Dulles Family Life Church

     George Barna, who has been studying and writing about the state of and trends in the American Church, made some really sobering statements in a recent interview about his latest book, “The Seven Faith Tribes.”  It’s a book about the faith lives of people in America, their values, and the impact of the Body of Christ upon all of it.  In his study, he found that 16% of American believers (and professing Christians) would be described as “Captives.”  These would be people whose lives are lived out and determined by the leading and Lordship of Christ and the Word of God.  He is central in all areas of their lives.  Literally, He is Lord of their life.  The second group, and the largest, were what he called “Casuals.”  These are people who profess to be followers of Jesus, but whose lives are marked by having many things that are important to them, and they seek to balance their lives concerning all these important things.  Their faith in Christ has value, but it is only one of many things they value.  They are not captives of Christ.  People of Jewish belief comprise 2%, Muslims about 1/2%, various kinds of religious cults, 3%, and what would be termed “New Age, ” about 1%.  The last group were what he termed “Skeptics.”  They made up about 11% of the population, and he said this was the fastest growing of all the groups.
     When asked by the interviewer what was the greatest reason for their fast increase, Barna’s response was it was the Skeptics observation of the lifestyles of the Casuals.  They didn’t see anything real in the way these professing followers of Christ were livng their lives.  They didn’t see any real evidence of love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace.  They didn’t see that these “believers” were living out a life that truly impacted the culture in any real and positive way.  Barna said the church has defined success in terms of numbers in attendance, finances, number of ministries and programs offered, size of buildings, number of people on staff, and not in the evidence of lives transformed by Christ, and then through these lives, the culture around them also transformed by the power of the Christ Who lives in them.  In his response to this, his interviewer, James Robison said, “We don’t seem to understand the value of the values we claim to believe.”
     I am not writing this with any sense of judgement, for we have more than enough of that in our midst already.  His Word says that the followers of Christ were “first called Christians in Antioch.”  It was not a name they gave themselves, but rather it’s what the unbelieving people they lived amongst called them.  These may not have accepted their faith for themselves, but they could not deny the Christlikeness of the lives of His followers.  Christ was not a part of their life, He was their life.  Francis Chan, in his book “Crazy Love,” said the hardest place to live out a completely surrendered life to Christ was in the midst of His church.  As you read that, you either know the truth of his statement, or……..  In the book of Acts, there’s a well known passage where Peter and John are stopped on their way to worship at the Temple by a crippled man begging for money.  Peter told him he had no gold or silver to offer him, but what he did have, he gave to him.  He bid him rise and walk, and the man did.  Many centuries later, two church leaders were speaking to one another of this passage, and one said, “Well, we can no longer say we have no silver or gold,” to which the other replied, “No, and neither can we say ‘Rise and walk.’ ”
     Living next to you and I, working next to us, wherever we go, we are surrounded by an evergrowing number of “Skeptics.”  What effect does your life, or mine, really have upon them?  Are we showing the lack of love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, acceptance, that only adds to their quesioning of the reality of the power of the Christ we say we follow?  Or, are we simply, by the way we live, showing them the face and heart of Christ?  My friends, church no a place we go to.  The Church is who we are, wherever we go.  We are the church.  Are we creating more skeptics, or is He, though you and I, able to transform, a little more each day, the culture we live in?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Uncategorized by oshell
No Comments »

     Not long ago I listened as a friend talked of someone they knew, a person who seemed to have led a reckless, painfilled, paingiving life, leaving a string of broken relationships, and deep wounds to themselves and so many others, yet my friend concluded the discussion with, “But they love the Lord like crazy.”  Now, I say this with no judgement towards my friend, for I know them to live a devoted life to Him, but their words drove home to me a very real truth about how easily we separate our relationship with Him from our relationships with others, indeed our relationships with the world we live in.  We do this in personal relationships, business relationships, and to our shame, in our inter and intrachurch relationships.  We do things distinctly unloving, and yet at the same time, sing and testify of our deep love for the Lord, and all the while we wonder why a lost and dying world looks upon it all with a very cynical eye, and shows no desire to be a part of it all.  Why would they?  It’s the way of the world they already live in.  Why would they desire to enter into what appears to be the way of the church?
