The Attack That is Coming

I love Orca’s. I have studied them for years and their hunting style is not one that we see in the wild often. They hunt their food in family units and have an intelligence that is comparable to that of a human. One of the cruelest hunting styles that they have is how they hunt seal and sea lions. To the onlooker, it will look as though they are a 5-ton toddler, playing with their food by means of tossing the unsuspecting seal or sea lion into the air with their mighty fluke. Their buddy catches it with his mouth and tosses it back to the first and they continue with their game of catch until finally they decide they’re done and enjoy their meal. From the outside looking in, it seems like a cruel game to play before killing their food, but there is a purpose behind it.

Seal and sea lions are smaller and more agile than their 6-to-10-thousand-pound assailant and are able to escape rather easily if given the opportunity. They also put up more of a fight than one would think possible for such a small animal. Once the orca has managed to capture it’s prey it doesn’t toss it up in the air to play with it (or because it’s cruel and just wants to see it suffer), but instead it does this to make it easier to kill. They will toss it and beat it time and time and time again so that when the battle is over, the seal doesn’t have the energy to even run away, let alone fight. It is exhausted and eventually lets the orca take it so that the beating can just be over with.

This is exactly what Satan does to unsuspecting Christians. The “games of badminton” are spiritual attacks meant to beat us down until we give up. It can happen to anyone, but for the purpose of what has been laid on my heart, I want to focus on new believers that are just beginning their walk with the Lord and why Satan preys on them.

 He Wants to Keep You Depressed

It is impossible to be full of joy and be depressed at the same time. Most people that come to the Lord later in life do so because they’ve hit rock bottom and they just can’t do it anymore. They find their way to a church that they start attending regularly and as God smiles for His son who has returned home, they are filled with the joy of God.

Up until this point, Satan hasn’t really been paying attention to this person. They haven’t been a threat to him or his evil agenda. As soon as a non-believer steps into faith and begins to feel the joy of the Lord, however, alarm bells are sounded and suddenly the enemy is paying attention.

Although Satan can’t read our thoughts the way God can, he does know our past and he LOVES to use it against us to influence our thoughts. He will fill your head with thoughts of questions and doubts. He will poison your mind with the idea that you have never been good enough, you are not good enough, and you will never be good enough. For some, these thoughts are enough to put them into a state of depression and despair and they just give up. They conclude that there are unforgivable sins, and they choose not to waste God’s time (or their own) and they give up before they’ve even learned how to walk.

 I have personally seen this happen to more mature Christians, and the results are catastrophic if the person is unprepared. Like the seal being tossed in the air, we don’t recognize that we are being attacked until its too late, and Satan decides to keep the beating going until we give up.

He Does it to Keep You from God

When we are depressed it is hard to experience the true love of God. In fact, when a young Christian is in the beginning stages of his or her faith, when the bad things start happening and life begins to pour a stroke of “unfortunate events” upon them, it is easier to think one of two things; That God really has given up on them or that their original belief of “there is no God” was correct. At that point, instead of trusting in the Lord (which Satan will try to attack before they learn how to do this), they will be like the beaten seal and completely give up, giving evil the satisfaction in knowing that it won.

He Does it to Stop the Kingdom of God from Growing

When a non-believing soul gets lit on fire with a passion for God, like wildfire, it can spread. In order to get to a point of being able to spread the love of God and start witnessing to people it means that they have made it past the initial attacks of Satan. They’ve made it past the thunderstorms that have been brought upon them and Satan will try to pull out the “Hail Mary” and make life so miserable that all the young Christian’s friends see is a pit of misery making it impossible to witness to them about God’s love for them. When God’s light and joy aren’t showing through, a person will never be able to help the Kingdom of God grow.

Whether you are a mature Christian or just starting in your faith, if Satan is able to snuff out your light, then you’ve lost the battle. The alarm bells are no longer sounding, and he will give you one last kick for good measure to make sure you don’t get back up, and walk away, only checking back in if he thinks you’re going to stand back up.

