{"id":1292,"date":"2011-08-22T10:29:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-22T16:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/one-church.net\/crosseyedlife\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2011-08-22T10:29:05","modified_gmt":"2011-08-22T16:29:05","slug":"the-vacation-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/22\/the-vacation-is-over\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vacation Is Over"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just dropped the boys off for the first day of school&#8230; one of them a junior higher for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There was lots of crying, fretting and snot blowing before school, but I should be better by lunch.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been trying to imagine what this day is like for them, and I can visualize several things: trading items off their tray at lunch, bouncing legs under the desk trying to mask a little nervousness, and awkward conversations with kiddos they haven\u2019t seen for three months.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure they are talking about teachers, the coming year and what they did over the summer. We (adults) do the same thing since they are just smaller, slightly less mature versions<!--more--> of ourselves, underscore slightly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I wonder what their descriptions of a \u201cgood\u201d summer vacation look like. Probably the best ones are filled with stories of fast roller coasters, expensive theme parks and excessive pizza intake. Or, maybe what would top their list is the perfect camp sight, late night stories and s\u2019mores around the campfire, and fun in the lake.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Most adults have a different view of a good vacation. Listening to their conversation I am sure we\u2019d hear descriptions of four to five star hotels, sleeping in, pool side lounging and excessive intake of exotic cuisine.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It is good to take a\u00a0 break, get away and chillax (sorry, I just channeled my inner Vanilla Ice). But, we all have to come home and get back to work at some point.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For those of us who call ourselves believers, this is especially important when it comes to the church. We can\u2019t have a vacation mindset when it comes to our faith community, and that\u2019s very difficult when we have been trained to be consumers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Our schools have parent organizations that plead and bribe parents to just \u201cshow up\u201d for an information meeting.<\/li>\n<li>Our food banks and clothing closets beg for the spare change in our pockets.<\/li>\n<li>And volunteer organizations bashfully ask for us to carve out an hour a week for others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But, usually, we are so wrapped up in our own world that we don\u2019t have the time, money or energy to help with the needs of others. We try to live lives permanently on vacation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We can\u2019t spare the time because we have to catch up on our DVR\u2019ed shows. We can\u2019t spare the money because we\u2019re making payments on that second LCD TV for the man cave. We don\u2019t have the energy because we poured it all out at the gym, sculpting those buns.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We are so consumer-oriented, me-focused and ego-centric that we\u2019re not even embarrassed to put ourselves far above the needs of others.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s normal, unfortunately.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This mentality has seeped into the church as well:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019m looking for more contemporary worship\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe preacher puts me to sleep\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWhat kinds of children\u2019s programs do you offer?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019m looking for some good, Godly hymns!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDoes the youth group take a ski trip?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWhy don\u2019t you have a singles ministry?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou better only use the King James Version.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou\u2019ll have a nursery for that event, right?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cTurn the drums down! That can\u2019t honor Jesus!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou know what this church needs? I\u2019ll tell you&#8230;\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In our vacation\/consumer mentality, we have somehow mistaken our church for a Spiritual Resort &amp; Day Spa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The thought that you sat through some membership class a couple years ago and now you throw your \u201cdues\u201d in the plate every couple of weeks makes you some kind of member entitled to services&#8230; well, it\u2019s just not biblical.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Your church, wherever you attend, is not a vacation destination it is a military installation. It\u2019s not the place you come to get pampered, it\u2019s the training ground where you come to get prepared for spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With regard to our churches, the focus should not be on what we get, but what we can give.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We were saved to serve.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Luke 4<\/p>\n<p><strong><sup>38<\/sup><\/strong>And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon\u2019s house. Now Simon\u2019s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. <strong><sup>39\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Back from the brink of death, this women offered the most natural response, she began to serve.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If our natural inclination is not to hit our knees in service to others out of gratitude for what our Lord has already done for us, we need to recalibrate.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to remember the grace we\u2019ve been given, instead of pounding the table, complaining to the \u201cwait staff\u201d and demanding more.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to pour it out, use it up and leave nothing left when it comes to living our lives for others&#8230; love God, grow up and serve all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You were saved to serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just dropped the boys off for the first day of school&#8230; one of them a junior higher for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>There was lots of crying, fretting and snot blowing before school, but I should be better by lunch.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been trying to imagine what this day is like for them, and I can visualize several things: trading items off their tray at lunch, bouncing legs under the desk trying to mask a little nervousness, and awkward conversations with kiddos they haven\u2019t seen for three months.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure they are talking about teachers, the coming year and what they did over the summer. We (adults) do the same thing since they are just smaller, slightly less mature versions of ourselves, underscore slightly.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder what their descriptions of a \u201cgood\u201d summer vacation look like. Probably the best ones are filled with stories of fast roller coasters, expensive theme parks and excessive pizza intake. Or, maybe what would top their list is the perfect camp sight, late night stories and s\u2019mores around the campfire, and fun in the lake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[409,408,410,267,411],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1294,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions\/1294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}