I like God, not necessarily the church

[This started off as a status line on my Facebook page and started a discussion there that I would like to bring here and continue here (where we have a little bit more room and can invite more people to join)]

My original status line:

Been hanging out talking about how to reach those that want to know God but can’t stand the church.

Comments afterwards (names have been changed since this is a public place vs Facebook – not as public anyways):

MA: Who are you meeting with and what is your response to them? I am running into that with many folks myself.

My reply: Its the initial talks with several missionaries that live in the area and some house church advocates. To bottom line it, the reality is that you don’t do church, we are the church. Church is a life style not something you do on Sunday morning and that doesn’t mean having to talk about God every moment of the day but it means that you live life, pouring your life into others and having them pour their lives into yours. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit will seep into your conversations as life continues. Remove the institution that is church to reveal those who have Christ as the church and people will understand it. Its a hard concept for many in the West to understand as we have church as an institution made up of programs and schedules which makes our walk with God compartmentalized and therefore to an outsider – our lives are compartmentalized and that makes our relationship with God only a part of our lives (and therefore hypocrites).

Ooops. I think I stepped on a soap box. Read more >>

May Day! May Day! (But we’re not sinking)

We recently got to celebrate the holiday known as “May Day” here in Europe.  For us, it meant that we got to have a family outing where we went to the Middle Ages Festival.  It’s a lot like the Renaissance Festivals in the States with the arts & crafts, people dressing up in period costumes, food (overpriced of course) and lots of different entertainment.  However, one difference I noted is that things are a little less “safe” here.  The guys who did the sword fighting really had scars and were relatively safe but not with all the restrictions that would have been placed on them in the US.  Guys were breathing fire above people’s heads and for a gold talon (equals 1 Euro), kids could throw axes.  Yep, real sharp axes – were they given instructions? – nope!  Just handed 5 axes and were pointed to a big target.  Alex loved it!

Check out the photos in the Photo Gallery.

Shake, Rattle & Roll – Earthquake

I know I’ve been delinquent in doing any blogging lately.  I hope to correct that soon.  Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about our experience last night.  Around 3:40 AM, Krista and I awoke to this big BOOM and then the sound of what was like a subway train roaring past us (although, we live in a town that only had a small train and some buses – no subway).  Then our bed and whole house started to shake.  After about 15-30 seconds of shaking (Krista thinks one time, I think the other – you can try and guess which is which), everything stopped.  I went into Alex’s bedroom to find him upright in the top bunk of his bunk bed with a big grin on his face.  That’s when he said, “Cool earthquake!!”.  He then proceeded to flop back down and go back to sleep.  I do think I need to go back and tighten the screws on his bed as I think being in the bunk bed gave him some extra thrills as he rode out the quake.

Thankfully no one was hurt – we didn’t have any damage and nobody we know has had any damage.  Turns out it was an earthquake rated as a 4.5 and was centered about 18 km southeast of us.  We knew there would be earthquakes here when we moved here but this was the first one we felt.  I do know this, it was a first for me!

View Earthquake in a larger map

Update: Here’s the more scientific information about the earthquake