     If the testimony of the world is one of broken relationships, broken marriages, broken families, then how much different would be the testimony of much of the church?  Professing believers leave and walk away from husbands, wives, children, friends, and fellowships, and all of these would be people, ministries, that they at one time professed love for, yet their actions and behavior spoke of something far different.  In many cases, the ones taking these steps would still say “they loved the Lord like crazy.”
     I think somehow we have come to accept that this is just the way it is.  The church is made up of people, and people are human, humans make mistakes, humans, fail, and we need to understand that.  We do, but I think that in “understanding” we have settled for something far below what He came to give us, what He died to give us, that we might, in Him, give to others.  His love.  We talk much of it, sing much of it, preach and teach much upon it.  Yet we seem to live out so little of it, and I think we see the fact of this not so much in the hurtful words and actions of people, though we certainly don’t lack for those, but in the daily indifference and apathy we live in concerning the needs, hurts, and condition of so many of those around us.  In our fellowships sit people who quietly suffer, who are lonely, who desperately need a friend.  They hear us sing or say that we have a wonderful friend in Jesus, and we think that should be enough for them.  Why would they need a friend in us?  These people are also at our workplace, next door to us in our neighborhood.  Mother Teresa said that she was able to spend a lifetime ministering to the unloved and unwanted in India because she had learned to see the face of Christ in each of them.  For so many of us, it seems the only face we see, or want to see, is our own.
     In the Psalms, David called God his Refuge and Hiding Place.  I heard Beth Moore talk of this some months back.  She said that the Father has called those who are His to be a refuge and hiding place for others.  A place of safety, acceptance, and unconditional love.  A place that is more than a hug or handshake, or a promise to pray for them, but a place where they find Jesus and His love.   A place where they may see the face of Jesus.  It’s a place He has called you to be in, to live in.  Are we?  Will we?
     Paul prefaces I Corinthians 13, his great chapter on God’s love with these words at the end of chapter 12, “And I show you a more excellent way.”  The world is dying to be shown that more excellent way.  Even more, the church is dying to be shown as well.  Who among us will show it?  Will you?  Will I?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »

     I think so many of us are torn apart by two powerful, but conflicting desires.  On the one hand, I think we desperately want to be known, and known as we truly are.  At the same time, we have a terrible, gnawing fear that we WILL be known as we truly are, and will therefore be rejected.  Sadly, the “fear factor” seems to win out most of the time, and therefore, we run from people, and ultimately, God.
     Recently, I was talking to someone I have know for sometime, someone who has spent a great deal of time trying to project a certain image of themselves, and image that is not real, and that ultimately falls apar.  I felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to tell them something.  I told them that I didn’t much care for the person they sought to make me accept, but that I had a great deal of regard and love for the person He had helped me to see they really were.  I thought I saw a great softening come across their countenance, and if so, it shouldn’t be surprising, for again, we all long to be known and loved for who we truly are.  It’s just that we fear that if someone were to really discover that, they’d reject us…want nothing to do with us.  The person I spoke that to lives there.  I have lived there.  Maybe you’re living there now.
     Perhaps you’re familiar with the biblical story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman found in John 4.  Jesus, a complete stranger to her, tells her of her life, including the fact that she has had 5 husbands, and even now is living with a man who isn’t her husband.  Only the Lord knows all that He saw in her life, but maybe one thing He saw is what may also be seen in so many of us, and that is our ongoing number of failed relationships, or relationships we simply left.  Left because we were afraid that if we “hung around” we’d eventually be found out for who we really are.  So we run.  From the person, from true intimacy, from being known.  Very likely the Samaritan woman had been doing that to some degree, but she now stood before a Man that though she might run from Him, she could never avoid being known by Him.
