffusing Hope 