Things I've Learnt As An (Almost) 23 Year Old

I haven't been on this planet long compared to some, and I've been here far longer compared to some more.  I've been preceded by millions before me, and I shall precede millions after me.  And in this insignificant spec of time I live out on this ball of dirt we lovingly call home, I've learned a few things that I would like to pass on.  Nuggets of wisdom, if you would.

Fun is awesome, but there is a time to rest, reflect, and pray.

Quiet is great, but human interaction is a necessity.

Organization is handy, but too much creates unhealthy stress.

Don't be afraid to live a little, but don't be irresponsible.

Common sense and logic are great, but never downplay faith.

Faith perseveres, but don't be flakey and stagnant, faith requires a step, take it.

In all things, give thanks.

~Andrew

Waiting

Ever have a moment where a passing comment by a complete stranger rocks your entire day?  

This is me yesterday; I left a job interview (which went splendid, I got the job! Glory to God), and ran to walmart to grab something I needed (of which I can not remember now, mustn't have been that important), as I neared the front doors (I should add I was in a suit as I work at a men's suit store.) an older gentleman was coming out of the doors, which in and of itself is not that surprising.  However, what caught me off guard as I went to wish the standard, "Good day" salutation to the gentleman he looked at me, and with a slight chuckle, and years with experiences I can not fathom, simply stated "Can we ever stop rushing, do we ever slow down?".  

This struck me in an odd way; maybe it was an older man who looked in his retirement years stating how busy life was, maybe it was the way the statement caught me as life has been hectic and busy for me lately (I recently got in to a business program so the getting ready to move process is in full effect), I'm not 100% sure exactly why such a statement stuck out to me, but it did.

Now, enough of my run-on sentences, extensive commas, and colons, and long winded stories.  Oh, and the extensive use of parenthesis (for those that don't know, it's the brackets around certain phrases, like this one).

I feel this question is one we should ask ourselves, regularly, if not frequently.  "Can we stop rushing, can we slow down?".  We live in a society of FAST food, INSTANT coffee, INSTANT noodles.  The faster something is, the more convenient things are, the happier we are?  If our Double Big Mac is not waiting for us the minute we enter the front doors, we get tense; waiting in line for anything for hours? Yeah right! (Unless you're one of those Macfreaks), and the list goes on.

Side note: I have nothing against Apple, I'm writing on a Macbook right now.  I just think sitting in line for two days for a phone is silly.  But hey, to each his own.

Back to this thought; we have a society that demands instant gratification.  If we aren't satisfied right now, having everything our way, we get livid.  I've had a lot of jobs, most of them in customer service; one such job was delivering pizza.  It's possibly one of my least favourite jobs, just to make that clear.  I'll give a break down of what happens when you order a pizza.

Pick Up

-Come in/Call in

-Some calls can last longer with questions like "what kind of pizza do you have?" "what's good?" "what's your specials?" and so on.  And yes, people ask us to list all our toppings and pizzas, and then all the toppings on the specialty pizza.  So this slows things down.

-Once this is all done your information is confirmed, and we send it through on the computer.

-Now assuming it isn't busy it shows up on the make line screen to be made.  I've seen the screen so full, that twenty pizzas later it was still filling up.  That 8-10 minutes bake time, the pizza needs to get in the oven first.  

-So your pizza has been made! And is now coming out of the oven.  The food is boxed, and finished however it's supposed to be (cut, garnished, etc).

Delivery

-Take all of the above, and now another person collects your order, checks your address and heads to their vehicle.  This is assuming it isn't busy as crap, and they can get to it that quickly.  

-They get your order, step in to their vehicle, and get ready to get to your home as quickly as possible.  This is where most of our tickets and accidents happen.

-They arrive at your house, and if all goes well, one knock or door bell and the door is answered, it's really awesome when people are waiting for you.  I've had to call a customer, knock, ring a doorbell, and then they get mad when they had to wait.  Answer your door or be waiting please haha.

-We hand you food, which some people take their time handling, and then deal with payment, which also can take some time if the machine is being finicky, or we don't have the exact change.

-Now after this is all said and done, we get back to our car and rush back to the store to do it all over again.

