Recently I have discovered the biggest cause for my constant headaches and migraines. After undergoing allergy testing I found out that I am allergic to wheat and oats, two main components of just about anyone’s diet. I have suffered from terrible ongoing headaches for years and have never found a solution for them. I tried medication, chiropractic treatment, and Alexander technique combined with pressure point treatment. None of these have fully relieved my headaches. Since I have suffered from them for so long, on some days more than others I have been able to ignore my headaches for the most part, but never completely. Over the past few weeks since I have cut out wheat and oats completely out of my diet, I can gladly say that I have been headache free. I am so thankful for finally figuring out the real solution. For years I suffered and continued making my problem worse by continuing to eat foods I am allergic to. If I had not discovered these allergies now the situation could have been worse in the future. Just as I have been putting toxic foods in my body, we all allow toxic things into our lives. These toxic parts of our lives can be anything: relationships, ungodly habits, the ways in which we allow society to influence us, and so many other things. God gives us the tool to combat these toxic things in our lives. He gives us His Word to read and study to know what truth really is. He gives us communities of other followers of Christ to support us and encourage us. The interesting part about my allergy discovery is that several months prior to this discovery God gave me the desire to study gluten free baking. At the time I felt sorry for all my friends who were gluten-free and how they could not enjoy the food at parties. Never once did I think that God was actually preparing me for my own lifestyle change. The same goes for having toxicity in our lives. Never do we say “I expect to have toxicity in my life and I am ready.” There are toxic things in our lives that we cannot see. Some of the toxic things in our lives have been there for so long that we have been able to ignore them. Those toxic pieces of our lives have been there for so long that we begin to think that they are good when they are not. I am just as guilty about this as anyone else. But with God and His Word, we can overcome the toxicity in our lives. It will be a difficult process to remove the toxicity from our lives, but it is necessary for us to grow closer to God in our relationship with Him and for us to be stronger lights in this dark world. Three steps that we can take in removing the toxicity in our lives are:
How are you going to combat toxicity in your life?
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This summer I had the opportunity to work with the North Carolina Baptist State Convention and learn about church revitalization. Through my research God has shown me more clearly what His call on my life is in ministry. I am thankful for all the people I was able to connect with and all the churches I was able to speak with.
One of the biggest lessons God taught me through my research was how biblical church revitalization is. As I have said before, just as we need to continually be revitalized individually, churches need to continually be revitalized. A church cannot just go through a revitalization process and expect all problems to be fixed. By looking at church revitalization in this way when approaching examples in the Bible, you can see many examples in Paul’s writings. One example from Paul’s writings is his first letter to Timothy. In First Timothy the assessment step of church revitalization is seen very evidently. In the assessment step of a revitalization strategy, there are three areas that should be assessed: the leadership, the congregation, and the community. It is necessary to start with assessing the leadership, because if there is a problem within the leadership of a church, it is most likely affecting the entire congregation. In 1 Timothy 3-4, Paul explains to Timothy how the people need to know their roles. Paul discusses gender roles and positions in the church. When assessing the leadership in a church, some of the aspects to look for are as follows: positions and roles are clearly established, leadership structure is established, responsibilities are clearly defined, and communication between leaders is clear. Some problems that may be evident are: one person has too many responsibilities, there are some positions that are unnecessary for the church to function well and are in actuality hindering the church, there are holes in the structure of the leadership, and communication is not clear. The next area of assessment is the congregation. As stated before, some of the problems seen in the leadership of a church may be seen in the congregation