Jesus, the Messiah, Son of God.  He knew her completely, and He accepted her, received her, and loved her.  In spite of all her sin and failure.  In spite of the fact that she was a member of the despised and shunned Samaritan people.  Her words to the people of her village in verse 39 call out to us.  “Come, see a Man who told me everything I ever did.”  The Man who knew her, knew them, knows us.  The Man we must run to, and not from.
     Psalm 139 is a Psalm of David, where David worships the God he cannot hide from, and who knows who he truly is, and who comes to him, even in the deepest darkness.  I heard Beth Moore give a beautiful teaching on this, and in it she said, “God sees light in every darkness…God has come to minister to our dark side….Jesus has come into our dark closets with His scarred hands and pulled on the light chain, and shines His light upon us.”
And in shining His light on us, loves us, receives us, pulls us to Himself…as we really are.  We need no longer run.  Not from Him who truly loves us, and not from people who love us as well, and will love us even as we really are.  He risked all to love us.  Because of that, we can risk all to love Him, others, and to be loved in return.  Come, see a Man who knows you, and loves you….just as you are.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Uncategorized by oshell
No Comments »

     A few months ago, I heard gospel singer Kirk Franklin speak about his long running battle with the sin of and addiction to pornography.  He had sought help from many people and many quarters of the church, but never found it.  It was not until he met Texas pastor Dr. Tony Evans, who ministered to him not only in love, but in accountable love, that He found his pathway to freedom.  I wrote something down that Franklin said, because I thought it was powerful.  He said freedom did not begin for him until he “began to see his sin through the eyes of the Father.”  When he realized what his behaviors were doing to himself, the ones he said he loved, and above all, to the heart of the God he claimed to follow, he was broken, and in his brokenness, the healing, deliverance, and freedom began.  Pastor Evans committed to love Kirk Franklin.  To not give up on him or turn away from him.  Franklin, in turn, committed to respond to that love, founded on the love of the Father, that brought, and still brings victory.  I believe it is the lack of that same covenant love that is crippling our lives, marriages, families, relationships and churches.
     I have been following Him now for 30 years, and pastoring for 26.  As a result, most of the people I have known best have identified themselves as “Christians.”  Yet, through all these years I have either experienced directly, or watched as others did, the terrible pain of broken relationships.  Marriages end, families are torn asunder, children and parents speak and see each other rarely, if at all.  Friends walk away, and congregations are split, and the fallout of the pain continues onward for months and years.  In many cases, it never ends, and everybody seems to feel that it’s just the way it is.  Regrettable of course, but we must understand, we’re only human.
     I think it is then we need to have our eyes opened to what we have been doing, participating in, or merely standing by and watching.  We need, as Kirk Franklin needed, to see our sin through the eyes of the Father.  As we “believers” float from relationship to relationship, leaving deep wounds and pain behind, as we move from one church to another, simply because something was said or done, or wasn’t being said or done, and leaving terrible, bleeding ruptures behind, we need to see what our actions are doing to the heart of the Father, for when we see that, we will begin to see what they do to those we have claimed to “love.”  And we need to see something else.  We needn’t physically move away to leave someone, or leave many.  Marriages are still together, but the love has died.  Families are together, but the warmth of His love is absent.  Churches come together, but the supernatural power of His love is missing.  If we recognize a problem, we usually see it as being someone else’s, not ours.   Again,we need to see it all through the eyes of the Father.