I have experienced these attacks, numerous times, in the three wonderful years that I’ve spent getting to know my Lord and the attacks always come when I feel God’s light grow brighter in me. But I will let you in on a secret. We don’t have to be the unprepared seal that doesn’t stand a chance.

Be Prepared Before the Battle Even Begins

Knowing is half the battle, and this stands true on the spiritual battleground as well. Knowing that an attack will come means that you’re on the lookout and Satan and his goons won’t be able to blindside you. I don’t care how young in your faith you are, read through the “Armor of God” verses that are found in Ephesian 6:10-18. Read it in whichever version makes the most sense to you and if it still doesn’t make sense to you, ask someone who you know can explain it to you in a way that you understand. It’s not called armor for the laughs of it. You need to know it and you need to be able to put it on efficiently.

Ask for Help When You Need It

Transient orcas will take down bigger prey such as blue and humpback whales because of how much traveling they do. Even hunting in groups, they don’t stand a chance against the adult whales (unless it is alone) so they normally will go after the babies. They’re slower, they’re weaker, and not only are they unaware that the orca is even a threat to them, but they also have no idea how to fight one off let alone an entire family of them. But the adult whales know the tricks of the orca and they surround the babies from above, below, in front, and in back to keep them safe from the oncoming attack.

This is how it needs to be in a church family unit. The more mature Christians that are familiar with all the devil’s tricks need to surround the babies when a battle is coming. Your church family can’t efficiently do this if you don’t let them know that that you’re in desperate need of help. They can circle you with prayer and help you fight an enemy that you’ve never encountered before.

As a side note here, in a church family, anytime the church sees one of its members (new or old) going through a spiritual battle, we need to step up and protect our family members. If it’s at a point where the church sees that there is a battle going on, then odds are it’s a battle they’ve been fighting on their own for a while and they’re probably tired.

Christ is the Solid Rock on Which We Stand

Christ must be your foundation. He must be your rock. In Psalm 18:2 it says, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.”  In Matthew 7:24 Jesus tells the story about the wise man building his house upon the rock and the fool building his house upon the sand. The Lord MUST be our rock.

In dire situations, Orca have been known to purposely beach themselves to catch their prey. Usually, the unsuspecting seal will get out of the deep water and into the shallows, thinking that it’s safe now that it’s on land. What it doesn’t know is that the only place the Orca won’t follow is into the dry sand. So long as the tide is coming in, the Orca can make its way back to open water. It will use all of its strength to come up as far as it can into the sand (safely), snatch its dinner, and then rock its body from side to side until the unstable sand beneath it gives way and allows it to catch the next outgoing wave back to the ocean. What an orca can’t do is climb a rock.

There are many rocks off the Washington coastline that have sea lions congregated on them because there is a pod of orcas in the water and sometimes you can even see the orca family bobbing their heads in and out of the water, waiting for one of the sea lions to make a mistake and fall straight to their demise.

We must make God our rock. When we do this, Satan can harm us no longer unless we give him power to do so. Stand on the rock.

Learning to Trust Again

Thanks to the changes that COVID-19 has brought for the education system, nightly dinner conversations have shifted from “How was school today?” to “How was zoom today?” and sometimes our conversations go down strange and interesting rabbit holes. Just earlier this week was one of those times, but the rabbit hole we travelled down was a good reminder for me of how my children view me and how our relationship with God should be.

We had been talking about how one of her teachers likes to start off their lessons with videos to make the kids laugh. The video for that particular day just happened to be a sequence of practical jokes and my daughter was having a hard time not laughing as she was telling me about the poor victims of entertainment.

As though someone flipped a switch controlling her emotions, she got very serious and said “Mom, do you remember when you boiled the tide-pod and told me that you were going to drink the tide-pod?” I felt the confusion spread across my face as she continued. “That wasn’t a funny joke. I thought you were really going to drink the tide-pod. Can you not joke like that anymore?”

I had to go back through my treasure chest of memories to remember this instance of which she spoke. It had been before school started back up and I had been boiling water to wash my masks and thought it would be funny to see her reaction if she thought I was going to drink the tide-pod. At the time of the joke it was funny, especially seeing her reaction when I placed my masks within the soapy water, and she concluded that I was being goofy.

