FRIDAY!

"Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates or powers of hell will not conquer it."

Matthew 16:18

The church....

Never have two words painted such a varied picture in the minds of humanity.

To some it is a rigid, abusive institution.

To others it is a warm inviting family.
Some see it as a bastion of intolerance to those who don't believe a certain way.

Some see it as an outdated mode of communication for a God long since done away with by mankind.

When I think of "the church", I think of a place of hope.
A place where like minded people who have been changed by God gather to worship Him.

I think of a safe place.

I use to say that a lot when we were doing the Saturday night recovery meeting, House of Blue.

I would welcome everyone by saying, "This is a safe place to come and meet with God."

I did not mean it was a place where you could hide out, but rather a place where God would heal and save and restore if you would give up on your old ways and turn to Him.

The picture above is our "church" at Rapha.

Come this April 28th we will be celebrating out 5th year of having "church" or should I say "being" church.

We started off meeting on Sunday mornings but I never felt that was truly the right time for us to meet.
I can't explain it but I was born to do church on Saturday  night.
Anyway, May of 2008 we began to meet on Saturday night and have ever since.

My call, as pastor, is to provide a door for the men who come into the program.

A door that would lead them to a permanent church home and family.

I want to introduce them to God in a way that they may have never seen or known before.

I truly believe the Gospel of Jesus is a very simple message and I want these men to see that also.

We want them to learn what worship is and how it is a life style and not just music.

Our very lives are worship unto God.

Everything we say or do reflects the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Most churches have creeds and vision statements that they proudly display on their walls.

Some have value statements and church history for all to see.

The Church at Rapha has that also, but our statement is a statement of action.

12 Steps.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (and drugs) --that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character

Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve  our conscious with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

In these steps we are taken into the presence of God.

There we can submit our will and our life to begin a new way of living, casting aside the old to be restored.

Rarely have we seen anyone fail who followed these simple steps.

God on you....

mb