or may have caused other problems in the congregation. In 1 Timothy 2 and 5 it can be seen of how there was disunity in the body of believers. Paul points out to Timothy how prayer will unite them and how there should not be anyone neglected. The church body should pray for all people in the church and outside of the church, and no one should be neglected because of their place, age, or skill level. Some of the problems that may occur with a church body are as follows: the communication between the leadership and the body is unclear, the body’s vision for the church is not the same as the leadership, people in the body are focused on their preferences and not on other people’s needs, and the body of believers is not being training in discipleship and evangelism. Lastly, the community around the church should be assessed. In the community surrounding the church of Ephesus, being addressed in Paul’s letter to Timothy, there were people teaching false doctrine. Throughout Paul’s letter he tells Timothy the importance of protecting the gospel by teaching and preaching. There are different cultures surrounding different churches, and the church body should learn about the cultures in its local community. Without learning about the cultures in the community surrounding a church, the body risks isolating itself and influencing the community in a negative way. Paul’s first letter to Timothy is only one example of biblical church assessment. You can find Paul’s assessments for churches in all of his letters. Assessment is a vital part of church revitalization, and it is important to go about assessment in a biblical way. A church consultant should assist a church with assessing the leadership, congregation, and community, but do it with humility. There are so many things that we do without thinking about them. Breathing, blinking, walking, waking up, etc. There are other things that we do without thinking about them because we have made them habits. Hanging out with certain people, brushing our hair every day, driving, etc. If only thinking about God and spending time with God came this natural to us to where we do not have the think about it. I have struggled my entire life to spend time with God and make him a part of everything in my life. I have the desire to spend time with God, but I do not find myself spending time with God as often as I brush my hair. There should be an urgency in our hearts to spend time with God and think about him, just as there is an urgency for us to breath every second. God should be so much a part of our lives that we don’t even have to think about spending time with him or hesitate to allow him to work in us and through us, just as blinking and breathing are so much a part of our lives that we don’t have think about it. Creating new habits and breaking old habits has always been difficult for me, especially if I am thinking about it. However, when I was getting my undergraduate degree I took this class that I never saw myself taking. It was a class on Alexander Technique, and the class did not just teach me about the technique. By taking that class I learned a better way of thinking about life. A habit that I had the hardest time breaking was leaning on my shorter leg when I stand still. Standing straight up on both of my feet never felt comfortable and I knew how I stood was not good for my back. Over the course of that semester I used the technique to make myself aware of the habit and instead of trying to fix it every time I noticed it, I was able to fix it natural just through awareness. If we were to take this technique and apply to how we think about God and how much time we spend with God, then we would be able to create new habits more easily and break bad habits. I have started with applying it to how I speak. All of us do not think about what we say and how we say things, and in many cases do not glorify God with our speech. In James, the author warns against such speech. I hope that glorifying God more with my words will lead to thinking about him more, and that will lead to the bettering of other habits in my life like my quiet time. I challenge everyone this month as I have myself to choose one area of your life. Maybe for you it is trying to hang out with people you normally would not so you can have more evangelistic habits. Maybe for you it is bettering your quiet time or prayer life, and making making yourself aware of how much time you do not spend with God in His Word and in prayer. Just start with one area and allow God to work and that will filter into other areas of your life where old habits need to be broken and new habits made. This morning I was having my quiet time with the Lord and I felt inspired about church revitalization from one of the passages I read. So here’s a spontaneous blog post.
I was reading Psalms 70 and 71 and I was trying to find strength for myself for what I have been going through recently in my life, but instead of only finding joy and strength for myself, God helped me find something more. The part of the passage that stood out to me the most was Psalm 71:4, 17-22. Verse 4: "Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man." Verses 17-22: "O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you? You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel." God revealed to me how this passage could be a picture of a church that is going through a revitalization. Only the power of God can rescue a church from decline. God has done great things through his church and only he can continue to do great things. Even though a church is in decline and experiencing troubles, conflict, and a loss of hope, God can revive the church through these troubles. God can revive the church and increase their growth, greatness, and give them joy and comfort again knowing that God is faithful. Church revitalization is a continuous process. Every individual and every church needs to continuously be revived. I am personally at a point currently where some days I feel that it is hard to find my strength in God, but God continues to remind me that I don’t have to have the strength because he will get me through the day. This passage was a great reminder of just how faithful God is to his people and his church. A couple months ago I was cooking dinner for my friends when I made a huge mistake. I always love experimenting with ingredients in the kitchen, and I thought that I had bought poblano peppers from the grocery store. As I was prepping the ingredients to make my taco pie, I started to cough, but I thought it was just from the very strong onion I diced up. Little did I know it was not from the onion. I sautéed all the vegetables and was still getting choked, and then I realized that I had accidentally bought habanero peppers instead. My hands were burning from the encounter with them, and I even had to that night take my contacts out and flush my eyes out because nothing would neutralize the pepper juice on my hands. For days I had to endure fiery hands, which definitely made me regret trying to experiment with peppers of all the ingredients, but I just accepted the consequences. However, I was reminded of a very important lesson that week of fiery hands and it was not that I should be careful when using peppers in the kitchen. It was that spiritual warfare is real, and if we do not lean on God during times of trial, then the consequences will be worse than just enduring trials. Lately I have been able to see the spiritual warfare in my life more evidently than I ever have before. It has tried to distract me from being motivated and desiring to spend time with God and it has taken away my energy. Just like I was distracted by a new ingredient I had never used before and I misread the fine print before using so it took away my excitement of cooking for my friends, spiritual warfare can become a distraction and steal our joy in God and what He’s doing amidst the trials. In the end I realized the problem and saved my friends from the fire of my dish and my taco pie turned out to have the perfect amount of spice. If we lean on God no matter if we are dealing with spiritual warfare or not, then when spiritual warfare comes our way it will be evident to us and we will be able to get through it. God gives us tools to help us discern the things of evil and the things of good such as: prayer, community, and God’s Word. It is important to pray to strengthen your relationship with God when you are not enduring trials, so that when the trial comes you will still find joy in God during it. It is important to read your Bible and meditate on the Word of God, so that you can discern more clearly what is of God and what is not. Lastly, it is important to have a strong Christian community to endure the trials with you and pray for you. Now, I know this sounds like simple truths that we have heard many times before. However, we need to constantly be reminded of these truths, myself included, because we easily lose sight of God and what He is doing and forget to have joy even in the trials. The opportunity to go to Paris was one that I never thought I would have. I have not been able to go on a mission trip in three years and I took a risk signing up for the Paris mission trip at Southeastern. After the bombings occurred,, everyone was afraid, and some of the people I knew could not understand why I wanted to go to a place where bombs had just been set off. To be honest, I was more afraid that the trip was going to be cancelled because of the bombings and I would not have the opportunity anymore. I tried not to let people’s fear get to me, which was hard, and just have faith that if it was God’s plan for me to go He would work everything out. God did work everything out. He provided the funding and even with some problems with the missionaries we would be working with, He worked it out. I just returned to the US a few days ago and I am still trying to process everything that happened on the trip. From day one, I could feel the Spirit working as my team and I walked the streets of the Paris Metro area. We got to see a different side of Paris, not just the pretty parts that people can see in pictures. I was thankful to not be spoiled with pretty sights. Instead it was eye-opening and honest. Most of what my team did was assist the missionaries there in locating the people group they wanted to minister to and finding places to reach them. It meant a lot of walking, which none of us were used to. My knee even locked up on me after the second day of walking more than ten miles, but I did not let that stop me from assisting in the furthering of God’s Kingdom. Limping along, I still walked around for the whole trip without much rest to get the work done. One day, we split up into groups and went to the foyers where the immigrants live to ask about English classes. That was probably the scariest, but best part of the work