As I came back to the present, I giggled. “I can’t believe that you actually thought I was going to drink it. Honestly, I thought you were going to call my bluff.”

She looked at me with her big blue eyes and with a somewhat angry tone answered me with “You’re my mom. I always trust what you say.”

There it was. The punch to the stomach that I will never forget and a lifelong lesson that should never be forgotten. As her parent, she trusts what I say to be true. She trusts that when I say I’m going to do something I’m going to do it. Our relationship with God should be the same way. He is our father, and just as our children trust in us, we should trust in the Lord.

I understand that this concept of trusting someone that you cannot see and that you do not know is more difficult for some people. Not all of us have had people in our lives that we can trust so when we don’t have good examples of “trustworthy people” in our lives, it’s hard to comprehend that there is someone out there who is worthy of our faith and trust. But the bible gives us multiple examples of why we should trust God and what He does for us when we do.

Hebrews 13:8 tells us that He is the same yesterday, the same today, and the same forever. This means that God does not change and neither does His love for us, His children. Most people who have trust issues, have trust issues because of things people have done to them throughout their lifetime, so let me put this bluntly. God is not going to walk out on you because He’s bored with you. God is not going close the door in your face because you no longer look appealing to Him. God isn’t going to leave you nor forsake you! In fact, if you go up from the Hebrews 13:8 to Hebrews 13:5 we’re even given this promise!

“But how do I know I can trust God?” you ask. I get it. I asked this same question when I started coming back to my faith in God. I have always said trust isn’t something that is just given out like popcorn at Les Schwab. It must be earned. In my mind, God had to “earn” my trust. As I began to look back on my life and realized how evident it was that He had been beside me all along, He didn’t earn my trust. I gave it to Him wholeheartedly because I saw that He carried me in my darkest times (Isaiah 46:4) even when I refused to acknowledge Him. 

Because He will never leave you or forsake you, because He carries you through the storm even when you can’t see it, that also means that He’s not a dead-beat parent. Yes, I just went there. Unfortunately we live in a day in age where so many parents over the last few generations have ditched out on their responsibilities to their children. The result of this has been many children (some who are now adults) who have parental trust issues. Why? Because one or both of their parents backed out on their responsibilities. The God that I have come to know, trust, and love is not that parent. Even when I was not a believer, somehow even during the worst times I always trusted that somehow, I would be provided with what I needed in that moment. It may not have always been what I wanted, but I always had what I needed (Matthew 6:25).

To put in a different viewpoint, my children trust that I will make sure that they have what they need. They don’t know how much it costs, they don’t know whether it’s a struggle to provide it or not, they just trust that there will always be a roof over their head and food in their bellies.  If you’ve never had a parent that has made sure to fulfil this promise to you, trust me when I tell you that you have a father in Heaven that can and will take care of you. You only have to trust in Him.

I understand that trusting someone you don’t know is a hard thing to do, especially if you’ve been burned by people in the past, but thankfully God is not a person. He’s our creator and once you give Him a chance and start trusting in Him and His promises to His children, you will see that there is no one else who deserves your trust more. He sent His only son to die for us. What more could He possibly give to earn our trust?

The First Step

I will never forget my first Sunday back at church. I had prepared myself all week for that moment and still I had the jitters. As I curled my hair that morning I wondered if it was really worth it. It had been 10 years since I had stepped foot into a church by my own choosing and I wasn’t sure if this was the right time. We had just gone on a family vacation that weekend and had literally gotten home about 5 hours prior to me standing at the mirror, trying to make myself look a little more alive and less like a walking zombie. But I had made a promise. A promise to a God that I still wasn’t sure existed.

Truth be told, I’m scared to death of volcanoes and we had taken a family trip to see the one that has produced the deadliest eruption in North America to date. I promised God if He allowed me to live through the weekend without Mt. St. Helen’s blowing her top while we were there, I would be at church Sunday morning, no matter how late we got back Saturday night.  The odds of an eruption are slim to none, and I’m not one to break promises, so as I was finishing the last touches on my make-up that morning I wondered if I had made the promise subconsciously as a safety net for myself in the event that I got cold feet.

