Down, but not out.

I grew up in the church. Literally. My mother put me in a basket and set me outside the doors of the church. I was then taken in by a nice little family of church mice and we would spend our afternoons pooping in cupboards and scurrying about picking up crumbs from the sanctuary.

Okay, I made that up.

But, I did spend an insane amount  of time in the church. By choice. When I was a teenager I really wasn't allowed to do anything except go to church. I mean technically my mom would have let me go to some giant rave party but it would have required an investigation the FBI would be proud of, and that just was super inconvenient for me so youth group it was.

My point is that when you spend 5+ nights a week inside a church building you tend to see a ton of burnout. In my "on fire" 16 year old brain the ones burning out were synonymous with the ones that "were never truly with us" so I didn't really give the whole burn out thing much thought.

Until now when I'm 25 with an awesome marriage, A church and church family that I love so much I could just squish. Being insanely humbled daily that Jesus and parents trust me enough to let me teach their little snack-loving, booger wiping babies about God's love. Not to mention really learning to love "quiet time" with the Lord and in spite of all that- I constantly want to throw in the towel.

Especially lately, and so I have researched a ton of stuff about what causes burn out and why people leave the church and  I've read just about every blog on "10 things to do to avoid burn out" and they were insightful and candid and I will probably apply some of their wisdom to my life but I had to realize that as long as that Jerk-a-saurus Satan is still all about stealing, killing and destroying- you probably won't avoid thoughts of burn out. Bummer.

So instead of reading some cynic's take on burn out I decided to get encouragement from the Bible about ministry. I probably could have saved myself a ton of time by doing this first, but I've never claimed to be a real quick learner.

So I searched "Verses about the church" and then I googled "Encouraging verses for ministry" and then I searched "Encouraging scripture for when you want to give up" and every single search told me to read 2 Timothy 4. So I did. Let me just write it out here and you tell me if you think it's encouraging or not.

Proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine but according to their own desires will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new. They will turn away from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, be serious about everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge will give me on that day. And not only to me but to all who loved His Appearing. 2 Timothy 4:2-8 (HCSB)

Either this is like the worst encouragement ever or Paul's just an asshole.

Be serious about everything and work hard? Ew. No thanks.

Maybe it's just me but this just doesn't come across as your typical encouragement. Like if I'm feeling burnt out the last thing I want someone to tell me is that it's only going to get worse and to be serious. Not only is the work going to get harder and the people are going to be harder but then tell me that they aren't going to be around to help. Then I read it again and again and I realized the most discouraging thing in church and ministry is unmet unrealistic expectations. You hear it all the time people "church shopping" or "waiting for the perfect opportunity to serve" or whatever and they always end up discouraged or defeated when they learn that there's no such thing as the perfect church, or the perfect ministry because there's no such thing as a perfect Christian. Maybe Paul knew that fluffy words and nice sounding affirmations just wasn't going to cut it. Maybe he knew that Timothy probably had some idealistic expectations for his career as a pastor. 

Maybe Paul wanted to encourage Timothy by telling him, even if you're down don't let it take you out. Even after all the discouragement and defeat Paul had encountered while doing ministry he was still able to say that he finished the race well.

I think later in this passage Paul unknowingly gives us the key to not burning out.

"Be diligent to come to me quickly..... Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful for me in Minstry"

It's easy to read any of Paul's writing and think of him as a super-human. But these phrases in verse 9-10 show us that Paul needed companionship and he recognized that it wasn't good for him to be alone.

So if I had to make a list of ways to avoid burn out. this would be it.

1. Get your encouragement from Jesus, not google.
2. Surround yourself with other Christians.
3. Repeat steps 1-2.

Not the most exciting list. But if it worked for Paul and Timothy, I imagine it will work fine for us.

Loving like Jesus and Joining the Bandwagon.

As a Christian I have been asked over and over and over for my opinion about the new Supreme Court ruling on Gay  Marriage, and with the exception of a few passive Facebook posts I've avoided the hot button issue for one main reason. It. Doesn't. Matter. But, I'm getting pretty frustrated with the way some Christians are portraying Christ so I grabbed my two cents and decided to jump on the rainbow colored bandwagon.

I don't care if people who don't claim to know Christ are sinning because I care about the fact that there are people who claim to be followers of Jesus but are sleeping together outside of marriage. I don't care if someone who doesn't love God ignores His teachings. Because I'm a little too busy worrying about the fact that there are people who claim to know and love God but don't tithe 10%. I really don't care if 2 people who don't know what the bible says decide to love each other because I'm a little more concerned with the fact that there are people who say they love God, yet don't love their gay neighbor.

See here's the thing. The bible says this:

But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an adulterer, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.(1 Corinthians 5:11-13)

I just don't understand why there are Christians who are judging the homosexual outside the church because it "goes against scripture" and yet is still eating and attending church with the dating couple who is sleeping together. Because actually that goes against scripture

The bible tells us that they will know us by our love. Not our judgment. Not our political stance. Not our actions. Our love. For God and for others.

If you're a christian and you're getting your panties in a bunch because gay marriage is legal shouldn't you also be grieving over the fact that idolatry/drunkeness/slander/pride/adultery is legal? 

God says that all sin is the same. If you break one commandment you've broken them all. Yet we treat the gay community like they are worse than everyone else. We define them as "Sinners" and we mask our disgust for them with annoying cliches like "love the sinner hate the sin" and we throw around words like "truth in love" and "sharing God's word" But I bet you anything you don't go up to that guy who got divorced without biblical grounds and give him the scriptures that say he's wrong and doomed to be single. I'm not sure but if I had to guess you probably aren't telling that couple living together outside of marriage that they can't come back to church until they repent and sin no more. So why on earth would you tell the homosexual how God really designed marriage?

We are called to be like Jesus. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He did this by showing them how much he loved them by dying on a cross for them. How are we supposed to save people we won't touch? Our only mission as followers of Jesus is to see people saved, not prove them wrong. 

Inside the church we have marriages failing.

We have people walking away from the truth.

We have adulterers and slanderers and gossips.

We have pride and selfishness.

We have brokenness and depression.

We have drunks.

We have swindlers and people who covet.

We have pastors giving up on their flock.

My point is that we have enough problems to deal with inside the church but you want to make a stink about gay marriage outside the church?

I'm not going to tell unbelievers what I'm against. I'm going to show them Who I'm for. I'm not going to tell them what the bible says about sin, I'm going to show them what it says about the Savior. I hope you'll put down your cross shaped profile pic filter and join me.