2009

http://shift.churchofthehighlands.com/?p=420

http://www.awake21.org/

Eric posted this to a Google Groups list of SGLeaders wanting us as a team to ponder it alot and to prayerfully consider......what does 2009 look like for those of us who call ourselves Followers of Christ . The attached link has some more stuff for your consideration.....we can talk about it here. If this comes as a surprise to you, the demise of NC....it could, it shouldn't....but if it does, ask yourselves WHY? And in the asking and prayerfully considering all that Eric writes here...what next? Again we can discuss here what we as a Prayer Team consider our call in this.....Join me in praying that 2009 is a real Holy Spirit Renewal/Revival year.....

Well, the supposedly last New Community has come and gone.
What a send-off!! What a crowd!! Great job to everyone on the music and drama teams. This post is not going to be an argument to keep NC. I was struck byJustin's last comment on NC: "It's sad to see so few people mourn thepassing of this dear, old friend (i.e. New Community)". I have been saddened by this too.
Is it because there are many who are sad, but just not expressing their sadness, or because so few are truly impacted by NC? If it is the latter, then it needs to go away. If it is the former, then why are there not people putting their bodies in front of the tank to stop this process??
I thought that maybe it is because we trust our leadership enough, especially Roy, that we were waiting for the grand replacement idea...that this discussion he started was really about setting us up for a new change, a new idea, an Obama-like promise of a new era. In other words, Roy already has this figured out, we trust that it willbe good, so we decide that even though a "dear, old friend" is passing on, we'll get a new friend that will be even better.
Then I had breakfast with Roy. If you go back to the original post ofhis on this thread, he says, "Please don't wait for someone else to say something. If you have thoughts, emotions, etc, you owe it to this group to share those. Help me! I am stuck and need to bemoved."
After meeting with him, I discovered he wasn't joking. I really thought that he had some great new scheme up his sleeve. I suggested that maybe we all were awaiting the announcement and unveiling of the New New Community. He assured me that he doesn't have one.
I think that what I take from this is that for too long in our minds, Shoal Creek Community Church has been The Church of Roy & Candy Moran.
We let them take the true risks; we let them take the hits; we lett hem set the vision; we let them anxiously oversee the resources and finances; we let them determine the direction, mission, and activities; we let them host meetings, buy breakfasts, juggle their schedules around ours, let them be responsible for the teaching, preaching, and creativity. Sure, we give our time, talents, and treasures, but we don't even come close to what they've done for many of us.
We look for Roy and Candy to set the pace and direct our activities, within the parameters that we set, of course.
We talka bout Ownership, but deep down, I wonder that any one of us could walk away today and we'd find another church, another community (of somesort), another set of activities to keep us busy.
We haven't burned the ships in our lives and really sold out to the mission of thechurch.
We expect Roy & Candy to do that (heck, that's what we paythem to do)...and we do just enough to say we're "owners", but not enough to call it truly sacrificial and create pain in our lives.
I am a chief sinner here. At what point will I decide that this thing we call SCCC is MY mission, MY calling, and MY lighthouse for reaching a lost and hurting world?
On Thursday morning, a group of us men discussed what it is that we, as Christ-followers, are "responsible" for and what we're not. And it came down to one thing in our discussion -- because we're only capable of one thing -- obedience.
We have one choice -- be obedient to Godor don't.
Follow Him or don't.
Open our hearts to Him or don't.
Give Him total reign in our lives or don't.
And because I don't know the right answer to whether NC should stay or go or what should replace it, if anything, then my only suggestion left is that we need to obey God.

But I can't obey God if I don't know what He wants in this. And the reality is, I haven't even asked Him. I've been too busy talking about my own petty little life and wants. And so, as merely a suggestion for consideration or to re-engage this discussion,I wonder about taking those now empty Wednesday nights for the next couple of months and simply come together in prayer...to gather together simply to sit in open, honest, and expectant prayer and ask God to guide us, to show us, to ask us to the task that He wants from us that we can then openly and honestly decide whether to obey -- or not.Eric