No matter what the reason was, I kept my promise to the Lord that morning and if I’m being blunt, stepping through those church doors for the first time was more scary to me than being less than a mile from the infamous crater the day prior was. But why?

I have no doubt that the things that I felt that week leading up to that Sunday morning are feelings that every person feels when they’ve walked away from God and are trying to find their way back home. For those of us that walked away from God, for whatever reason, and decided to live life on our own terms, there comes a certain amount of shame and guilt when we realize that we must face our father and admit that we were wrong. But then when we decide to return to the church body, there’s a whole different land of fears that we must face.

Am I Going to Be Judged?

I understand how silly this sounds but hear me out. Human beings are not as quick to look past things as God is. We’re just not. I could go into a billion different scenarios that most of us come across every day in which we pass judgement but that is an entirely different conversation that doesn’t need to be had at this moment. For someone who has walked away from the faith and has been living in sin, this is the scariest thing to get past. When they’re at the point of walking through the church doors for the first time, odds are they don’t have a relationship with God yet. They’re just beginning their journey. This means that the minute they walk through the church doors, the first impression they’re going to get of God and God’s forgiveness is going to be through the people around them.

As humans we tend to view sin on a spectrum of level one to level ten. Level one consists of the “smaller” sins as we would consider them, such as lying or gossiping about your new co-worker. As the sins get “worse” the higher on the spectrum we view them. In the grand scheme of things this is not how God views sin. To Him it all falls on the same spectrum of SIN. To a person who has been living in sin for years, this concept is foreign, and they “know” the minute someone finds out the juicy details about their past it’s going to be all over. Once one person finds out that they stole from that store 15 years ago it’ll be all over the church and they’ll be kindly asked to never come back.

This isn’t the way that it is, but this is the picture that Satan paints for those that are lost so that they won’t ever even try, especially if the sins people have committed fall anywhere above a five on the spectrum that they’ve created in their head. For some, their past is easier to forget and they’re not worried about anyone finding out about it, because unless they themselves bring it up, how is anyone going to know. But for others it’s not as easy.

This was one of the fears that I had. I intentionally didn’t take my three kids with me that first Sunday that I attended. In fact, I half thought about never taking my kids with me because I knew eventually someone would start noticing that all three of my kids had different weekend schedules. I knew eventually people were going to find out that all three of my children had different fathers. Satan played on this fear and I was afraid to get close to anyone for the longest time. It wasn’t long before the truth did come out and I was met with love and support for myself and all three of my children and fear lost that battle.

Can I Really Change?

This fear is one of the most ridiculous fears I have ever heard, yet Satan uses other people to play on this fear day in and day out. We’ve all heard the phrase “once a _____, always a ______” . You can fill in the blanks with whatever you want but most people have either heard this phrase or even have used it themselves to describe a type of behavior that they think can’t be changed. To a person who is not living the life that God intended for them, this phrase is a shot to the heart and mind the minute it’s said, and it is a total lie.

With this lie embedded into the mind of someone who is a baby in their walk with the Lord, it is easy for them to get discouraged and wonder why they should even try to change when they’re always going to be the way that they are.

This was a fear that hadn’t really been present until the day before we left for Mt. St. Helens. I had mentioned to a friend that I wasn’t going to be available on Sunday because I was going to church. The response of “Oh, so you think if you go and sing a couple of songs and say a few words to a God that might listen, you’ll be fixed?” broke my heart. The thought never occurred to me that I wasn’t “fixable”. The statement, I later learned through my own experiences, was false and was just another way for evil to plant a seed of doubt, but it still caused unease in my mind.

Will God Really Forgive What I’ve Done?

