Why Can't We Be Friends

This post includes an array of music videos. Some old, some new and all on purpose that have found meaning in my life at different times. Enjoy!

This song is my post's thesis! Great song! My favorite part is where dude elbows the keyboard! Classic.

Churches seldom work together well! It is more human nature, and sadly has been in large part of church culture as well, to separate when we don't agree on an issue. But I'm sensing a shift if not on a larger scale at least on a local scale. I'm sensing that people want to start working together again. I'm sensing that past differences mean less and that people are seeking a true and authentic relationship with Jesus without all the baggage that comes with past hurts. I think what young people are screaming is, "Church, don't give me any sob stories just show me Jesus!" And I think it's coming!

This is something to get excited about! Because myself and those around me believe that God wants to do something great in not only our churches but in our communities, in our city. I'm a part of a network of youth workers that gather monthly to worship, learn, listen, teach, pray and more but the general rule of the gathering is, "Come to uplift others or be lifted." That's it! Just come as you are in your celebrations of what God is doing in your life and in the places where you need help to stay in His presence. If the conversation of what our specific beliefs are and how we think the proper age and process of baptism should be we would probably differ but we don't go there. We just gather and worship God and lift up His people all together and pray that God's light would shine through us all! It is the best time of my month because I love to meet with the wider church and work together.

And so I'm seeing that individuals desperately want Jesus without all the baggage (after all Jesus did come to set us free!) and I'm seeing leaders who work with young people striving to praise God together and I think that the next obvious progression would be to have young people meeting together to worship, learn, listen, teach, pray and more but really coming together to "Lift and be lifted." And I'm not talking about a rally. I'm talking about something where relationship is fostered and where the vision of God is celebrated in a grass roots, youth embraced and Jesus centric way. But there is a problem.

The problem is that while our desires are transforming, and in my opinion coming to a closer representation of what God has planned for us, our programming still hasn't changed. So we have new hopes and are trying to get there with the old ideas. Or you could look at it this way. Our GPS has been set to go to Chicago from LA but we've heard the call that it is now time to go to Miami but we haven't turned the wheel. I think that many of us have heard that call to change our direction but we haven't come to the point where we have actually turned the wheel.

I think it will be hard to make that change. Change is always hard, but it's worth it if that is what we are called by God to do!

As much as I think that I've given the driving duties to Jesus,

I often find myself reclaiming the wheel.  

  If you haven't listened to either of these songs yet  you can pause and do that. You don't have to listen  to both of them. I gave you a country option and a  rap option for the diversities among you. My personal time while listening to either of these songs brings me to confession. May you be blessed.

  I would like to try something but I can't do it on my own. It's risky and my local church might just hate it and I don't really know what it will look like but I think it's time to turn the wheel.

I want to gather with different christian groups often. I want the young people that I directly work with to get to know the young people in the city who claim Christ as Lord. I want the people of Albright Church to not only know those outside these walls but to appreciate them, to pray for their churches, to speak highly of what other places are doing and together to do what we can't do alone. I want this city to see the hope that Jesus offers and I want to see it done not church by church but by Christians united together through the bond of peace and celebration.

But what we're doing now isn't going to get us there! It's not going to get our groups there. I feel the need to change. To change what we are doing alone and to turn into something that we can do all together not just once a year at Love Winnipeg, not just to see it at the annual One Heart worship gathering but on a continual basis with divine intent. I want the young people in our ministry to love Jesus, to love others and to share his heart for many together with all the saints.

Let's start! Let's start critically looking at our schedules in the months to come. Let's start critically looking at how we spend our days. Let's start communicating more often at unscheduled times. Let's start turning that wheel! It won't happen overnight but imagine what it could look like in 2 years, in 5 years, in a new generation. Imagine the testimony to the world if churches started working together and didn't fight so much for territory but for the Kingdom of God to be revealed?

I don't have all the answers. In fact I think that as I continue down the road I continue to have more questions, but they are more informed and inspired questions that I trust through prayer and community will lead us into a greater realization of what God has planned for where I am, for where we are, to where He wants us.  

Why can't we be friends? If I can play the background and Jesus can take the wheel then truly it call all be about YOU, Jesus!

I'd welcome your thoughts on this and your prayers also.