     Perhaps you’ve heard it said that all sin is a sin against the love of God.  If we fail to see how the coldness and selfishness of our hearts and lives affect others, how could we ever see how it affects Him?  I John 2:7 says, “Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment, for it is an old one you have always had, right from the beginning.  This commandment-to love one another-is the same message you heard before.”  Hearing of the love of God is nothing new.  Knowing we are to love one another is nothing new either.  We’ve heard it all before, but never I think, as He intended, as He spoke it, as it came from His heart.  I am weary of all the lost loves, the lost relationships, broken marriages and families, torn apart churches.  I need, we need, to hear again, to truly respond to His command to love one another.  A popular song of the 60’s was, “What The World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love.”  Though the words were true, the love it spoke of was merely human, imperfect, and as we have all learned, very temporary.  The world still needs love, but it is His love, and it is to emanate from the heart of His church…..you and I.  We need to see what our lack of love has done to one another, and to ourselves, and most of all, to Him.  We need, as the old song said, “Our Father’s Eyes,” to see others, ourselves, and Him….with and in love.  Then the healing, deliverance, and freedom will come.  As we love one another.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »

     I was going to begin today by saying that both our greatest need and lack  is prayer, but I’m not quite sure that is so.  I think there is much “prayer” going up to the Father these days, but the great question is, is it, as the book of James puts it, “The effective prayer of righteous men (and women)?  A scripture I have often taken to Him is 2 Chronicles 20:12.  The armies of 3 strong nations are coming against King Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah.  Jehoshaphat cried out to God, “Won’t you stop them?  We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.”  Now, this is a powerful prayer, but if we’ve prayed it, or something akin to it, has its power truly worked in and for us?  If not, what might be missing?
     I think what we often, maybe even most often do, is cry out to the Father for help against impossible odds, but in our crying out, see Him as Option A, our best option, but just in case Option A doesn’t work or come through, well, we have an Option B, and C, or D, or….well, you get the picture.  We seem always to feel we need other options when it comes to trusting God.  We want to trust Him, we say we trust Him, but we always have a “just in case” clause.  Arrayed against us, our marriages, children, finances, our very lives, are many great enemies, and though we do go to Him for needed help, we can’t resist working on, putting together our other “options” just in case the Lord can’t come through.  In this passage we’re told that “All the men of Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, wives and children.”  They didn’t come to Him with one eye on Him, and the other on other helps.  Their eyes, hearts, and hopes were set on Him alone.  Their prayer was not only of desperation, but of a surrendered desperation.  For them, the Father was the only hope, and they would not put their hope, or the hopes of their families upon anyone or anything else.  Their trust was fully in Him, and in whatever He would tell them to do.  I remember seeing a war movie once where the leader told his men just before a battle that he made sure he prayed to every diety he knew of, figuring one of them might actually help him.  Could it be that we’ve fallen victim to the same attitude, seeking His aid, but all the while having our eyes on other “dieties”, whether it be ourselves and own efforts, or to someone else’s, to bring about our desired end?  We may pray, and in desperation, but is it with surrender?  Somehow, we can never believe that the surest route to victory to and in Him, is surrender.
     Marva Dawn, in her book, “A Sense Of The Call,” says, “Jesus of course overcame the world with the constancy of His conversation with, and obedience to, His Father by the power of Their Spirit.  Ardent and unflagging prayer are also our most important weapon against all the forces and functionings of the powers.”  Jesus said in John 10 that the thief seeks to break in, and to kill and destroy.  I think most of us know this, fear this, but seem to employ every type of lock and bolt we can find to use against him.  Every one but the right one, the only one that will keep him out.  Dawn quotes a German pastor, Karl Buchsel, writing 150 years ago, who said, “Watching and praying are the only bolts this thief fears.”  Keeping our eyes on Him, and then seeing things going on around us, and in us, through His eyes, recognizing not only who the enemy really is, but how he may be overcome, defeated, crushed.  By prayer.  Not just desperate, but surrendered, obedient.  Prayer that has no other option but Him, and knows it needs none.  Prayer that goes to Him, hears Him, obeys Him, fights for and with Him, and as Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah did, puts all the armies of hell to flight.  Can you and I come to this place of prayer, or, will we continue to look for other “options”?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »