Big Changes !

The past few months have brought about some pretty big changes in our home and in our family life. Months of prayer went into the changes we have made. I think i should start at the "beginning" if there is one :)

We have 4 children. This is no surprise. Our oldest is twelve, and is getting ready to move-up in the church youth system. This caused us to start to really examine youth groups, as we know them. Some pretty interesting things started popping up for us. 

For my husband, it started last summer at some point. He was convicted about not having a time of family worship. A time set aside daily, where we as a family could gather around God's Word and learn. He began doing this with our children in the summer, and I joined in later. He was inspired by the Drapper family in England. Theirs is a pretty neat story. 

It all started for me on October 31st. I listened to Family Life Today, which i rarely do! I was driving to my kids' school to drop something off, when the program came on. You can find it HERE. It is titled "Why Our Kids are Leaving the Faith". This got my attention. The numbers they shared were staggering to me. This prompted me to do more research, and it became clear that the percentage of kids leaving the church during the college years were astonishing... up to 80%! And they are saying now that these kids have "checked-out" as early as the junior high years in the church youth group. 

I believe it was around February that we watched a documentary called  Divided: The Movie. Find the link HERE...you simply have to sign up for a newsletter (which i have not received one yet) to watch it for free. Watching this gave us much to think about. Much. We talked about it and prayed about it. We searched the Scriptures. Finally, we came to a similar conclusion: we could find no basis in the Bible for dividing out the ages as much as we do in the church. Yes, this is how it has been done since early in the 20th century, but why?  With the stakes so high (our own children hitting these ages), we knew we had to do something. 

Growing in both my husband and i was a sense of wanting our children with us in worship service. We desired to worship with ALL the generations together, and not be so separated out. A verse that God has spoken to us clearly is this:

Thus says the Lord:

“Stand in the ways and see,

And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,

And walk in it;

Then you will find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16a

 Also, we began sensing that a smaller church might be a better fit for us as a family. This was not about style, etc. This was about a desire that God placed in our hearts to worship corporately with all ages and stages of life, via the singing of praises to our great God and the preaching of His most excellent, sufficient Word. 

In March, we began acting on what God had placed in our hearts...We began looking for a new local church to join ourselves to. We deeply desired to belong to a family-integrated church....and God blessed us. We believe that God has called us to join in His work at Grace Community Bible Church. It is a family-integrated church. This church stands firm, preaching the Word expositionally. Our children are enjoying it, and are jazzed to go each Sunday morning and Thursday evening. 

We are thankful for the years that God gave us at our former church. When we first walked through the doors there, we were needing to rest. It was a beautiful place to heal, connect, grow, and serve. We are grateful. 

We are also very excited for this next part of our journey. Grace Community is a newer church, just 3 years old. It is an exciting time to be a part of the story God is weaving together there. 

For His Great Name and Glory,

Jeanette

I grew up in the late 70's early 80's. Graduated high school in 1992. In the early years, I knew the Word of Faith  and Charismatic movements. This was, at times,  married with the teachings of the Prosperity Theology. I just accepted everything as it was taught.

As a teen, I was not a Christian, which would call in to question if i ever was one as a youngster. I knew what to say, how to act, etc., but i truly don't believe i was "saved". I lived a life of absolute sin, which was the outworking of a lot of pain that i lived with. i cursed my Lord Jesus. God became nothing more than a genie in a bottle that i would call out to when i was so sad i couldn't breathe. I would play an old Amy Grant album or something, and just cry, or sleep.

I went through a treatment program the last part of my junior year in high school, for drug and alcohol addiction. you have to focus on a higher power, and i knew that the only one bigger than me could be God. So, i chose God to be my "Higher Power" for my program, and no more.

Finally the day came when i went to youth group with a friend that kept inviting me. I realized that i truly needed a Saviour. that i was a sinner. i became a Christ-one that night. Now, i still lived in a difficult situation, but i knew i wasn't alone....for the first time.

I started going to a charismatic church, since that was what i had grown up with. Then i ended up going to a Vineyard church. I remember the first time i went to the youth group (i was about 17). walking in, i could not believe that 70-90 teens could be worshiping the Lord. It blew my mind. Then, they actually had fun with each other, without drugs or liquor. i kept coming back, and ended up involved.

This is a huge flyover of many years of my life!  While in the Vineyard, the Toronto Blessing occurred, and it reached our area one month after it "broke out" there. I became heavily involved in it. heavily. Movements that were big as a result of this were called Third Wave, The River, Latter Rain, Vineyard, Pentecostalism, etc. Now, some of these were around before the Toronto onslaught, but some began during it.

 Eventually i met my husband at a Vineyard church. We ended up leaving that church, and attending a Pentecostal one. After a number of years there, we left there after a poor decision was made by the leadership (without consulting the members) that was against what the Bible teaches. We met with the Pastor and were told we just had to trust the leadership. We couldn't, so we left.

Eventually we landed at a Baptist church that is a part of the Baptist General Conference church (now called Converge Worldwide). It was a bit of a change for me, who was so used to the charismatic, pentecostal way of doing things. This church had order. no one shouting out at inappropriate times. no one saying things i couldn't understand. no one shaking. no one falling. no one drumming us up to emotionalism during the singing time. This made me really start to look into things. And what i discovered changed my life and freed me in ways i never imagined.

I was praying in my head (heart) for a friend's mom one night, who was dying of brain cancer, and i didn't know what else to say to the Lord. I had always been taught to just pray in a tongue when i prayed, so i started to. i happened to be rocking my daughter who was about 8 months old. i stopped, mid-rock, and said "i don't know what i am saying, and this seems strange. i don't even think God knows what i am saying." i put my baby in her crib, and went out to  the living room, directly to my Bible. I read all the verses i had ever used to defend my charismatic tendencies.  I read study notes that explained these verses, what the Greek originally really said. i was stunned. What i had been taught to "do" to directly talk with God was wrong. The TRUE gift of tongues is always a KNOWN language, and used to proclaim the Gospel or to edify. For more on this, please READ THIS by Dr. John MacArthur, Jr. God listened to me when i prayed in English.  I realized how i had been taught to place experience or "words" over what the Bible taught. ACK!

It has been a number of years now that my husband and i have been out of these movements. It cost us a lot to leave. We lost many, many friends when we left the Pentecostal church.
but....
I have walked in more freedom, and grown more spiritually under the solid teaching of the Word of God, more than i ever did through all the shakes, twitches, false tongues, and "experiences" in other movements. You honestly don't realize how much bondage there is in them, until you are on the other side of it.

So, what inspired this post? i am sure you may be wondering! i recently got back a couple of books i had loaned out. One is the book pictured above. i have been re-reading parts of it, and was once again reminded of what i have come out of. Recently i had been asking the Lord about what i had experienced all those years.  This book reminded me of how i had opened myself up to things that were NOT of the Holy Spirit. And it helped me realize that i am not alone.

The other book i have been re-examining is Charismatic Chaos by John MacArthur. This is an excellent book that examines the excesses of these movements. I knew some of the people in this book. i sat under their teaching and was blown on and knocked down by them. i know that what he writes about in this book is very real, and very much needs to be heard.

well, thanks for listening. If you have experienced the excesses of these movements, know that what happened to you was not right. Pick up The Other Side of the River, and give it a read. Pray and ask God for healing for your spirit, which was most likely wounded. Read and pray over God's most excellent and sufficient Word!

There is hope, and there is healing.

I would love to hear your thoughts :)