by Alesha Sinks | Nov 26, 2018 | Church Planting, God's Word, Just Me
There is a drum beating on my heart, pounding in my ears, and slowly, slowly growing in force. With each thrumming beat, the message becomes a little clearer, a little stronger.
We don’t get to decide for others.
We don’t get to decide for others.
We don’t get to decide for others.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1542487669708-VTTFK2H6UGGECPO2B9MJ/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kMz1KsLLeiZAomckU44MpEdZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpwu0TqNuiaV5_GOW_VJjc9kqE8XxJwTvFfpWwgCDn-pCoYcczD5B8JuixdjOl3LKd4/Decide.jpg?format=original" alt=""/>
We don’t get to decide for others.
We don’t get to decide what is hard.
We don’t get to decide what is painful.
We don’t get to decide what is heartbreaking.
We don’t get to decide what is loss.
We don’t get to decide what is sacrifice.
We don’t get to decide what is discouraging.
We don’t get to decide what is overwhelming.
We don’t get to decide what is too much.
We don’t get to decide what is exhausting.
We don’t get to decide what is max capacity.
We don’t get to decide when the breaking point comes or the overwhelm is too great or the weight is too heavy or the hurt is too much.
We don’t get to decide for anyone other than ourselves.
And that can be hard. Because sometimes you can put numbers to people’s pain and struggle and sacrifice. The problem is, you can’t put numbers on the impact those pains and struggles will have on an individual’s heart.
But we try.
Oh we try.
We add up dollars and hours and days and years and life circumstances to try to put individual pain and suffering and hurt and capacity on a scale. Neat and tidy so that we can know how to think about others.
Are they justified in their reaction? Are they hurting as bad as I am? Do they need to suck it up? Do I need to feel sorry for them?
Am I better than they?
Am I stronger than they?
Have I given as much as they?
Have I done as much as they?
Have I done more?
Are they living up to my standard?
Am I living up to their standard?
Are they good enough?
Am I good enough?
And the questions we ask and the measurements we take all come down to selfishness. We want to justify our pain and our struggle and our ability. We want to justify ourselves. We want to parade ourselves. We want to be seen as more…more hurt, more needy, more enduring, more sacrificial, more capable of handling life in all its pain.
We want validation.
We want praise.
We want sympathy.
We want honor.
We want recognition.
We want awe.
We want to be seen.
And probably, we don’t want any of these things outright. But we want them quietly. We want them known quietly in peoples hearts and minds, and maybe, we want to hear them spoken in private or written in a card.
We want to hear or maybe just see in others eyes…
“It’s worse for you.”
“I don’t know how you do it.”
“If that was me I think I’d have gone crazy by now.”
“You are so much more patient than me.”
“You amaze me with how you handle all this.”
We want to know that we are better. Because deep down we are desperately insecure. I know, because I am too.
The antidote for all of this is knowing who we are and who God is.
We are desperately broken, living in a desperately broken world.
We are completely loved and provided for in Jesus.
We are wholly flawed.
We are made completely whole in Jesus.
We are worse than we could imagine.
We are perfect and complete in Jesus.
“We are nothing. God is everything.”
Jason Sanchez
God is everything and so He is where we must turn to when we find ourselves trying to determine how others should feel. How we should feel.
We don’t get to decide how others feel, what others need. But we can turn to Jesus and be empowered to love and serve them whether we understand them or not.
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | Dec 5, 2016 | Church Planting
Church Planting is…church itself is…a gathering of people that from the outside looks random and disconnected.
Church is a group of mismatched, misfit people bound together in unity, struggling together in Jesus toward unity and love.
Church is a group of incompatible people knit together in love through the gospel.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1480886546861-0KXO880W5LLMHMQJBVVI/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kCSH7g0YjtIW3_A7a29n3J5Zw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpxMH5Y_tjBvGD1mF1IbMRwxTZ2QVT-KQyBoFiXYbs_RgAZDCXmWdDAdcoqkDqR2EsQ/ChurchPlantingis19.jpg?format=original" alt=""/>
I stood in the tiny chapel sanctuary and looked around me, a bit baffled. This group of ragtag people althogether in one room of worship, seemed so oddly put together. I felt out of place and right at home at the same time. I watched people’s faces as they worship and hugged and talked and prayed. It was so odd and yet made so much sense at the same time. It was familiar.
