Well the last and final installment to what some people may have found to be interesting, boring, insulting, or funny.
I want the three folks that actually read this to understand all my ramblings from the last two post and hopefully gleen from it what I learned.
Lesson #1: Saying your sorry can make you feel better. Dave, my pastor, has taught me an important lesson about forgiveness. The first step to forgiveness is asking for it. I am a very proud person, I am not the type of person to ask for help, say I’m sorry, or humble myself to no one. Remember the humble pie reference? Ya, it’s like brussel sprouts. I believe that the first time in a long time that God spoke to me and I listened was when he told me to go to Dave and ask him for forgiveness for what I had said about him and his church. Humble your proud, stupid self and tell him your sorry, I think that’s about how He said it to me. Another person that was hard for me to ask forgiveness of was the girl in the story I told in my previous post. I felt she deserved that.
Lesson #2: Forgiving someone can also make you feel better. In my last post I wrote about the girl that I have a child with and all the things she said and tried to do. I believe that this person was one of the hardest to forgive and ask forgiveness of. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She did a lot of things but all forgiveable. It took a lot to reasoning with myself and it took a lot proof on her part that she wouldn’t do the things that she did in the past to see that she is sincere in what she says. From what I understand she is happy and doing well, and as I know she will probably read this, I am happy for you. I have several of people that has hurt me in my past that I have forgiven but this is one that you know about.
Lesson #3: As long as you are reaching the unchurched, people far from God, people seeking a touch from God then it doesn’t matter how you do church. Crosspoint Community Church will do anything short of sin to reach the lost. This church and it’s leaders have a fire for reaching the hurt, the lost, people that need Jesus. This church has purpose. It took me seeing Jesus in the people and leaders at Crosspoint and actually paying attention and hearing the vision of this church and knowing that every person that I have had contact with is genuine and they actually care about people. This church has shown me and my family more love than I deserve and for that I am thankful. I have made some great friends and found the true meaning of community and service to Christ. I am truly blessed to have gone through the ordeal that I did, without that I would not have the blessings that I do today. Thank you God for my church family, I love them dearly.
God will take us, shake us, break us — dust us off, make us clean, shine our shoes and then send us to go do His Will. Walk on, brother, walk on.
Heidi Reed
Thank you, that means alot!
I always wonder about people who are unwilling to forgive wrong doings. Are they perfect? I mean, there are extremes that I guess even I consider unforgiveable, but for the most part, if you don’t kill someone I love, I can find it in me to forgive… IF you are truly and sincerely sorry.
This was a good read.
P.S. Since I know you’re wondering where people are coming from… I came from J Mo’s blog.
Awsome story!! Intrigue, sex, betrayal, forgiveness, enlightenment, reconciliation –> Glory for God!
I also came from a fine Baptist background. We ended up leaving a great church in Janurary of this year for reasons that I can’t go into. But we ended up needing time to heal as a family, so we did Home Church (kind of like home school, but church) for 5 months. We had a great time worshiping God. We rocked, did juvenile hand motions to the songs, had “lessons” that were discussed in language that my 3 teenagers could understand. (I found out that they even learned something from those lessons, but that is another story). About mid-May we felt led to look for a church home. We visited some of the Baptist churches near where we live, but after our Home Chruch, they were all lacking – church people doing chruch things….
This takes us to Crosspoint. We had heard the adversisements for the movie church in Huntsville, and found Crosspoint on the internet while exploring the concept of church in a theater. We looked over the “what we beleive” section and did not see anything about handling snakes or the like, so we decided to try it. We very nearly drove back out of the parking lot when we saw people in Tee shirts and flip flops with tatoos smoking outside the door (we were good Baptist church people after all). One of our kids had a tie on, so we made him take it off and we went it. Now I had a completely different response after my first Crosspoint experience. I LOVED IT!! So did my kids. My teenagers could tell me what the message was about! My bipolar, high functioning autistic 8 year old simply gushed about the childrens experience exclaiming that we HAD to come back next week. We tasted the Cool-Aid and it was good! Of course I was Baptist, so I felt terribly guilty about singing rock music, and listening to a surmon spoken in “the people’s” language. I was actually afraid to tell the wife that I liked it.
Fast forward – Got over the guilt about having FUN! in chruch. Like meeting and working with all the people for God’s kingdom, eventhough I tend to be an introverted computer nerd. Having an awsome time with Life Groups…
Sorry of bloging on your blog, but it seemed to fit. It has been great getting to kow you.
Paul
ps I came from Dave’s blog thru Kevin’s blog.
Paul, we are glad you and your family are at Crosspoint. Thanks for the comment.