Redefining 'church'

Started on a new devotion book "4Life - God's values for Living".
It's a book meant for a mentor and mentee, guiding the mentee from the embryonic stages of their faith and guiding them to the mature stages.

Though I would consider myself a long-time, mature Christian... there are still MANY MANY things to learn. Let's say, I'm on chapter 3, and I've already been challenged and already chewing on some concepts.

As the title of this post says: "Redefining church".
Just finished Chapter 3 "A new family". There's the cliche; "the church is the 'gathering of people', not the building."

But cutting to the chase, the book asked a simple question and provided some answers you can check off...

What's your experience of church?
o A friendly club
o A distant organization
o A committed family
o A bunch of hypocrites
o Other:

I chose; a friendly club, committed family, and a bunch of hypocrites.

After choosing the last one... I paused for a moment to churn over what I selected and questioned my reasoning behind the choices. This is what I came up with...

My own personal experience of the the church is the people are friendly and are a committed family. But Kevin Chong always looks at both sides of the picture. I am well aware of what the people outside the church think of the church... and one is: hypocrites.

Don't Christians get labeled as that? Say this, do another. Judge this and that, but does this and that. This is what the Bible says about that:

"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor."
- Matthew 7:1-5 (The Message)

My honest belief: Hypocritical "christians" do more damage to the Church than the any intelligent atheists or whateverists could ever do.

Something to ponder, how does this even relate to 'church'? Until next time... until next time.

huH?

How do you use this thing? This blogspot.. I can't even get to other people's blogs easily.

Morning sickness (of the mind)

no desire to study, not at all.
No desire to work hard, not at all

is it my near fail, i don't know
do i feel tired? I feel lazy, not tired
lazy. lazy
must have been the music... must have been the music

ok
do I feel better in studying. i don't know i don't know i don't know.
this biol thing takes up so much time yet results are not matching
am i studying to wrong way
it must be
it must be
Med school is done?
i'd say pretty much
I want to believe, I want to have faith but does God really want me to do this
I write music and I have leadership
what could i do with that?
i have passion for youth
I have passion for people to live passionate lives for God
ministry? Not exactly.
I don't know
Business seems more catered...
CPSC MBA seems the best combination. I don't know

This is definitely a weird feeling knowing that I have stopped med.
embarassing for I have been telling everyone that that was my dream and goal.
But it could be sign of strength, accepting and cutting your "loss" and look foward to what is ahead.
Is it failure? No, just refining and defining.

Refining and defining.
good choice of words.
That seems to be good for me
I like that.
I really do.
Who am I trying to prove this to?
myself.