Cross Training

A little over a year ago, Mark and I started a search for a new church.  We had never been regular church goers, but now that we had kids, we wanted it to become more of a focus in our lives.  Our kids were baptized in the same church we were married in, but it became increasingly clear this was not the church we wanted to attend.  Mark was raised Catholic and I was United Methodist.  The church we sporadically attended was Methodist and it always felt like Mark was going to "my" church.  We needed to find "our" church.  Some friends recommended SouthBrook, so we gave it a try and our "church search" was over.  We've attended church almost every weekend the kids weren't sick for the last year -- more than ever before.  The kids love it and that's saying a lot.  We've gotten involved and joined the Parents Ministry too.  It's really been a life changing experience.

This weekend, in a series modeled after the Olympics, our pastor talked about spiritual training.  This was a totally new concept to me.  Much like physical or sports training, he says we need to train our spiritual lives too in order to keep our faith strong.  Apparently, it's not enough just to try hard as trying hard will only lead to burnout and frustration.  I realized this is exactly what I was doing.  Since renewing my spiritual life a year ago, I've just been trying hard.  I really want to devote my life to Christ and go through the character transformation that goes along with that, but I really don't know how.  I tried really hard at first to read my bible and pray, but eventually I did it less and less and it fell by the wayside.  This isn't good enough.  I wasn't sure what to do about it and I felt like the message this weekend was just for me. 

Our pastor talked about orienting your life around your priorities.  If following Christ is your priority, you will orient you life around that goal.  I haven't been doing this.  I say with my mouth that I want to follow Christ, but I don't follow through with my actions.  So I got to thinking, what are my priorities and what do I orient my life around?  I suppose the answer is work, and therefore money.  I work a full time job and run a Etsy business on the side.  A 10-12 hour day between the two jobs is the norm.  Of course, I will always need to work, but what if I oriented my life around following Christ?  What would that look like?  I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm going to try to figure it out.  I'm certainly a spiritual work in progress.

You can listen to the message here:  http://www.southbrook.org/resources/podcast/fiverings/crosstraining.html