Well, the family where Diego is staying found a good soccer league here in Cookeville for him to play. They haven’t played one single game and Diego is already the start of the team. Everybody is talking about this foreign student and his great talent. The other day in one of the parent’s meeting the leading dad said, “we have a new player, he is an exchange student from Spain. He is a truly Spaniard from Spain”(He was referring to Diego). It is funny because a lot of people think we don’t look Mexicans, and my answer always will be, How a Mexican needs to look like, to look like a Mexican?
We are people of stereotypes; we want people to look the way we think they should look, or to act the way we think they should act. I know we do it unconsciousness, but our stereotypes can hindering the way we relate with others. For example, if you know the Lord, you should behave in a way you are example for others, right? I will say, according to whom? If I am a heavy metal skateboard dude!, do I need to behave the way a business man does? Even when we think about skateboard dudes we think about heavy metal; but I am pretty sure there are skateboarders that like classical music, don’t you think so?
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.”(Romans 12) Don’t you think we have created a Christian Sub-culture? How a Christian needs to look like, to look like a Christian?(or to act, or to talk, or to behave) We even have norms about how a Church needs to be. I think is because we have been taught this way and sometimes we don’t know another way. We want to do “church” differently and we ended up doing church the same way but just with minor changes. It is like going back to the whole expectation subject. We have certain expectations from people and when they don’t meet our expectations we get upset and frustrated.
Back to Diego’s Story, now we have so much fun teasing him. We say he is from Spain so we call him “Venancio”. And by the way I think he will play with a league from Knoxville so we will be traveling to watching play. I am happy he is here because that will give an opportunity to get to know him more and to connect to one of my nephews…….y que Viva Mexico!
Archive for July, 2007
My sister and her children came to visit from Mexico. It is good to have family around us and being able to talk and share our lives. She is the one next to me, but still 7 years older. Her son Diego (in the picture and now 13 years old) is staying and live with an American family to improve his English. He is a very good soccer player, but I don’t know if there is a good soccer league here in Cookeville for Diego to keep improving in his soccer skills. My illness is getting better, but still my eye doesn’t want to close. Paula working a lot, but I mean a lot. She is working full time in a place call Identity Group, a company that makes all rubber stamps and signs for Staples and Office Max Nation Wide and Puerto Rico. Paula works at the Costumer Service area. Plus she is doing some translation to the Upper Room.
Connection Fellowship has been established as a missional congregation and we are now looking for our own place to meet. We were thinking to really become a church without walls. Let’s see what happened.
When my ego is crushed I usually react with anger or trying to defend myslef or the ministry I am doing. Why? It seems that somebody else has hurt something inside of me and when this happens I react to that pain. It is alomost like an action-reaction response; and you know what? I don’t like it at all!! This is not the example Christ is teaching me, even though he also got upset and confronted people, but when he was taken to Calvary, he just went without a word.
My problem is when I want to do “church” out of the things I don’t like about “organized church” mos of the times I endeded up doing the same old same because it is the only thing I know. When I try to change something because somebody else is not ok with it.
A lot of people right now is worry that Connection Fellowship won’t have a place to meet or not enough money to survive. Again I ask myself, Where in The Word says that we need a building? and Where is the faith to move mountains?. Can we have corporate worship in the living room of my house? or in the backyard of somebody else? Why do we have to do “church” on Sunday anyway?
“If you are treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God. This is the kind of live you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step”(1st Peter 2:18-215)
I need to remember that I am here because of Christ, to serve him and learn from him and hopefully trhoughout my broken and flawless life I can reflect the life of Christ to others. He suffered everything so I could kno how to do it, step-by step.
I am wondering if the church as we know it now is making any sense. Why do we have to concentrate so much on Sunday mornings if the “church” is not only Sunday mornings? Why we need to concentrate so much on bringing people to a service if the Church is not a place? Why we need to worry so much if we are self supported instead of supporting each other? Why we need to concentrate in our credentials before the denomination if people outside of our churches are not looking for credentials but for sincere, real and honest love? Why we need to care if we are fellowship, a charter church, a community if the church is not an institution? or is it? Isn’t the church the Body of Christ? isn’t the Church the people? If I go to a bar and meet with a group of people, am I at church? What if instead of Sunday services we have weekly meals together? is that church also?. Today while having coffee with a dear friend, he shared with me that we should start a place call “The First Church of the Pharisees” , I though it was pretty funny because then if they call us hypocrites thats ok!! we are pharisees, but if we don’t have any name at all! If they ask us what is your denomination? “well, I don’t know we are no-non-denomination, or just people. If they ask us, so when are your services? “Any time, we just wait for an invitation to share a meal together” are you traditional or contemporary? “well we are non-traditional and non-contemporary, that’s is so relative because if I was raised in a traditional church everything new is contemporary; but if I was raised in a contemporary church everything traditional is new. Who cares if you are or if you are not!!! I think what we know as church today sometimes doesn’t make sense…….
Henry Nouwen said
“The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness. It is important to think about the Church not as “over there” but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer.”
If you were to start a new church, what do you think people (outside the church) may want to see in this new place? and what would you like to see?
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