TechnoLust's Journal: Massage & health screening and new church building

We had a "health fair" at work yesterday. The company had a massage therapist come in and give free massages, and they had tables set up to check your blood pressure and blood sugar. I had a massage, and it was great. It has been a little over 3 years since I've had one. My BP was 122/60 and my blood sugar was 88. The lady looked at me before she ever took my BP and said, "I can tell just by looking at you that you are in great shape, your BP should be very good." That made me feel good. All I used to get from doctors was, "You need to lose weight."

We went last night and prayed for the new church building, or, I guess what goes on in the new church building. We will have our first service in there on June 1st. We prayed that we would do God's will, and that the people He wanted there would come. We went around and whoever wanted could pray. There is a 33 year old man there who has some sort of mental problem. He is usually very child-like and can't talk well. He doesn't seem to be able to form complete thoughts or if he is, he can't really communicate them. He often rambles and drifts from one incoherent thought to another. Last night as different people were praying aloud, he started praying. It was amazing. It was like he didn't have any problems. His speach was not totally clear, but I could understand him well enough. His sentences were complete thoughts and along the same lines as everyone else was praying, but he wasn't just repeating what they were saying, it was in his own words.

I also felt like I needed to pray aloud. I prayed that even though we were moving to a nice new building, that we would remember where we came from. That we would keep the humility that came with meeting in a warehouse. The new building is next to an apartment building owned by the city housing authority. It is low income property. I prayed that we would attract the people that other people didn't want in their churches. I know many people have been turned away from local churches because of their lifestyle, financial status, or other reasons. I prayed that we would see all these people as God sees them, not for how they live, or how much money they have, or how they look, be see their souls and love them the way God does. That's really what our church is all about. Reaching the people that the "holier than thou" churches don't want. I'm very excited about this. I think we all were pumped up last night, just seeing how many people came out to the new building and stayed for 3 hours just praying for our church was an inspiration. Well, as you can tell, I'm still a little pumped up, so I should get back to work before I type a book.

Cool

[Red Warrior]

it's nice to see JEs about positive things from time to time.
I'm not a practicing anything, but best wishes to the church from here.

Heh

[M.C. Hampster]

That's really what our church is all about. Reaching the people that the "holier than thou" churches don't want.

Just make sure you don't get a "holier than thou" attitude towards those churches :-) Seriously though, congratulations on the new building. We are about 5 years from paying off our building. Our pastor would like to open a family life center. We only use about half of the property that the church owns right now. The other half is a huge dirt lot.

way to go

[pjgeer]

I'm glad you wrote this. You guys are in my prayers.

Where does this happen?

[Pinball Wizard]

I know many people have been turned away from local churches because of their lifestyle, financial status, or other reasons.

I thought churches were suppossed to accept everyone - or are these people who are unwilling to make changes in their lifestyles in order to get right with God?

If that's not the case, I feel sorry for those churches. If they can't be bothered to help the sinners, I doubt the Lord will look very favorably on them.

church

[jasonrocks]

I like church. God truly is wonderful and performs miracles every day. It's sad that many young people like myself don't look to religion and to God. I love all churches and am grateful that I have the opportunity to worship God in any church. I don't want to pick a fight, but I'm just curious as to which church you attend.

Re:church

[TechnoLust]

The pastor came from a Baptist church, but our new church is a "Purpose Based Church". We are progressive, so we have a projector that projects lyrics to the songs (contemporary) and the pastor does his sermon on powerpoint. He usually used movie clips to illustrate points. Last week he was talking about healthy relationships, and used clips from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

We try to be a church for people that don't have a church, and people that haven't been to church. The biggest problem