Think of this the next time you have to wait more than 20 minutes for delivery; it takes about 10 minutes to make the pizza, and then we have to drive it to your house, however far it is.  

Now that I'm down a semi-educational rant, back to our point.  We want things to us so quickly that the idea of waiting makes us mad.  We get tense in church when the pastor reaches one minutes over an hour, waiting a couple minutes for coffee is absurd.  However in the bible, the greatest breakthrough, the biggest growth, the most monumental revelation, arrived through yes, waiting.  In Isaiah 40 we're told 

"those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they mount up on wings like eagles,They shall run and not grow weary,They shall walk and not faint" ( NKJV Is.40:31)

There's a story in John 5:1-9 that tells of a man waiting for healing, 

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. (NKJV Jn 5:1-9)

Where are our priorities? Are we willing to wait for the good things in life?  Wait for the promises of God, there's a lot of them. The bible is littered with promises, the broadest, and possibly the strongest that sticks out in my mind is Jeremiah 29:11-13.  I won't bother quoting the passage it's so well known.  If you don't know it, I absolutely encourage you to look it up.  God has many good things for you, don't lose heart.  The old proverb, "good things come to those who wait", couldn't be more true.  I like what James has to say,

 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. (NKJV Jm 5:7)

I ask that God would help us examine our hearts, that we would see where our priorities are.  I would ask that we were able to set our gaze upon Him, and remain strong and faithful this day against all life's troubled times.  We would never lose heart in times that appear desperate and hopeless.  That we would be a people of waiting, and a people of expectancy.  And that we would have the strength to endure all.  That we would be able to slow down, and rest in the still, quiet place where God meets us.  That we could quiet down to hear His voice, and have the wisdom to listen.

A Never Ceasing Church

I see a lot of churches, they have their hours; 10-3, 9-2, 12-4, and so on....Now it's not that there is an issue with these hours, but I find them personally to be a little limited. I know there are circumstances (cost of running the building, staffing, etc.), this however is beyond those things.

I'm not here to "fix" the church, or tell it what to do, but simply to share what's on my heart.  I hope that is plain, simple, and clear, right off the hop.  My heart is to see a 24 hour place of worship established though, a place where schedules don't hinder people from getting together with believers to be encouraged and learn.  Where people can be taught and equipped in their giftings to share the gospel and make disciples.

I work weird hours personally, I can work from 11am to some time in the evening, or start or four in the afternoon and go until the wee hours of the morning, usually four am; this can create difficulty when the majority of my hours are on weekends, which is also when church is.  One thing I've learnt in the 22 years I've lived, is we don't all get Monday to Friday 9-5 jobs, some of us get jobs that are decent enough, the hours are simply, erratic.  My Dad worked in the oilfield for over a decade; he could work 14 hour days (or more) sometimes 14 days straight, and something I learned from my own time in the oilfield, is that getting up early in the morning when you don't have to go to work, can be a challenge ( my Dad had a wife and two kids (teenagers at that) in there as well).

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a place that was able to accommodate a wide variety of schedules.  With my current schedules, Church in the middle of night seems far more feasible than (what seem to me) super early mornings.  For instance, it's currently 3:00am local time, humans need 8 hours of sleep, I've been home form work for maybe an hour.  If church started at, let's say 11:00am, even if I went to bed when I got home, (assuming I don't wash up, eat anything, or change) it'd be about 2:00am going to bed, 10:00am getting up for that exact 8 hours (although most people I know don't fall asleep that fast).  I have 60 minutes to get up shower, get dressed, get breakfast, and be in my seat at church.  Supposing it isn't a charismatic church that starts at 11:00...ish (I hope this is taken as the joke it's meant to be, I'm a member of a Charismatic church).

This may seem like I'm just looking for an easy out, or for everything to be my way.  Don't misunderstand my heart in this.  I have friends that work jobs with little flexability, that's not their fault, I know single moms that need to get all the hours they can to support their children (some churches ostracize them for being single mom's, another reason they avoid churches at times, but I won't get in to that right now.) and so that can see them with an evening and weekend job, and as I recall, Sunday is a weekend.  Another issue faced with single moms as well with younger children is a lack I've noticed, with adequate child care, or, an unfortunate and heartbreaking apathy towards child care.  Once again, a random tangent I won't tackle at this time but just something that bothers me personally.

