spiritual obligation vs religious obligation

Can you be so commited to serving your church that you really aren't serving God anymore? Can you distance yourself away from commitment and become stagnant ?
We as Christians especially in this day and age don't like the word obligation, I think there are two sides one being that your so committed to serving your church that you burn out and the other side is that your so afraid of commitment that you cant really be affective in any ministry your a part of, you need a happy medium.


Spiritual Obligation

God calls us to be fishers of men meaning we have to be out there, we cant just sit in our pews and think deep Godly thoughts. We have to be out there trying (key word try) to live as Jesus lived. Here are some words that really hit me hard. Ezekiel 33:1-20
Sometimes I think " have I done enough" and thats not the thought I'm getting at here, grace and love is still what its about, but I think to myself "I've been in situations where I could have shown people Gods love and I have done nothing" and thats hard to live with sometimes. But just being out there doesnt hold any meaning if you don't live and breath it. which is kind of what my next point religious obligation is about.

Religious Obligation
Well read the book of Ecclesiastes if you want my opinion on "religion" Its all meaningless if it isn't for Jesus.(and for Jesus means that its what he wants, because good intentions aren't always right)(and also for Jesus means for the holy trinity, Its kinda weird I'm kinda realizing how one sided I am). You can be a leader in church, "convert" thousands of people, but if you don't practice what you preach what is the worth. I think sometimes church leaders guilt people into filling positions, sometimes it works and you get people who were a little nervous going in who turn out to really be comfortable, and sometimes it really turns people off even if maybe they do fill that position that they are guilted into you dont find long term committed people by guilting them into a position.

Sometimes I think we get so caught up that we forget that were not doing this for a church, were not doing this for a church leader, were not doing this for our friends, were not doing this for our family, were not doing this for anyone but for God.

in Christ
chad

moral issues in the workplace

well I havent really blogged about how work has been going, but I'll try to catch everyone up.
so for the past 3 and a half weeks i have been working for Nutri- Lawn, a small company which does a variety of services. I have been doing fertilizing for the past 3 weeks, which brings me to my topic.

Well this is what has been my issue, I have been doing fertilizing, liquid fertilizing to clarify. I dont know if everyone knows the evils of this but ill explain a little more. What liquid fertilizer is(to my knowledge): main ingredients are nitrogen and phosphorous. the main reason for algae blooms on lake Winnipeg. While Liquid fertilizer isnt the biggest cause of high nitrogen and phosphorous levels, it is still a significant part. heres a wikipedia article about algae blooms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom

Now one thing about spraying liquid fertilizer is that it is expensive, meaning mostly richer people get it done, and rich people have riverfront, pond front properties, which is basically like me spraying this stuff right into lake Winnipeg. Which is killing alot of stuff in the lake.

so this is my moral issue at work well actually I quit today because I found a more permanent job.
does anyone else have moral issues at work? maybe you work at a restaurant and push alcoholic products on people. etc

last nights clubs

Last nights clubs went very well, I was able to get through my lesson, with only a slight disinterest. Though now I feel like I should have improvised and taught something about Jesus, because the topic was how powerful God is and all it talked about was creation, but I feel I should have added something about the miracles of Jesus, so powerful and it would have gone with the lesson.

One of the things I got the kids to do last night was fill out a about me sheet, and over half of them asked if they were supposed to put there dads in the parents section even though they don't live with them. That troubles me, I relied on my parents to teach me about Jesus, and without a father I don't think I would be half the man I am today.

deep and developed thoughts about stuff to come... (If I keep on saying this, will it come true?)

round 2

well I am Teaching pioneer clubs again tonight, this time i have put some more effort into my lesson, which most of the time helps things go a little smoother. One problem I have with pioneer clubs so far is that the lessons arent really about Jesus, all of them tell of Gods love for us but they dont really entail Jesus. But now this is going through my head, I usually try to teach Jesus, but theres more to faith than Jesus, there is God the father and the holy spirit. its just hard to think of teaching 3 parts in 1 lesson. maybe ill post after clubs tonight. this is just me spewing out thought in a short time, so none of this is really thought out.

sorry im a bad blogger

I have all these ideas culminating in my head that I want to blog about and all this new stuff in my life that I want to blog about but I never seem to do it. I don't know what it is...

well ive been working for Nutri-lawn for almost 2 weeks now, besides the hours (mon-sat 7- 4/5ish) I enjoy myself for the most part. Ive been doing a bunch of different stuff the first 3 days I was cutting grass, the next day I was aerating(big machine that pokes holes in the ground) then the rest of the time I have been spraying fertilizer . The one thing about those hours i work is that it is impossible to really start to look to find work for the winter.

on Sunday i had a wonderful time in Gimli hanging out with some of my friends from camp, throwing rocks at seagulls was pretty fun haha.

this week I started teaching pioneer clubs at my church(it is a program for children ages 4 to grade 6, dont really know how to explain what it is) I had 9 kids in my class(grades 3-4) lets just say about 3/4 of my kids come from unstable homes, our topic of the day was respect and the kids knew what it meant but certainly did not apply it, it was really rough, I could barely say a word before I was interrupted time and time again. It seems like some of there hearts are already hardened so much that its going to take a lot of work to gain trust and respect from these kids, so I just pray that god will help me work in these hearts.

one thing about working early and long days is that I am absolutely dead tired by 9:30 which is weird for me cause if I have a choice I stay up till at least 12-1 and sleep till 10.

I hope to be blogging some of these deep thoughts I have sometime in this next week

chad

ptl

well about a hour after I posted my last post I got a phone call saying that I could start work on monday. its at a lawn care place so its only temporary(with a possibility of snow clearing in the winter), but its still a job and im happy for it.

in a rut

Well it feels like in almost every aspect my life is in a rut. I still don't have a job, spiritually I feel stagnant, musically I haven't written anything in a while, socially I haven't really been doing much at all, physically I haven't been doing much of anything other than sitting around, and mentally I haven't been thinking deep thoughts.

I am going to say that it is motivation that I lack, because that is what it is. Lack of motivation is killing me, as most of you know I have no future plans, I have no degree that I am in school for, I have little sense of where God is leading me.

This frustrates me immensely.

last weekend I went out to Turtle Mountain Bible Camp for my churches family camp, I took about 120 pictures, so ill share some of them.

you can check out some more pictures at http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y8/chadR/sept%20long/