Seen in Pe Ell, Washington last Thursday. Lewis County has a great carpooling program.

Crap.

I’ve forgotten to update this thing as often as I used to.

I promise more meaningful updates will come soon. I’ve been SWAMPED lately.

I’m still here!

Yesterday was a weird day for me, I must admit. From a spiritual perspective I’ve been challenged pretty heavily over the past 40 hours.

It began yesterday morning when I went to church — right now the church is having Family Life Week, a three-day session of ministry with a guest minister from California. It began yesterday morning during the normal Sunday service, continued last night and will also continue tonight before wrapping up tomorrow.

The guy seems really cool…his sermon yesterday morning was relational and it was very effective in reaching the congregation. I enjoyed his style as he injected some humor into it, but he hit hard on every point he wanted the church to hear. It was really neat.

The gentleman referred to himself as a prophet and began to speak words of encouragement into individuals’ lives by calling them out of the congregation and telling them what God was going to do in their lives. He began to speak prophetic words of blessing and telling individuals what the Lord was going to use them for in the future. The crowd seemed generally receptive through the whole thing, and it was good to see someone stepping out in the way the pastor did and use his gift to bless others.

It got a bit dicey and uncomfortable for me, as I personally thought it was a little bit of showmanship myself. Maybe it’s because of how I’m spiritually wired — I tend to be more quiet when it comes to demonstrating the Holy Spirit and worshipping in general — but honestly, I’m not going to agree with every single thing everyone does in church. So I overcame that by sitting back and praying that if the words were from God, that they would come to pass, and if they weren’t, that the guy would not speak.

I’m not saying that last sentence to be harsh, but we are supposed to support true leaders and rebuke false prophets. That’s Biblical.

That said, I do think he got back on track by giving words of encouragement and prophecy to the church in general that did resonate with my spirit. It made me excited to be a part of the church.

However, when I came home I spoke with a friend on the phone and told her that I couldn’t shake a feeling of just general discomfort throughout the entire service. I don’t know what it was, but I didn’t feel right in some way or some fashion. I know I’m right with the Lord, I’m not demonized or anything, but for some reason I got sick to my stomach during the service. I don’t know why.

Maybe God was trying to tell me something.

I think He was, because I continued to pray about it later and I had a thought popped into my mind.

For what I disagreed with the pastor’s style and the way he went about what he did, at least I had to admit he was very effective in reaching out to the congregation. Maybe there were people who have not yet given their lives to Christ there, and that was a way the Lord could have touched them through that. I’m not sure…all I know is that he was effective, that’s for sure.

Then I had a thought completely blindside me, and this really weighed on my mind.

For someone to be that effective in their faith, they have to live it 24/7. Not just at church or in front of certain people, but all the time. I’m talking consistent prayer, consistent Bible reading, fasting, accountability to others, you name it. To do this means they have to cut the crap out of the rest of their lives.

How much more effective in our faith could we as Christians be if we cut the crap out of our lives?

(You all are going to hate me for this upcoming part but I have to say it anyway.)

Crap, as in the things that could potentially poison their relationship with God. Crap like television shows that degrade Christianity and promote moral depravity. Crap like sights and sounds that glorify violence, objectification of women, filthy language, etc.

We have become largely desensitized to simple things that the Bible calls sin. Seriously, we have and we admit it all the time in our prayer groups, small meetings and even in our church services, but we never truly change. Or do we even want to in the first place?

Think about how Jesus Himself lived his life. We say we strive to be like him but we’re doing a piss-poor job of it, to be frank.

And we wonder why our churches never grow and why our ministries aren’t effective in the body of Christ.

We wonder why the church has to resort to the political arena to try to enforce moral codes, when if we would have taught them and lived them in front of our kids, they wouldn’t be growing up without a spiritual identity.

We wonder why our vertical and horizontal relationships grow stagnant no matter how much we try to maintain them.

We wonder why prayer and fasting takes us nowhere.

Folks, our lives have to be reflections of what we say we believe.

To be frank again, we hold the key to our spiritual success. We hold the key to being effective. If we are truly saved and truly living for Jesus, we are going to shed the things of this world and we are going to devote ourselves completely to Him. Then and only then are we going to see things happen in our lives and in the Christian community as a whole.

God doesn’t reward halfway jobs and the church in general is a reflection of his unwillingness to reward such behavior.

I’m tired of what people have redefined Christianity to be. It’s taking us all to hell in a handbasket quickly, and the world around us is going to pot.

We’ve been lulled to sleep in the body of Christ and it’s time to wake up.

It’s time to cut the crap.

And it starts with me.

Got a whopper for you here. It’s purely hypothetical but let’s pretend it’s real.

Mr. X is good friends with Ms. Y. Ms. Y brings her friend Ms. Z to hang out and Mr. X digs Ms. Z. The only thing is, Ms. Y likes Mr. X and after a casual advance, is rebuffed ever so gently by Mr. X. Ms. Y subsequently seeks out moral support and tells Ms. Z what happened to her, which causes Ms. Z to dislike Mr. X even though he digs her, simply because he turned down her good friend. Ms. Y is heartbroken, Ms. Z is disgusted and Mr. X is up in arms.

In this instance, everyone loses.

But there is a way to ensure everyone wins. How would you solve this conundrum? No variables involved here.

Remember: Winning is awesome. It just takes longer.

I made the 80-mile move up to Centralia on Saturday. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, I’ll tell you that.

The move still isn’t over as I have to go back to Vancouver and get the rest of my stuff this weekend, but I’m moved up here for the most part.

I’ve made a lot of new friends. Mostly women. I’m not complaining. (Neither is my mom, I’m sure.)

I started my new job today. I’m officially a print reporter for the Chronicle, the local paper here. My main beats to cover are business and education. Check out my work now and in the future at www.chronline.com.

I’ve also turned my Twitter feed (@iamchrisbrewer) into a feed for more news-related stuff. Look there for updates to articles and items of general interest.

I’m looking forward to the rest of my time here, but as for now I have to look forward to sleep. I’ll catch you all soon, I’m sure.