If you’ve never committed a sin greater than being jealous of your neighbor’s new car, you will never understand just how real this fear is. I’m not trying to play the “my house is bigger than yours” card here (no pun intended) but because of how we as humans view sin (that scale of one to ten thing that I mentioned earlier), this fear is the final nail in the coffin. For someone who doesn’t have a relationship with Christ, the only example of forgiveness that they have is what they’ve been shown by other humans, which may not be that great.

These are the people that are the most broken. These are the people that didn’t just walk away to live their lives the way they wanted but bathed in sin daily. These are the people that Satan wants to hold on to. Fear and confusion are his greatest weapons, so what does he do? He plants seeds of doubt into the persons mind and he takes away their hope. With no hope, they will never take the first step.

I encountered this fear the week leading up to my first Sunday. There were things that I had done that my own family hadn’t forgiven me for. What made me think God, my creator, could forgive me? He hadn’t walked away from me. I had walked away from Him. Why would He even want to waste His time on me? God has shown me over the last two years that these were all lies. He has shown me through love, mercy, and blessings that I matter to Him just as much as anyone else that has walked this earth does.

We need to be mindful that these fears are out there. A person who lets fear control their life may let one of these fears be the difference between stepping foot through the front door and if they do step through the front door, it is important to remember that God led them to our church for a reason. It’s up to us to make sure that we show the same grace and mercy that He does and plant seeds of our own.

Getting to Know Your Congregation

Congratulations! You’ve searched and searched for that church to call home and you’ve finally found the one. You love the atmosphere, the people seem nice, and it meets all your requirements that you were looking for in a church. But now what?

So many times, I’ve seen people search for the perfect church to call home just to let every opportunity that the church provides slip through their fingertips once they’ve found one. Eventually they start becoming less and less content and they start looking for a new church or stop going all together because they felt as though they weren’t getting spiritually fed. These same people usually never form any real close bonds with anyone in the congregation.

Whether you are new to your church or you have been attending for quite some time and really don’t know many people, here are some tips on how to get to know other members of your congregation.

Grab a Church Directory

If you can grab a directory. This is a phone book, if you will, with information for every member that attends. Some have pictures of each family and others only have phone numbers. This will give you a general idea of at least how many people are in the congregation. If you really want to go for extra credit, make it a priority to meet a new family or person each week and mark them off in your directory once you have met them.

Join a Sunday School Class

This is key, especially if you have a fear of meeting new people or have a fear of large crowds. This gets you in the perfect setting with 10 to 20 people (maybe even less depending on the church) and you’re able to meet just a few people right off the bat instead of an entire congregation. Once you develop a relationship or two in your Sunday school class it will make interacting with others that you may not know a little bit easier. I’ve also learned that Sunday school groups tend to be their own small families within the church family.

The people in my Sunday school class know more about me than almost anyone in our church. There have been times that someone in our class has needed extra help and we’ve all come together to pray, lift-up, and support that person. I’ve also heard of other classes in our church being the same way.

Take Advantage of Sunday Morning Fellowship

If you’re new to a church, the best way to get to know people is to show up early and interact with everyone before the service. Almost every church I have ever been to has some sort of coffee stand in the foyer for people to get their coffee and mingle with others before the service. This is a good way to not only meet new people but it’s also a good way to get information about the different activities that your church puts on for you to possibly get involved in.

When I first started attending my church, I used to purposefully avoid this time like the plague. I’m socially awkward so the thought of meeting new people was scary to me. Eventually though, with the help of a few people from my Sunday School class I started mingling more and was able to effectively meet most, if not all, the people that are in our congregation.

Don’t Sit with the Same People

If you’ve ever been to a church BBQ or Potluck, you know exactly why I’m saying this. So often we end up treating church lunches and dinners like lunch in the high-school cafeteria. Family units always sit together with close family friends and it never changes. Believe me, I’m just as guilty as the next person when it comes to this. In fact, I take it a step further and even sit at the exact same table every single time.

The point of these dinners is so you can get to know the people in your church. They are meant to bring EVERYONE closer together. If you’re constantly sitting with the same people at the same table every time, you’re missing out getting to know someone else.