Back to this never ceasing church....

The church is more than a building, when I think of church, I think of the Book of Acts.  The church was a community of believers that were together teaching, encouraging, mentoring, praying, and worshipping the Lord.  If our church building burnt down tomorrow, WE WOULD STILL BE A CHURCH.  My heart for a 24 hour church goes beyond a building that doesn't lock it's doors, it goes in to a complete lifestyle.

I've seen so many churches, we go, we leave, that's it.  I heard one man's story; he left a bike gang, got saved, but found no family or community in the church, but the acceptance he found in the gang found him falling back in to that life.  In my own life I got saved at 19, but didn't find a sense of community or family, I would leave church and was back on my own with no one.  And within 8 months I was getting back in to my usual habits and almost ended up in fatherhood again.  When I felt I was a part of a family, like I was accepted, I wanted to be a part of it.  And we model what we surround ourselves with.  Now, back to those things I mentioned before...

Here's a simple break down of the things I listed:
TEACHING:
Both in small groups and corporate pastoral preaching.  This would be the teaching and discussion of scripture and so on.
ENCOURAGING:
We all hit hard times, we all mess up, it's having people to help pick us up, correct us (Proverbs tells us the wisdom in accepting rebukes), and help us in our walk. (Iron sharpens iron as Proverbs says).
MENTORING:
As a man in my twenties I find teens coming to me in relationship advice, school advice, and the like having on average about six years on them in age.  I'm old enough to have learnt from my experiences, and young enough to recall clearly.  Mentoring is walking with a person through things in their life, being an ear for them, and also a teacher.  I have a few older men in our church I consider mentors, they're married, with kids (my age ironically), good jobs, and what the world would call "successful lives".  I often spend hours speaking with these men, learning from them, and taking in from their experiences and wisdom so I'm faced with my decisions, I'm wise enough to make the right one.  There was mentoring in the New Testament church, Paul had Timothy for example.  Paul wrote two letters to Timothy (I,II Timothy) which shows how he mentored Timothy.
PRAYING
My friend and pastor Nathan Williams' wife has been known to say, quite frequently, "No Prayer, No Power".  And this is echoed in Matthew when Jesus tells us that we will accomplish certain things through "...prayer and fasting".  In Thesselonians we are told to pray without ceasing, and at another point in Matthew (ch18) we are told that when two or more of us gather and are in agreement, God is there, and hears our prayers.
WORSHIP
Psalm 150 is the favourite verse of a friend and fellow worship musician.  All through the old and new testaments there are verses talking about worship.  Simply put, worship is an act of glorfying God.  It goes beyond our Sunday Morning Karaoke.  There's nothing wrong with our corporate worship, but I fear we have created a consumer worship event and have lost the whole focus of what worship was meant for.  The theologians, I feel, had it right, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." The author of Romans puts worship as a sacrifice, a sacrifice of our being.  


Church goes beyond a building, it goes in to our being.  Does how we live, express the emmense love and mercy God has poured fourth?  Teaching each other, being encouraging, mentoring, praying, worshipping; none of it actually requires a building or a program.  If we started loving each other as Jesus has told us to, we would see ourselves transformed.  


I could go further in to all this, but I don't want to have this longer than necessary either, as the longer something gets, the less and less one is likely to read, and quite possibly, miss context, or misunderstand something.  Please know, I am not a Pastor, I have not attended any formal education in bible teaching, I am not a theologian or scholar.  I am simply a man with a passion, that I feel others may share.  This post could have been expanded on more, but I feel that would not be an effective use of time beyond this.  


If you're reading this, and thinking "I want to see a 24 hour place of worship" start at your home.  Pray without ceasing, when you're in your car, pray for a moment; pray during a break at work; there are lots of moments in the day we let slip by we could have prayed during, I'm just as guilty of this.  If we started spending more time in prayer, we would see more happen.  If anything I wrote is theologically incorrect, PLEASE let me know.  I do not wish to make false statement or lead others astray, the bible is clear on the consequences of that.  I accept rebuke, assuming you back it up with scripture (in context).