It felt like I had stepped into a different version of my same church home…and I suppose that is exactly what had happened.
The culture, the demographic, the style of service, the location were all so different than our middle-school-turned-sanctuary, and yet it was all so similar.
A collection of misfits worshipping together.
The fragile new-in-the-faith along with the aged in Jesus.
Traditional worshippers mixed with those who never thought church would be a place they fit.
Diversity in ages and cultures and languages acting as though they were all the closest of family.
All with that same hint of desperate need for Jesus and for each other.
All with a love and familiarity overflowing and baffling.
And I look around our little church some Sundays to see so many faces I feircly love, and yet if I step back just half an inch from my own inside perspective it looks so strange, just like the scene inside that little chapel seemed to me that Sunday morning.
Why these people? Why was this love so easy and yet so painful at the same moment? How these bonds so strong? When did this love so loyal form? Who could ever script this combination of lives lived together and call it beautiful?
Jesus.
He builds His church through a million impossible combinations and binds us together through the bond of love. It’s His gift to His church if we allow Him to work it in us.
Church planting is misfits and mismatches and odd combinations that work because of Jesus’ love in us and through us.
Church planting is a family knit together out of the choice to love who God has given with the power God has enabled.
Church planting is bonds of love that are beyond our own ability to create if we will allow God to create them.
Church planting is living and seeing the ugly and the pain and the hurt in people, then pressing into Jesus because there is nowhere else to turn and in turn watching Him knit you back to Himself and also to each other.
Church is watching God build His church and bond it together with a love that is surprising and cannot be explained any other way than through Him.
Church planting is a surprise of joy and love and family.
And don’t forget that for every joy of love and bond of family, there will be equal or greater pain and hurt and sorrow, but it will be worth it. It will be worth it in the moments you get to raise your eyes and see your family, all broken and mismatched and messy, worshiping together and loving each other in a way that can only be explained by pointing to Jesus.
Church planting is watching God build His church and bond it together with a love that is surprising and cannot be explained any other way than through Him.
Church planting is family.
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | Dec 5, 2016 | Church Planting
Church Planting is…church itself is…a gathering of people that from the outside looks random and disconnected.
Church is a group of mismatched, misfit people bound together in unity, struggling together in Jesus toward unity and love.
Church is a group of incompatible people knit together in love through the gospel.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1480886546861-0KXO880W5LLMHMQJBVVI/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kCSH7g0YjtIW3_A7a29n3J5Zw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpxMH5Y_tjBvGD1mF1IbMRwxTZ2QVT-KQyBoFiXYbs_RgAZDCXmWdDAdcoqkDqR2EsQ/ChurchPlantingis19.jpg?format=original" alt=""/>
I stood in the tiny chapel sanctuary and looked around me, a bit baffled. This group of ragtag people althogether in one room of worship, seemed so oddly put together. I felt out of place and right at home at the same time. I watched people’s faces as they worship and hugged and talked and prayed. It was so odd and yet made so much sense at the same time. It was familiar.
It felt like I had stepped into a different version of my same church home…and I suppose that is exactly what had happened.
The culture, the demographic, the style of service, the location were all so different than our middle-school-turned-sanctuary, and yet it was all so similar.
A collection of misfits worshipping together.
The fragile new-in-the-faith along with the aged in Jesus.
Traditional worshippers mixed with those who never thought church would be a place they fit.
Diversity in ages and cultures and languages acting as though they were all the closest of family.
All with that same hint of desperate need for Jesus and for each other.
All with a love and familiarity overflowing and baffling.
And I look around our little church some Sundays to see so many faces I feircly love, and yet if I step back just half an inch from my own inside perspective it looks so strange, just like the scene inside that little chapel seemed to me that Sunday morning.
Why these people? Why was this love so easy and yet so painful at the same moment? How these bonds so strong? When did this love so loyal form? Who could ever script this combination of lives lived together and call it beautiful?
Jesus.
He builds His church through a million impossible combinations and binds us together through the bond of love. It’s His gift to His church if we allow Him to work it in us.
Church planting is misfits and mismatches and odd combinations that work because of Jesus’ love in us and through us.
Church planting is a family knit together out of the choice to love who God has given with the power God has enabled.
Church planting is bonds of love that are beyond our own ability to create if we will allow God to create them.
Church planting is living and seeing the ugly and the pain and the hurt in people, then pressing into Jesus because there is nowhere else to turn and in turn watching Him knit you back to Himself and also to each other.
Church is watching God build His church and bond it together with a love that is surprising and cannot be explained any other way than through Him.
Church planting is a surprise of joy and love and family.
And don’t forget that for every joy of love and bond of family, there will be equal or greater pain and hurt and sorrow, but it will be worth it. It will be worth it in the moments you get to raise your eyes and see your family, all broken and mismatched and messy, worshiping together and loving each other in a way that can only be explained by pointing to Jesus.
Church planting is watching God build His church and bond it together with a love that is surprising and cannot be explained any other way than through Him.
Church planting is family.
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | May 3, 2016 | Church Planting, Just Me
“Knowing You, Jesus, there is no greater thing”
I’ve been looking through my life and noticing all the little things that I make more important than Jesus Himself.
Motherhood
Marriage
Knowledge
Morality
Talent
Money
Ministry
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1462239220768-H7XG5JYR1MJD5MSV2GWM/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kKbYUC7ko4ep_M3O09c6DLZZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWgCjmTad1QpYCGph9EV4QZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpzJP1AJqo8tp2sB5enqiv7EGjaTag3AAfVYSQsSRSVIMKGKdNvzGRDq0FPB0STK3lM/image-asset.jpeg?format=original" alt=""/>
And the cruelest realization comes when I remember that all these things are good gifts from God meant to bless me…meant to be used to make much of Him.
Yet, I’ve taken these gifts and blessings and callings and ministries and made them the main point. I’ve taken the means and made it the goal.
All these things…
That list just above…
All these things are the means to knowing and loving Jesus more. They are a means to making Jesus known and glorified. They are a means to hearing His voice and seeing His face. They are the means to a goal, and that goal is to know and love and glorify Him.
So often I’ve taken the means and made it the goal.
And the means are meaningless if not done in pursuit of a goal. The means are meaningless if I try to make them the goal itself. All these lovely and beautiful and generous gifts from God will become tainted and pointless and unfulfilling if I try to make them more than they are…
The stuff of my life is a wonderful gift from a God who is seeking to meet me within the ordinary stuff of my life. He will meet me in my day to day, in my roles and responsibilities, revealing Himself to me and teaching me how to use those things to bring Him glory.
But I drift into the meaningless cycle of putting the means in place of the goal so quickly.
I forget that God didn’t save me to use me; I forget that He saved me because He knew me and loved me and wanted me to know and love Him.
And the only way I’ve found to keep the goal of knowing Jesus the main thing, is to remember this…
My calling and serving and living and doing are gifts; they aren’t the meaning or purpose of my life, they are the gifts of my life.
And a gift aways points back to a Giver. That is the point. He is the point. The Giver Himself is the point.
In all I do, in all the roles and gifts and callings and responsibilities He has given me, I want to see Him and seek to bring Him glory. Because this life of a Christian is about knowing God.
Not doing for God.
Not living out God’s mission.
Not accomplishing greatness in God’s name.
It’s about knowing Him…
And if I truly know God, the rest will follow.
How do you remind yourself that being a christian is more about knowing God than serving Him? Do you struggle to make the doing for God more important than knowing God Himself?
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | Apr 23, 2016 | Church Planting
You might know my story.
You might know that I am passionate about serving God.