Get Involved

If you’re going to church on Sunday morning, listening from the back half of the room, leaving, and then not engaging in any activities throughout the week, odds are you are missing out on multiple opportunities to get to know people in your congregation on a more personal level. The activities that churches normally schedule are meant to bring people closer together as a family.

 If you’re really wanting to connect with people that you know you share things in common with, see if there are any ministries within the church that you can help with that interest you. If you know what your spiritual gift is and can find a ministry within the church to get involved in that matches your spiritual gift, then you’ll not only be getting closer to some of the members of your congregation, but you’ll also be using the gift that God gave you for His purpose.

Being Apart of the Family

I remember when we first started going over the spiritual gifts in our church and I was shocked that I scored 10’s all the way across the board in writing. I knew that some people were gifted writers, but I didn’t realize that it was considered a spiritual gift. I’m not sure why I was so surprised because writing has always come natural to me. To say that I’ve been frustrated over the last few weeks with this article is an understatement. No matter how many times I have sat down to write this piece, the words just refused to flow naturally. I knew this was an article that God wanted me to write, but I could not understand why He wasn’t helping me write what He had instructed me to. Today, I understood. I had to go through today to be able to fully convey how important this concept is.

Today was my first day back to church since everything shut down back in March. Two months of watching the service via Facebook. Two months of longing to sit in the same pew I’ve sat in for the last two years. Two long months of wanting nothing but to hug and hold people that have become my family over the course of my time at my church. Before today, I had a pretty good grasp on the concept that fellowship is important. But today, I understood exactly how much we need that fellowship.

I have typed out this article about five times now. I have typed it, reviewed it, attached it to an email for a second set of eyes to look over, just to discard the email and delete the entire article and start fresh. It never felt right, it didn’t look right, and it just didn’t have a natural flow to it that most of my work does. But today, I understand that it just was not the correct time for the article to be published. God needed me to experience what I did today for me to write this article properly.

The last few months, we have all been in isolation as the world has been crippled by world governments trying to stop the spread of a virus. All around the world, people have been watching church services from afar. We’ve been watching from our homes, praying and worshiping from our living room couches. Since the world seemed to come to a screeching halt just two short months ago there have been many people making comments about how they were perfectly fine with staying home and worshiping. The comments have been made that the church is not a building, it is a people. The church is us. As true as this is, God tells us multiple times in the bible that we were not made to be alone. In fact, God gives us our first clue to this within the first chapters of the bible when He tells us that no suitable helper for Adam was found amongst the creatures He had placed on the earth. It was because of this God created Eve (Genesis 2:20).

There is Something that Takes Place When We Come Together

Our pastor has been saying for months that there is a certain feeling that happens when God’s children come together. Matthew 18:20 says “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” It is not that Christ isn’t always with us, but I can tell you from personal experience that there is a different feeling worshiping from home versus worshiping with others who share the same belief. It is not the building or the beauty of the sanctuary. There is an electrifying feeling that hits you like a bolt of lightning, sending a spine-tingling sensation from the roots of your hair clear down to the tips of your toes. It is a presence that will drop you to your knees in awe and wonder, and it can only be found when God’s children come together.

Not only is there something that takes place when we are together, the longer we are apart, evil will find ways to tear us down. It starts subtly so that you may not notice what’s happening and it happens in different stages.

We Become Vulnerable When We Are Isolated

There really is truth behind the old saying “safety in numbers”.  When we are isolated and alone, we become weak and vulnerable to the spiritual attacks that evil likes to wage on our minds. Science proves that people who are isolated notice changes to their sleep patterns. People begin to experience hallucinations and for those that battle mental illnesses, it becomes almost debilitating. Not only is there scientific evidence that isolation is horrible for human beings, Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.” It goes on even further in verse 12 to say that “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

Once we become isolated, we are no longer as strong as we are together. Yes, Jesus is always standing behind us, holding us up in the waves of life, but when we have others to help create a cord, the more strands there are, the stronger the cord is. The more of us that stand together in the name of God the harder it is for Satan to weasel his way into each of our lives. It is when we become isolated, and we begin to become weak that evil can get its foot in the door, without us even realizing it is there.

We Become Discouraged

This is the first step in Satan’s attack against us. Hebrews 10:24-25 “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more you see the Day approaching.” If we are not getting the encouragement we need from others, the discouragement festers and grows like a cancer. The world feels like it’s falling down around you and you start making small, negative comments that are either only meant for yourself to hear or you make them in such a way that people around you think your handling the situation with a little bit of humor. After a while, without encouragement from other Christians, you find yourself making comments like “things are never going to go back to normal” or “whoever keeps playing Jumanji, please don’t roll the dice next month”.  This is the perfect opportunity for Satan to sneak in more misfortune to make you feel even more discouraged. During a normal time, you would have other Christians to lean on and support you.

I cannot even tell you how many times over the last couple of months I have had to keep telling myself that everything was going to be okay. In the times that I got too overwhelmed, God made sure that I had the encouragement I needed in the form of a card in the mail or a phone call from someone else in the congregation.

We Suffer Alone

Suffering alone is the second step to Satan’s attack on our minds. When we become discouraged our first thought is not to call someone else and whine and cry about our misfortunes. We live in a society where we have been groomed to not reach out for help when we need it, especially emotionally. If we are struggling spiritually or mentally, we have been taught from an early age that it’s selfish to expect others to care about what is going on in your life all of the time. If you reach out to someone regarding these matters, you are seeking attention. But the bible tells us differently. 1st Corinthians 12:25-26 “so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” We, as Christians, are the body. When one suffers, we suffer with that person. When we are isolated and separated this cannot happen in the way that God intended it to. When we suffer without our fellow Christians to help us through the darkness, without the encouragement needed to make it through, we become even more discouraged than we previously were.

I too have fallen into this trap. When I’m suffering, I don’t want people to hear or see me cry, so I tend to suffer in silence and after a while it leads to an even worse outcome. I get more and more discouraged and it becomes harder to defeat evil on the spiritual battlefront.

We Become Stagnant

This is, by far, the most dangerous of things that happens to us when we become isolated. It starts out so small that we don’t even notice it and by the time that we do (if we do) we’ve already let down our guard. The moment you become stagnant is the moment you put down your sword, that is the word of God. Just like discouragement, it starts out small. It could be something as small as forgetting to read a daily devotional and then the devotional doesn’t get picked back up again for days. It could be as big as not logging on to the live service one Sunday because it’s just not suiting your fancy, and you’ll start going again once you’re physically able to, but once that day comes, you’re already used to staying at home on Sundays.

I didn’t realize how stagnant I’d become over the last two months. Yes, I had tried to write, but I was getting frustrated with it. I was getting discouraged and instead of calling someone in my congregation for support, I suffered alone in my own thoughts and disappointment in myself. My stagnation was also harder to recognize as I have been taking the last month to water a seed that I planted two years ago. In providing this person with bible verses and studying different areas of the bible with him over the last month, it was harder to recognize that I had stopped growing in my own walk. It wasn’t until this morning, when the doors were open to the church, and I almost didn’t go because I was tired from a weekend of house cleaning that I understood just how stagnant I had become. I realized in that moment I was under attack. I know if I have been, other Christians are being attacked the same way.

This is why it is so dire to find a church to call home. As important as it is to go and learn about God’s word and as important as it is to go to worship our creator, as a more mature Christian and as a baby, just taking their first steps in their walk with God, our church families are our cords. We hold each other together, we fight for each other, and we make sure that our brothers and sisters don’t lose their way in the darkness. And it is a family that I am proud to say I am apart of.

5 Tips to Church Shopping

We’ve all heard the term “church shopping” at some point or another. If you don’t know what that is, put simply, it is the act of going from one church to another until you’ve found the right one that fits you and your family. Navigating your way through the journey of finding the perfect church for you can be challenging, especially if you don’t know where to start or what to look for. If you’re currently searching for a church to call home, here are my top 5 tips to help you along the way.