we did because I was the only one in my group who spoke French, which put a lot of pressure on me. When it comes to speaking the languages I know, I do not perform well under pressure. I looked to God for strength. The foyer my group went to did not make me feel very successful, and it wasn’t because I did not speak well with the people. They just did not seem as open to learning English. However, when I thought we were not successful, God proved me wrong. On our way to meet the others, we stopped in a park and spoke with one man, who knew a little bit of English, but really wanted to learn more. I was able to speak to him, and he showed up for the English class later that night, which gave me the opportunity to speak further with him. I really felt the Spirit working in his life that day. Towards the end of the trip I had an opportunity that I never expected to have. I was able to attend a church planting and revitalization conference in Paris in French. It was enjoyable and enlightening. I am excited about what God is doing in the life of the evangelical churches in France. On my mission trip God reminded me of several important lessons in ministry. The first was that in ministry, sometimes we have to do things that we do not want to do, such as walking around for days without a spiritual conversation. Secondly, God reminded me of humility; we need to look at the bigger picture. Thirdly, God confirmed that I am going into the correct field of ministry because he gave me the opportunity to attend this conference just before I started my internship doing research in church revitalization. Lastly, God reminded me that success is not always measured by the furthering of a strategy or how many spiritual conversations we have, it is measured by the work of the Holy Spirit. Yes, those things are important, but if the Holy Spirit is at work in just one person’s life it is successful. I cannot wait to hear updates about the work in Paris and I am excited about my internship this summer with the North Carolina Baptist State Convention. I started working there this past Monday and there will be further updates about what I learn over the summer at this internship. It is very important to live evangelistically. That means that we should not only share the gospel at specified moments, but we should be a living example through all that we do. Everyday we should be looking for ways to share the gospel, talk about God, and show Jesus to people who do not know him. People think it is hard and scary to share the gospel with non-believers, but it is really simple. My life verse is 1 Thessalonians 2:8. In this passage Paul states, “Because we love you so much, we will not only present to you God’s gospel but we will give you our lives.” Sharing life with someone and investing in that person tells a person so much about what being a follower of Jesus is like. This verse is basically saying that we should have the desire to share the gospel with people so badly that we are willing to invest and do whatever it takes to lead them to the Lord and disciple them afterwards. We need to remember that relationship building is important in evangelism, but there needs to be a balance between building a relationship and speaking truth, God’s Word, into a person’s life. Evangelism does not have to be scary. If we use the talents and skills that God gave us then it makes evangelism so much easier, and we do not have to dread over knowing what to say. One of my hobbies is baking. I love to bake and share food with people. For one of my classes here at Southeastern Seminary I am actually writing a cookbook proposal where I share some of my recipes, but I am also teaching people about evangelism along side teaching them my recipes. Just by being open to sharing my baked goods with others, God has opened up so many doors for me to minister to others. I have been able to spend time baking with people to minister to them, make their day by bringing them sweets, or having something in common to talk about to build a relationship. This is only one example of how we can use our talents to share the gospel. If you are having a conversation with someone you just met, maybe use an icebreaker such as an interesting fact to lighten the mood and bridge the gap into talking about the Bible or church. We need to learn to be creative in how we contextualize when we are sharing the gospel with people. What works for one conversation may not work for another one. We cannot expect to be able to have a conversation that is only sharing the gospel every time. We should expect and desire to see God work in people's lives around us and use us to minister to them, being open to having conversations with people. Sometimes it takes time to get to that conversation, even investment. Just like perfecting a recipe takes time and investment. This week being my birthday I have been reflecting on my life and all the blessings that God has given to me. I was reminded yesterday of how we need to take the time to enjoy what God has given us. As Americans this society is time-driven and everyone is so busy. We miss so much that God reveals to us through his creation, because we are always focused on what we need to do instead of focusing on what God has given us. The times when I can get away to just sit and do nothing are times where I feel refreshed and more focused on God, because I do not have all the distractions of the world. Even ministry where we are supposed to be focused on God can be a distraction. I know that may be hard to believe for some people, but ministry takes a lot of energy and we can get so caught up in responsibilities that we forget to look at what God has done in the ministry and enjoy it. I am guilty of this sometimes. I challenge all of us including myself to take more time to practice the discipline of solitude and go enjoy the creation that God has given us. We all need to constantly be refreshed and reminded of the beauty and wonder of God's creation. |
AuthorAshley Faulkenberry Archives
October 2016
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