You might know that I moved across the country with my husband to help start a church.
You might know that I care deeply about people growing in their faith and serving God and others.
But as I sat in church a couple of Sundays ago…the first time I had sat through an entire service since my precious son was born eight months ago…as I sat and looked at the faces around me and listened to the worship music playing, I realized…
##Without God’s Spirit here with us, there is no point.
In the past three months, we have moved to a larger building, added a second kids class, nearly doubled our volunteers, rethought every part of what we do, “relaunched” in our new location on Easter Sunday, passed out hundreds of fliers, invited friends and family, planned and dreamed, and held a series of prayer meetings leading up to it all…
And yet I looked around at the faces, old and new, realizing that all our work could very easily be pointless.
##Everything we had done…all the hours and work and preparations could be completely wasted if God’s Spirit was not there with us.
And I pleaded in that moment, that He would be with us…that He would pour out His Spirit in blessing. Because I don’t want our work to be in vain. I don’t want each Sunday’s scheduling and set up and serving and tear down to be in vain. I don’t want each service’s worship and teaching and praying to be just words thrown aimlessly into a room of people.
###I don’t want our serving to be in vain.
But I find my heart so easily slipping into the rut of doing and serving and leading just because that is the thing to do.
And I find myself praying often that God would work through our efforts, that His Spirit would bring life to our doing and serving. Because all the planning and programing and preaching is good and necessary, but if we forget Who it is that gives these things their purpose and power then we are missing the entire point.
Lord, let none of this be in vain.
Send Your Spirit to work and move amongst us and through us.
Pour out Your Spirit on us and through us.
Let our worship and our praise and our service bring You glory and honor.
Accept our work and our worship as an outpouring of our love for You.
Lord, please do the work that only You can do.
In our service and our worship…let it be worth it for Your kingdom.
Be blessed
by Alesha Sinks | Nov 17, 2015 | Church Planting
Church planting is…
…not about the method.
…not about the plan.
…not about the systems.
…not about the schedule.
…not about the organization.
…not about the vision.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1447802513512-P2EOK43CSJQNL35I2X30/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kKbYUC7ko4ep_M3O09c6DLZZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpyUjG47s4lQqa3kGWpoR_DitVobFN0LmU1WvG_uZkJwkPR2-Fb7zwugw-NXPqcoGjo/image.jpg?format=original" alt=""/>
Vision and direction and methods and plans are good, valuable, important things. But I often find myself getting so caught up in the plan and the system that I miss out on the main point.
And the main point is Jesus.
Always and only Jesus.
The main point is Jesus.
Seeking Him.
Knowing Him.
Loving Him.Serving Him.
Proclaiming Him.
Worshiping Him.
Glorifying Him.
And the systems and methods and schedules we use can be glorifying to God, but they cannot be God.
<img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55c38a57e4b00989028332c9/1447802590564-PJRIQ0WQ73EKK1OXFKMF/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kKbYUC7ko4ep_M3O09c6DLZZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpyUjG47s4lQqa3kGWpoR_DitVobFN0LmU1WvG_uZkJwkPR2-Fb7zwugw-NXPqcoGjo/image.jpg?format=original" alt=""/>
Methods cannot lead people to repentance. Plans cannot humble and restore us. Systems cannot produce changed lives. Schedules cannot bring us into relationship with God. Organization cannot wash away sins. Vision cannot heal the brokenness this world produces.
“There is power in the gospel, not necessarily the method.”
Pastor Daniel Williams
And it is easy to get so caught up in our plans and our systems and our organizational structures that we forget these things are powerless.
They are powerless to save.
They are powerless to convict hearts.
They are powerless to bring repentance.
They are powerless to restore intimacy with God.
They are powerless to produce worship in us.
We need God’s Spirit with us and the gospel flowing from our lips and through our lives in order to produce any true fruit for God’s glory.
So don’t ditch your systems or your vision. Maybe you even need to work harder at your plans and methods. But all of those things will be a waste unless God Spirit is behind them and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is what is being taught through them.
Be blessed