1) Start Somewhere You’re Familiar with or Do Your Homework
This statement is probably the best piece of advice I can give you. Attending the Church of Mickey Mouse because your favorite celebrity attends that same church is a horrible idea if you’re not familiar with the church or it’s practices and you’ve done absolutely no research. I can give countless examples of people who started attending churches they knew nothing about and got themselves in trouble. If there is a church that you’re curious about, but you know nothing about it, looking at church’s website should give you a general idea of what their morals are and what they stand for.
When I first started church shopping a few years ago, I was totally lost on where to even start. I had a list of a few different churches in town that I’d heard good things about, but I didn’t really know anything about them. I was lucky enough to have a background in the Nazarene Church, so even though it wasn’t on my list, it’s where I decided to start. It’s funny that I never even made it to any of the other churches because this church fit everything I was looking for.

2) Search for A Church in A Way That Best Suits You and Your Personality
There are two different ways to look for a church to call home. The first is to go from one church to another every week until you either find the perfect fit or you run out of churches and just pick one. The second way to go about it is to attend one church for a month or so, get a feel for the pastor and the congregation and then either choose to stay or move-on to the next one after your “trial period” is up.
I intended on trying every single church that was on my list when I first started thinking about going back to church. The problem with that is I’m very shy around new people which means had I gone with my original plan odds are I would have said forget it after church #2. The idea of having to meet multiple new people for however many Sunday’s in a row was a scary thought and I can honestly tell you God made sure I ended up where I needed to be on the first round.

3) Walk Through the Front Door
First impressions are everything! 69% of people form a first impression of places and people within the first 20 to 30 seconds of entering a building or meeting a person. This means that if you walk through a side door, where there are probably no greeters, by the time you get to the sanctuary you’ve already made your first initial analysis of what the church and its congregation are like. Odds are going through a side door will leave you completely unnoticed and you’ll feel neglected and unwelcomed. However, if you go through the front door, not only will you be welcomed but you’ll also be able to form a more accurate picture of what the people are like. Did the greeter look happy to be there? Did he or she recognize that they had never seen you in their church before? Did they introduce you to anyone else? You won’t be able to properly assess these interactions if you enter anywhere but the main entrance.
The first time I stepped through the front door of my church, I was extremely nervous, and I purposely showed up when I knew everyone was going to be in Sunday school classes. I purposely wanted to avoid attention and instead I was instantly greeted by not one but two people. I got a personalized tour of the church and the young woman that was guiding me was able to get a better feel for what I was looking for and was able to direct me towards a Sunday school class that she thought would best work for me. I’ve been in that same class for the last two years.

4) Pay Attention to Everything
I don’t mean pay attention to the number of materialistic things the church has. In the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter how pretty the stained-glass windows are or how big their grand piano is. What I mean by pay attention is pay attention to the people and how they’re interacting with not only you but watch how they interact with each other. Do they treat each other like family, or do they treat each other like acquaintances that just get together once a week? It doesn’t matter how big the congregation is, if the church is healthy the people will interact as a healthy family.
With my church, there was a sense of family the minute I walked through the door and I’ve learned over the last two years that this is what we are. We are a family. Everyone knows everyone and there’s not much we all wouldn’t do for each other. It’s one of the many reasons I decided to stick with the church I did.

5) Question What You See and Hear
1 st John 4:1 says “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
The reason I quote this passage is because a person should not be afraid to question what they are hearing. God doesn’t tell us to walk into a new church and automatically trust what the pastor is teaching. He tells us to test it. Is the pastor teaching from the word of God or is he teaching from his own book? If you hear something that doesn’t line up with God’s word or you hear something that you question, don’t be afraid to do your own research to discover the truth.
When I first started attending the Church of the Nazarene, God quickly gave me the sign that what was being taught lined up with His word. There had been a scripture earlier in the week of the first Sunday that I attended that I didn’t understand and ironically enough, what was being taught that week revolved around that scripture. As I started attending more frequently, I noticed that the pastor paid very close attention to detail and preached things that I knew to be truth.

No matter how you go about searching for the church that’s right for you, know that God is with you through this journey. Remember to listen to Him and He will guide you to where you were meant to be.